The narrative in the West is curated.

While we talk about this idea of a free press, the idea that the freedom of the press is a cornerstone of democracy in the Western world,

the purpose of it, the difference between a free press and a state press, or what we would call a state press under an authoritarian government,

is that a free press is supposed to challenge the government.

It's not supposed to be a mouthpiece for the government, or not their own governments or others.

And yet what major legacy media has done in the West from the New York Times, Associated Press,

Reuters, BBC, and keep going, is they treat statements from the Israeli government, especially as fact, and they cast doubt on anything that

Palestinian witnesses, Palestinian journalists, Palestinian doctors, just anyone on the ground.

Their narratives, their stories, you cast out, you cast out,

and then the state actually carrying out a genocide, everything they say is treated as fact.

So welcome to another episode of Maghtisi Street.

We're delighted to have with us today, Dr. Asela Rad, who is a historian of the modern Middle East and a non-resident

fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C. Asael works on research and writing related to

U.S. foreign policy issues. She, her writing has appeared in many major sort of mainstream and

alternative media forums, BBC, Al Jazeera, foreign policy, Newsweek, CNN, NPR.

She is a PhD from the University of California, Irvine, and she's the author of the State of Resistance,

politics, culture, and identity in modern Iran, which came out in 2022.

Assal probably is most famous for those of us who follow her on Twitter or on X for the way she started redrawing or recrafting the headlines of the New York Times to indicate precisely how it is that the New York Times

and other major sort of Western mainstream papers and outlets were sort of obscuring what was

happening in Gaza. And she was very much to the point. And so also welcome to our show. It's great to have

you with us. And I guess the first question

I have or we have for you is what gave you the idea to do that, to sort of recraft those

...