Queer North American Reports on the West Bank Under Occupation; and Interview with Director of "The Wedding Banquet"

Details

Published: 15 April 2025

Out-FM program aired April 15, 2025

Queer North American Reports on the West Bank Under Occupation

On April 14, DropSite News reported that in the occupied West Bank, Israeli restrictions on movement for Palestinians, denial of access to resources, and settlement expansion have all ramped up over the past 18 months. Last year, the International Solidarity Movement or ISM, which had been active in Palestine from the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2001 until the COVID shutdown in 2020, put out a new call for volunteers.

Our guest is Kate Raphael is a novelist, journalist, anarchafeminist and queer activist based in Seattle. She answered th​e ISM's call ​herself, and ​also helped to mobilize ​u.s. ​solidarity volunteers. ​K​ate spent six weeks in the West Bank from November & December of 2024, after earlier solidarity trips twenty years ago. Kate was a cofounder of the San Francisco-based Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT). Her published work includes the two mysteries set in Palestine, Murder Under the Bridge and the Lambda-nominated Murder Under the Fig Tree, as well as The Midwife’s In Town, a story of underground abortion. She is a producer and host on Women’s Magazine and the Sunday Show at WBAI’s sibling Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley, California.

The last year has been one of the deadliest on record in the West Bank: as of last month, 736 people had been killed by settlers and soldiers (most by soldiers), including 165 children. Over 11,500 people have been arrested, and over 3,000 are held in administrative detention, without charge or trial. 

Hope is A Land – Kate's report from Palestine (December 22, 2024)

Kate's recent slide show about the West Bank

Reflecting on Queerness in Times of Genocide (by alQaws - "for sexual & gender diversity in Palestinian society" - & Queers in Palestine), 6-06-2024

------------------------------

Pauline Park with Andrew Ahn

Interview with Director of "The Wedding Banquet"

100,000 March In "Hands Off" Protest Against Trump/Musk Attacks; Project on Queer Left History

Details

Published: 08 April 2025

Sign up for Out-FM's Weekly Newsletter with show announcements.

Out-FM program aired April 8, 2025

NYC Actions Against Trump/Musk Junta

Mar. 29: Thousands March to Reverse AIDS Funding Cuts;

Apr. 5: 100,000 Join "Hands Off" Protest 

On March 29, 2025, 2,000 AIDS and housing activists rallied and marched to the Tesla showroom in the West Village neighborhood in New York, where they held a die-in. Hundreds carrying placards in the style of tombstones lay on the ground representing the victims of Elon Musk and the Trump Administration's cuts to lifesaving services and drugs. 

Out-FM brought you some of the voices of those doing the die-in outside of Tesla's show room last week, this week we bring you, longtime Housing Works manager Anthony Feliciano and Dr. Betty Kolod, a physician treating drug users and chair of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) - New York Metro. They talked about the need for defending Medicaid to end the AIDS crisis and the need for a single-payer healthcare system to eliminate private insurance.

We also brought you voices from the April 5th 100,000-strong New York "Hands Off" protest, one of the 1300 such actions around the country that day. Maya Venir from Israelis for Peace / NYC describes their group's opposition to the Gaza War and demand for a just settlement. Other protesters demanded full funding for President's Emergency Program For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an end to censorship, protection of Trans rights, release of students from ICE detention for free speech activities, a sensible public health pro-vaccine policy, and more -- running the gamut of issues arising from Trump's illegal and cruel policies.

----------------

“Queerly Defiant” History Project on U.S. LGBTQI-TS+ Leftists’ Repression and Resistance

We played the presentation by Out-FM’s Bob Lederer about his multi-media work-in-progress titled “Queerly Defiant, Hidden No More” to document and analyze the experience of U.S. queer and trans anti-racist leftists since the 1960s. A major focus will be how they have faced and fought both repression by the government and homophobia/heterosexism by the U.S. Left. It was one of several presentations yesterday at the Center for LGBTQ Studies or CLAGS at the City University of New York, made by current and recent CLAGS Fellows.

The video of the CLAGS program is here (Bob's talk and slides go from 53:12-1:04; a later Q & A about James Baldwin, in which Bob was one of the responders, goes from 1:12-1:18.)

For more about Bob's project, click here and here.

----------------

SUPPORT THE WBAI FUND DRIVE!