Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. This is the audio version of each episode of the Empire Files hosted on Telesore English. You can watch every episode at the Empire Files. TV.

For two weeks, the Empire Files team traveled the West Bank in Palestine. What we saw was one of the biggest human rights disasters on the planet,

a brutal and growing military occupation that thrives off U.S. sponsorship,

soon to be strengthened even more by another 38 billion in U.S. tax dollars,

the largest military aid deal in history.

This stark reality has never talked to us in school,

and whenever we do hear about Palestine and the media,

might as well be directly from the Pentagon.

It's a place the majority of Americans only get a first-hand look at

on so-called birthright tours, which sell Israel as a fun,

peace-loving country, living under threat of genocide from Muslims.

The side we saw was very, very different.

But the truth is actually much clearer.

And before we show you what we saw on the ground,

we must go back to understand the real history of how things got to where they are today.

Many people have seen this famous map, showing the ever-shinking borders of Palestine.

But likely far less people could explain why the borders have changed so dramatically.

Each phase and the stories behind them are essential pieces to a puzzle that we're told is just too complicated.

First, how did these original borders of Palestine form from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The countries of the modern

Middle East were once the same swath of territory owned by the Ottoman Empire. Of the nearly 500,000

people living in Ottoman Palestine, 75% were Muslim, 20% Christian, and 5% Jewish, nearly 100% were Arab.

Its cities, especially Jerusalem,

...