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Double CCIE in the Greater Toronto Area

Laila Al-Arian – Al-Jazeera – Freedom Advocacy Network – June 4, 2025

We learned so much from Laila Al Arian, and about her team’s selfless work to bring truth to the world, and documenting history as it is happening.

Please see notes from the meeting below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laila_Al-Arian
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lailaalarian/
https://ummatics.org/team/laila-al-arian/

The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza | Fault Lines Documentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECFpW5zoFXA 

Second link
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/fault-lines/2024/6/21/the-night-wont-end-bidens-war-on-gaza-2 

Notes:

  • Has done four films out of Gaza so far:
  • The Night won’t end:
    • https://airwars.org/about/
    • Worked with AirWars to document Israeli atrocities
    • One particular strike killed over a 100 people, including over 50 children – these types of strikes happen everyday
  • Starving Gaza documentary:
  • All That Remains
    • Leyane, lost her leg, came to US for treatment, 13 year old, lost her family
  • Kids Under Fire
    • About Isreali military policy of systematically shooting of children
  • Works with courageous journalists that are literally going through genocide
  • Al-Jazeera journalist, Hussain Javed’s own 5-year old daughter was killed by Israeli snipers
  • Works with the journalists to make sure they are safe as much as possible
  • Make sure that their reporting is unimpeachable – but Palestinian journalists are put through even more scrutiny
  • Did another documentary for Hind Rajab, Safe Zone (no such things), and horrifying massacre by Israeli ground troops
    • IDF terrorists conducted large number of summary executions
  • Forensic Architecture, Airwars take funding/contributions – they are doing great work which should be supported financially
  • There is a major empathy gap
  • Laila’s grandparents were all expelled from Palestine in 1948. Laila saw the importance of the media narrative growing up. Even basic coverage is biased. Journalists forget the basic tenets of journalism when reporting on Palestine. Laila saw how biased media was – which is what drove her to journalism. Her own father was targeted after 9/11. There is a documentary called “US vs Al-Arian”. Co-wrote with Chris Hedges. Joined Al-Jazeera in 2008, worked up from news reporting to director of Fault Lines documentary series.
  • Encourage more young people to join journalism
  • Deep de-humanization of Palestinians, Muslims, Black and Brown people, etc. is behind the media bias
  • Do Jews control the media? Hollywood? Or they don’t ? https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-dec-19-oe-stein19-story.html
  • People are seeking alternative voices, this is what led to the Tiktok crackdown
  • If people claim that Al Jazeera is biased, ask them to support that claim
    • Why don’t you actually watch something and see where it’s biased
    • Don’t waste time with people who have deep ideological commitments
    • Al Jazeera is far more credible than other mainstream organizations like Fox, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, etc. They have had to even retract many major articles
  • Can New York Times ever even be redeemed?
    • Israel committed a huge massive campaign against UNRWA when the ICJ case came out stating that Israel is plausibly committing genocide
    • No matter what the propaganda is, mainstream media just runs with it.
    • Why did the NYT published IDF terrorists snipers killing children as oped and not as mainstream media reporting? They could’ve gone big with it.
    • Mainstream media is 100% complicit in the genocide
    • Empathatic language for Israeli victims, Clinical detached language for the Palestinians
    • NYT is basically a monopoly – no one has that kind of readership –
  • Should we do more TikTok style stuff?
    • Younger people, even young republicans, are more sympathetic
    • We definitely gotta reach them where they are
    • I don’t think young people are the problem
  • All news organizations seem to be struggling – CNN, MSNBC, etc.
    • If you have issues with these orgs, LET THEM KNOW
    • Pro-genocide people have dedicated organizations demanding meetings with editors, etc.
    • Writing a letter to the editor doesn’t take long
    • If they hear from enough people, it will make a difference
  • How can we support the work?
  • People will always need journalists, researchers, etc.
https://dignity4palestine.org/

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