You're probably already familiar with our next guest, so I'm not going to spend loads of time introducing him.

Owen Jones is a journalist and author, having written books like Chavs, the establishment and This Land, and he spent the last 21 months reporting on and commenting on Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.

He joins me today to talk about the history of the West Support for Zionism, how media bias actually works, and how to deal with the weaponisation of anti-Semitism when it's done in

defence of an ongoing genocide. I hope you enjoy the interview. Owen Jones, welcome to Downstream.

Hi yeah. How you doing? I mean, this should feel like familiar territory for you by now. I know.

Well, I am a keen watcher, but I'm not sure I've... Paying supporter? Obviously.

Okay, thank you.

But I'm not sure I, I don't know.

I don't think I can reach to scale the greatness of so many of your esteemed guests.

Well, look, but it's nice that you're a friend of the organisation because it means that it feels like we can talk about things that are developing,

things that are developing in your own politics, things that you've changed a mind on.

And it's a nice way of, I think, demonstrating that you can develop your politics and it not

being like a big teal or like frightening.

So I wanted to start by asking you, if you had to guess, how many times do you think

you've been asked whether or not you condemn her mass? Well, it depends because obviously

a lot of, I mean on my Twitter feed, I would imagine if I spent more of my life wasting

the precious time that I have on earth

looking through my Twitter mentions. I would imagine that probably happens several

times an hour in some shape or form. I mean obviously I mean to be honest you know because of

I suppose the position I've taken on the genocide, I'm reporting on it.

I get asked on TV a lot less.

So, as a result, I'm not interrogated about so much.

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