The Supernatural Protection Company · Saph the Something

Watermelon Flag - Wireland NOW

November 6, 2023·29 min·2 clips

A podcast host who grew up shielded from the news reads a monologue from the TV show Andor about the meaning of resistance.

The host opens with a direct address breaking from their fiction podcast format, citing over 10,000 Palestinian deaths including nearly half being children as the reason for the episode. They introduce Joseph Redledge of Wireland Ranch and Lily Saviette, whose statement they are amplifying. The host notes that a document of resources is linked in show notes. Redledge's narration begins by tracing Zionism's origins to 19th-century Christian end-times theology aimed at establishing a Jewish homeland to trigger the Second Coming. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 is read in full, in which the British government expressed support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The historical narrative then covers Jewish refugee rejection by the UK and US prior to World War II, including Anne Frank's family being stalled by American bureaucracy. Post-war, the 1947 UN partition plan awarded 56% of Palestine to Israel, triggering the first Nakba and displacing 700,000 Palestinians. By war's end, 77% of historic Palestine was under Israeli control. The episode describes the subsequent decades of settler expansion, Gaza's transformation into a blockaded territory, and daily conditions for Palestinians since 2007. The rhetorical device of repeating 'Israel has the right to defend itself' is used sarcastically throughout to escalate from defense to displacement to murder to genocide. The episode then transitions to the host's personal reflection on growing up without news access and how fiction prepared them for real-world activism. A speech from the TV show Andor is read as an argument for the value of small acts of resistance. The episode closes with a satirical pop song entitled 'Party in the Promised Land' about attending a rave outside a concentration camp.

As heard by us

A protest performance that turns rage into something tense, direct, and hard to forget.

It opens with a call for an open mind, then settles into a hard-edged protest piece that moves from personal urgency into a plainspoken account of Palestine, empire, and the cost of turning away. The strongest thing here is how little it softens itself.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a fierce, urgent piece that does not look away.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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