Abby Martin, journalist, filmmaker, and the unflinching force behind Gaza Fights for Freedom and the new documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy — joins me on Out Loud for a sobering, wide‑ranging, and inspiring conversation that you are not going to want to miss.
Recorded recently before the ceasefire was announced — and published as Israeli forces are raiding Al‑Yamoun in the occupied West Bank and killed a Palestinian civilian on Monday evening in the center of Khan Yunis, in a breach of the ceasefire agreement that came into effect last Friday.
“I have always operated under the idea that people don’t know, and if they found out they would care and then they would act… I don’t believe that anymore.”
When Abby says this, it lands like a confession — and a warning. She isn’t lamenting apathy; she’s naming complicity. Because this conversation, like her work, is not just about Gaza. It’s about what Gaza exposes: the collapse of moral imagination; the criminalization of dissent; an empire whose economy depends on permanent war and the erasure of those who resist it.
“We all see the Holocaust being live streamed.
It is on our screens daily in 4K.”
This is the paradox of our time: the most documented atrocity in modern history is also the most denied. A fragile pause is framed as peace, violated within hours — and the same media machine that justifies the violence begins immediately to launder the record. That whiplash is the story.
Journalism after the mask slips
Abby has documented Israel’s siege long before October 7 — from snipers cheering after murdering children, medics, and journalists during the Great March of Return, to the grotesque celebrations that followed. She witnessed the dehumanization long before the world pretended to see it.
“This was just a relentless, methodical, mowing down — like it was target practice — of protected categories of children, medics, journalists, and disabled people during an unarmed march.”
After two years of genocide, more than 270 Palestinian journalists have been hunted and killed. Abby’s grief burns through the microphone, but so does her moral clarity.
“How could you be silent about the systematic slaughter of your colleagues? ’Cause this isn’t about Palestinians. This is about you. This is about your profession. This is about the credibility, the integrity. Do you not have integrity?”
Her anger isn’t abstract; it’s deeply personal. As a journalist, she has spent decades on the margins of corporate media — punished for refusing to sanitize empire. And now, as reporters in Gaza are killed one by one, she watches Western newsrooms justify their silence by hiding behind false neutrality.
“This is the Bible for liberals… and they have been the worst. They should be tried at The Hague for their complicity.
You can’t say occupation.
You can’t say ethnic cleansing.
You can’t say genocide.”
Abby’s indictment of The New York Times is not rhetorical hyperbole. It’s a call for accountability — for those who weaponize language to obscure crimes while claiming to chronicle them.
Empire’s impunity — and the nuclear shadow
When asked why governments that signed the Genocide Convention refuse to act, Abby points to the architecture of global capitalism. Her analysis is unsparing.
“Global capitalism reigns. The U.S. military enforces it. Every leader knows the price of disobedience — sanctions, financial warfare, isolation. And behind it all, the only state to ever use nuclear weapons.”
In her view, this is not just political cowardice; it’s structural blackmail. The U.S. holds the world hostage with the threat of punishment — economic or military — for any nation that dares to oppose its imperial designs. If regimes won’t act, people must. Because the stakes, as she reminds us, are planetary.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy
Abby’s new film, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, is a radical extension of this thesis — an investigation of how militarism fuels ecological collapse. It’s the connection mainstream climate movements have long refused to confront.
“A global military empire of this size is incompatible with the habitable planet.”
From Guam to Okinawa, Abby documents the poisoned water, the scarred landscapes, the communities forced to breathe the cost of empire’s endless wars. The film isn’t chasing film festival awards; it’s meant to catalyze awareness — to force the environmental movement to look the empire in the eye.
From grief to general strike
Abby’s politics are rooted in solidarity, not spectacle. She celebrates direct action, not hashtags. We spoke about the global flotillas defying the blockade on Gaza — dozens of boats from over forty countries — and the growing movement of veterans, workers, and ordinary citizens saying enough.
“We’re never gonna win unless we have the armed [forces]… and we have to go there, Ahmed — the day of the global strike, the general strike.”
This, she argues, is where real power lies: not in statements or resolutions, but in coordinated disruption. Governments criminalize Palestine Action because their actions work — because shutting down an arms factory hurts empire more than any speech.
Love, as praxis
But amid the rage, there’s tenderness. Abby reminds us that love — real, disciplined love — is the antidote to despair.
“Life is sacred. Don’t let them make you numb. The system atomizes us on purpose. Fight it by finding your people — and act.”
Love, here, is not naïve. It is defiance. It’s the refusal to surrender our humanity in the face of industrialized cruelty. It’s what sustains her — and, I suspect, what sustains all of us who refuse to look away.
“Everything you do matters. If our words didn’t matter, they wouldn’t spend billions to smother them.”
🎧 Listen to the full conversation: Out Loud with Ahmed Eldin — available on YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts.
Show notes & links
Abby Martin on X: @AbbyMartin
Film: Gaza Fights for Freedom
New feature: Earth’s Greatest Enemy
A great conversation. Thanks Ahmed and Abby.
Somehow, those religious hypocrites always forget "Thou shalt not kill" part..
Every religion has been weaponized by Imperialism.
Brits did it in India to put Hindus against Muslims (Pakistan), they also created the ethno-supremacist ideology called Zionism and founded their colony called Israel to put Jews against Arabs.