A whole lot has been happening in the Middle East since October 7th, and there's been no shortage of coverage of the conflict on news, social media, and almost anywhere else we look.

But what was it like to visit before all this started — and especially, what was it like to visit Gaza? Listen in as Ted describes his experiences mentoring startups there in 2015 and 2017. This is an atypical episode — no music, and no Marni — but we hope this can help add some context to what's happening in the region today.

Ted will read excerpts from a series of essays he's posting on his weekly newsletter, The Web and the World. If you'd like to read more about his time there (and see photos of Gaza in a time of peace), take a look there as well.

Resources from this episode:

• John Oliver's excellent coverage of the war on "Last Week Tonight"
• Ezra Klein's interview with Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum and a member of the executive committee of Commanders for Israel’s Security
• Gaza Sky Geeks, Gaza's first and only tech accelerator, which hosted Ted's visits
• Gaza Online — help a Gazan tremendously for very little money by buying an eSIM card to provide vital mobile data access to someone in Gaza today
• Ted's newsletter, The Web and the World

We chose not to include our usual bright, upbeat music in this episode, but usually we rely on Inny PDX for our excellent tunes — thank you!

Woke Points uses affiliate links for purchases made with the excellent Bookshop.org, so if you purchase books through these links you help sustain both our podcast *and* independent bookstores across the country — thank you!

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