Understanding Israel Palestine
KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community RadioUnderstanding Israel Palestine
This show is inspired by Citizens for Justice in the Middle East, a local group that has advocated for 20 years for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. Our program offers interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to offer multiple perspectives, and to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by headline news.
KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
This show is inspired by Citizens for Justice in the Middle East, a local group that has advocated for 20 years for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. Our program offers interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to offer multiple perspectives, and to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by headline news.
KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio
For this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine -- a Beyond the Walls edition -- Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Matthew Ghobrial Cockerill, a doctoral candidate in International History at the London School of Economics (LSE) and holds a law degree...
Masafer Yatta is a collection of hamlets in the South Hebron Hills that Israel has long tried to wrest from Palestinians living there. The intensifying struggle there is the topic of the recent Oscar-winning documenary "No Other Land.
Pollster and Middle East scholar James Zogby discusses his recent column on the Drobles Plan for Palestine, which he says Israel is advancing in Gaza and the West Bank despite or perhaps aided by its recent attack on Iran.
Since it's founding in 1996, Jewish Voice for Peace has advocated for Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation, apartheid and war. In early May, JVP held its first national meeting since 2017. Some 2,
How have humanitarian organizations managed to deliver life-saving aid to millions of Gazans despite the dangerous and difficult conditions since Oct 7? Despite their success, why have the US and Israel set up an alternative mechanism for distributing ...
Zeiad Abbas Shamroukh, Executive Director of the Middle East Childrens Alliance joins the show to talk about the conditions people in Gaza are facing, as Israel's total blockade on food, water, and medical supplies enters its third month and internatio...
Israel is calling up thousands of reservists to escalate its war on Gaza. Its vow to rescue the hostages and eradicate Hamas comes after 19 months of a brutal assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 52,
Middle East analyst Khaled Elgindy discusses Israel's continuing bombardment and total blockade on food and humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the U.S. role in the ongoing destruction of the Gaza Strip and its people,
This week we are rebroadcasting an interview we aired on June 28, 2024 by my co-host Margot Patterson. She interviewed journalist Mahmoud Mushtaha, assistant manager of We Are Not Numbers, a non-profit in Gaza that pairs young Palestinian writers with ...
In a talk given on Thursday, April 10 at the First Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Issa Amro reflects on the challenges he and Palestinians have faced in nonviolently resisting Israel's ethnic cleansing in and around Hebron following Oct. 7.
Margot Patterson talks to Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, about the threat to free speech posed by the International Holocaust Rembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism being adopted by many institut...
On Oct. 7, 2024 the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. Since the Trump administration took office, this document has served as the basis for the escalating crackdown on Palestine solidarity in the U...
Margot Patterson talks to Dr. James Zogby about the Trump administration's effort to deport foreign students and scholars who have protested Israel's war on Gaza. The attempt to stifle dissent over U.S. support for Israel is part of a larger attack on ...
This is the second part of a talk given by Dr. Norman Finkelstein at the University of Connecticut on February 27. The talk was sponsored by the Northeast Connecticut Gaza Peace Group. In this part, Dr. Finkelstein discusses the consequences of the hor...
This is the first part of a talk given by Dr. Norman Finkelstein at the University of Connecticut on February 27. The talk was sponsored by the Northeast Connecticut Gaza Peace Group. In this part, Dr. Finkelstein dismantles the characterization of the...
Shaul Magid, visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard Divinity School, talks to Margot Patterson about the long-standing debate among Jews over Zionism and about the impact of the 1967 Six-Day War on the Zionization of American Jews.
Shaul Magid, visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard Divinity School, discusses his views and personal experience of Zionism, a movement that he says was from its very inception beset by internal divisions. Magid lived in Israel for a decade.
Shaul Magid, visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard Divinity School, discusses his views and personal experience of Zionism, a movement that he says was from its very inception beset by internal divisions. Magid lived in Israel for a decade.
What is the spectrum of Zionism in modern-day Israel? How has this changed over time, especially since October 7? And what forces are driving the continuation of the current ceasefire deal? Ori Goldberg, a political analyst and academic based in Israel...
Historian Michael Brenner discusses the secular roots of Zionism, the stance of liberal Zionists and the shrinking space liberal Zionism occupies in Israel today. A professor of Jewish history and culture at the University of Munich,
Though Christian Zionism precedes Jewish Zionism by almost two centuries, this fact is often overlooked in discussions of Palestine and Israel. In this illuminating discussion with Prof. Robert Smith (Chickasaw), he defines Christian Zionism,
For centuries, Western countries have been attacking indigenous peoples and stealing their land in an ongoing process of settler colonialism, engendering resistance and international solidarity. Mazin Qumsiyeh returns to the show to place the Gaza geno...
Following his death Dec. 29th, 2024, President Jimmy Carter received many accolades for his achievements, including for the 1978 Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt that he brokered. However,
How should those committed to human rights and Palestinian liberation analyze the geopolitics of the Middle East? What does it mean to be an internationalist when it comes to the question of Palestine and the fall of Assad?
In a 2023 Christmas Eve sermon entitled “Christ Under the Rubble” that drew global attention, the Rev. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem charged the Western church with complicity in genocide in Gaza. Rev.
Christians in Bethlehem will mark Christmas this year, but in a subdued and reflective fashion as they pray for an end to the unfolding genocide in Gaza and the intensifying settler attacks in the West Bank. In the face of this, Sami Awad,
The author of two books on the intersection of gender, politics and religion in the contemporary religious right in Israel-Palestine, Lihi Ben Shitrit discusses Religious Zionism and the role of settler women in feminizing and mainstreaming the Israeli...
Professor Arie Dubnov discusses the development of the Zionist movement during the British Mandate for Palestine. A historian who specializes in the study of Jewish nationalism, he holds the Max Ticktin Chair of Israel Studies at George Washington Univ...
Dr. Sam Brody, the author of the award-winning book Martin Buber's Theopolitics, discusses the many competing strands of Zionism and how they shaped the battle for Palestine. He also describes the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Martin Buber,
Dr. Sam Brody, the author of the award-winning book Martin Buber's Theopolitics, discusses the many competing strands of Zionism and how they shaped the battle for Palestine. He also describes the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Martin Buber,
Margot Patterson continues her conversation with Professor Barry Trachtenberg about the origins of Zionism. A response to anti-Semitism that reflected the rise of nationalist movements in Europe, Zionism was until the Nazi Holocaust during World II a m...
In the first of a series of programs on Zionism, Professor Barry Trachtenberg discusses the origins and early development of Zionism. Trachtenberg holds the Rubin Presidential Chair in Jewish History at Wake Forest University,
Swarthmore students have faced unprecedented repression in their Palestine solidarity organizing in the past year, despite using tactics embraced in earlier campus struggles. A recent graduate of Swarthmore involved in campus divestment organizing deta...
Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon are tourism entrepreneurs and peace activists that have been working for peace in Palestine and Israel for years. Hamas militants killed Maoz's parents on October 7th and Israeli prison guards beat Aziz's brother so severel...
Ambassador Chas Freeman, Jr., discusses the proliferating wars in the Middle East, Zionist aims in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, U.S. ineffectuality, and the catastrophic collapse of U.S. influence in the region. Freeman served in the U.S.
Heiko Wimmen of the International Crisis Group details the quickly changing situation in Lebanon and northern Israel after the assassination of Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's launch of ballistic missiles on Israel.
Margot Patterson talks to Mideast scholar Juan Cole about last week’s dramatic escalation in the year-long cross-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah and how the failure of the Biden administration’s policy on Gaza is scrambling traditional alli...
Anna Martin is a Montana-based journalist who writes about resistance movements and politics and how the two intersect with each other. We spoke with her as she was wrapping up her recent reporting trip to Egypt and the West Bank. In Egypt,
In a 2023 Christmas Eve sermon that drew global attention, the Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, Palestine, charged the Western church with complicity in genocide in Gaza.
This week on Understanding Israel/Palestine, we're rebroadcasting an episode from Let's Talk UNRWA entitled An American in Gaza with Scott Anderson. Mara Kronenfeld, Executive Director of UNRWA USA, speaks with Scott Anderson,
A professor of history at the University of California-Los Angeles and author of half a dozen books on the Middle East, including The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War, James Gelvin discusses the continuities in the century-long conf...
Retired Col. Ann Wright of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla details the numerous ships that have attempted to break the siege of Gaza over the years. After a summer sailing to European ports to raise awareness of the Gaza genocide,
Terrorism is generally held to be political violence that is illegitimate, but what confers legitimacy on some acts of political violence and illegitimacy on others? Is terrorism simply the name we give to the violence we do not like or support,
Dr. Emilio Dabed, a Palestinian-Chilean lawyer specializing in constitutional matters, international law, and human rights, discusses his recent article for 972 Magazine entitled, "By failing to stop the Gaza genocide,
Dr. Annelle Sheline, fellow at the Quincy Institute, speaks about her resignation from the State Department in protest over the Biden administration's role in backing Israel's assault in Gaza. She's now one of a dozen US government employees who have r...
Khaled Elgindy, director of the program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute, discusses growing concerns about war on the Israel-Lebanon border, deteriorating conditions in the West Bank,
Journalist Mahmoud Mushtaha, assistant manager of We Are Not numbers, a non-profit in Gaza that pairs young Palestinian writers with professional journalists to help them tell their stories of siege and now war to an English-speaking audience,
Khaled Hroub talks to Margot Patterson about the evolution of Hamas, the Oct. 7th attacks, and the ceasefire plan proposed by President Biden to end the war in Gaza. A professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar,
Dr. Shira Klein, Associate Professor and Chair of History at Chapman University, discusses Israel's turn toward fascism in the wake of the National Union of Israeli Students proposing a new law that would require universities to fire all academics who ...
Margot Patterson talks to Neve Gordon, a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. Gordon discusses the significance of the International Criminal Court’s decision on May 20th to seek arrest warrants for three...
Sometimes called the Arab Gandhi, Palestinian peace activist Mubarak Awad was deported from Israel in 1988 for leading non-violent resistance to the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories. In this episode,
This week we speak with Robert Bletcher, Director of the Future of Conflict program at International Crisis Group (ICG). He was the lead author of the ICG's recent report Stopping Famine in Gaza. We discuss how famine is defined and measured in the rea...
Rutgers University law professor Sahar Aziz and Mitchell Plitnick, president of Rethinking Foreign Policy, discuss student protests of Israel's war in Gaza, the growing threat to free speech on college campuses,
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla movement began with a 2006 email from a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement sent to other volunteers struggling with how to bring to the attention of the world that Israel, while attacking Lebanon,
In the last part of a series on the Israel lobby in the United States, Alison Weir, founder and executive director of If Americans Knew, a non-profit established more than 20 years ago to educate Americans about the Israel-Palestine conflict,
Dr. Sam Brody, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at The University of Kansas, discusses the history of the Anti-Defamation League (or the ADL) and the role it plays as a part of the Israel lobby. Dr.
In Part IV of a series on the Israel Lobby, Margot Patterson talks to journalist and author James Bamford about his recent article in The Nation magazine, "The Anti-Defamation League: Israel's Attack Dog in the U.S.
MJ Rosenberg, political commentator, joined the show this week to discuss the Israel lobby from his vantage point as a former insider. After working on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years,
In Part II of our series on the Israel Lobby, Grant F. Smith, the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, a non-profit that does public interest research, discusses the American-Israel Public Affairs Committe (AIPAC),
In Part I of a series on the pro-Israel lobby, Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University and co-author, with John Mearsheimer, of the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,
Margot Patterson concludes last week's conversation with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson about the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Wilkerson was chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and now teaches government and public policy at the College o...
Wun Wong (they/them) from Librarians and Archivists with Palestine speaks about the destruction of cultural heritage in Palestine at the hands of the Israeli armed forces. Israel has targeted Palestinian institutions of cultural production since the Na...
Twenty international aid organizations issued a public letter Jan. 29 protesting the decision of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and more than a dozen other Western nations to suspend aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UN...
Documentary filmmaker Maurice Jacobsen speaks about his efforts to tell Gaza's stories amid the carnage and destruction of Israel's onslaught. Maurice works with a team of Gazan filmmakers called the Gaza Media Group who have been documenting the last ...
Dr. Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) joined the show this week to discuss his organization's research into the business of military occupation and apartheid in Palestine/Israel and the USA.
Co-host Margot Patterson talks with Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, where she directs the New Internationalism Project, focused on U.S. mllitarism, tthe Middle East, and the United Nations.
The Rev. Dr. Robert Smith joined the program this week to discuss his scholarly work on Christian Zionism and his activism for Palestinian liberation. An enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in...
The Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the current Israel-Hamas war in the context of the past century of Israeli settler colonialism and Palestinian resistance.
Josh Paul worked at the U.S. State Department for 11 years, serving as director in its Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In this role he was responsible for U.S. defense diplomacy, security assistance, and arms transfers.
After over 11 years working as a Director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Josh Paul resigned from the State Department. In this role he was responsible for U.S. defense diplomacy, security assistance, and arms transfers.
Understanding Israel Palestine airs a conversation with three historians of the Holocaust discussing how since Oct. 7 the Holocaust has been invoked by Israeli leaders with accompanying calls for mass violence against Palestinians and a war in Gaza tha...
Professor Barry Trachtenberg, the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University, talks about turmoil on college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war, critical concerns about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,
Tala Nasir, lawyer at Addameer, Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association sheds light on the issue of the Palestinian political prisoners. Addameer, the Arabic word for conscience, is a Palestinian non-governmental,
Khaled Elgindy, director of the program on Israeli-Palestinian Affairs at the Middle East Institute, discusses mounting violence in the West Bank, the crack-down on free speech inside Israel, the ongoing war and looming prospect of starvation in Gaza a...
The Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the current Israel-Hamas war in the context of the past century of Israeli settler colonialism and Palestinian resistance.
In his 2011 book Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations: 1820-2001, Professor Ussama Makdisi of University California Berkeley wrote, “No matter how one turns the kaleidoscope of US-Arab relations, one always returns,
Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem University discusses the longue durée of the progressive Zionist colonization of the Holy Land. He highlights the current siege-like situation in the ghetto of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank,
Independent film-maker Maurice Jacobsen speaks about efforts he and long-time Palestinian colleagues in Gaza have been making to document the war in Gaza. He has been posting on the Internet short videos integrating current footage of the war sent to h...
Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied by Israel since 1967, Michael Lynk discusses international law as it applies to the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The Oct.
Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab-American Institute, discusses Arab-Americans' outrage at the Biden administration's announcement Sept. 27th that it is accepting Israel into the U.S. visa waiver program,
The Rev. Dr. Fahed Abu-Akel joined Understanding Israel Palestine this week to share about his journey from his childhood in Palestine to Atlanta. He was born in the Christian village of Kafr Yasif in British Mandate Palestine.
A report by the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East concluded that 2023 promises to be the most violent year since 2005. The UN report also called attention to numerous other factors - including the expansion of illegal Israeli Jewis...
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla movement was launched in 2006 after a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) proposed chartering a boat to sail from New York to Gaza to break the siege which Israel had imposed.
Eyal Hareuveni of the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem discusses how and why Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank face a chronic shortage of water. He is the author of a new study by B'Tselem called "Parched: Israel's Policy of Water Depriv...
In this episode Hamed Qawasmeh describes the work of the Hebron International Resource Network (HIRN), a collective coordinated by him that helps Palestinians facing threats from the Israeli occupation such as land confiscation, home demolitions,
Writer, anthropologist and activist Jeff Halper, co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, talks about the conpletion of the conquest of Palestine, the dire choices facing Palestinians,
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla movement began with a 2006 email from a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement sent to other volunteers struggling with how to bring to the attention of the world that Israel, while attacking Lebanon,
Yousef Munayyer, Senior Fellow and head of the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., discusses the complexity of Israel's internal fissures, changing battlefield dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians,
In 2014, American Tim Bruns moved to Palestine with his friend Will hoping to set up a climbing gym in Ramallah. Almost ten years (and hundreds of sends) later, the film Resistance Climbing, about the burgeoning rock climbing community in Palestine,
A day after the Israeli Parliament's passage of a highly contested bill to limit the power of the Supreme Court, two members of the peace camp there speak to its significance. Mickey Gitzin is director of the New Israel Fund,
On July 3 Israel unleashed a major raid on the Jenin refugee camp, a Palestinian militant stronghold in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, The operation was led by various Israeli special forces including a unit specializing in guerilla warfare.
Jehad Abusalim is executive director of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development and author of a recent article in "The New Arab" that looks at Gaza 16 years after Israel imposed its ongoing siege.
Human rights advocate Samer Daoudi and international human rights attorney Jonathan Kuttab discuss the recent demolition of the Jubbet adh-Dhib village school by the Israeli army on May 7, 2023. The demolition of the school is emblematic of a larger st...
Longtime peace advocate and protest candidate Jerome Segal discusses his decades-long efforts to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his proposal for a post-Oslo peace plan based on the U.N. partition plan of 1947 and the 1988 Palestinian...
Is Israel a nation founded on the Jewish religion or is it a secular state that is home to Jews, with non-Jewish minorities? Without a constitution ambiguities remain and questions increasingly polarize the Jewish Israeli public.
For the past 5 months hundreds of thousands of citizens on Israeli streets, draped in Israeli flags, have been protesting laws proposed by the newly elected government to gut the power of the Supreme Court.
To commmorate the one-year anniversary of the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shot dead by an Israeli bullet in what many suspect was an Israeli extra-judicial killing, Understanding Israel Palestine re-broadcasts an interview with Co...
Four distinguished panelists expand on arguments in the book The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine. The complete panel discussion hosted by The Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute is available on youtube. -
May 15 marks the 75th aniversaryof the Nakba, the Arabic word for "catastrophe" when 3/4 of the indigenous population of Palestine were expelled or fled their homes in the violence that accompanied the establishment of the state of Israel.
The Rev. Mae Elise Cannon, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace, says Jerusalem's status as a city that is home to two peoples and sacred to three faiths has never been more endangered in the modern era than it is today.
A professor of international relations at Harvard University's Kennedy School, Stephen M. Walt discusses how unconditional support for Israel has had negative effectis on both U.S. foreign policy and Israel itself.
As we continue our series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, we listen to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s March 2017 presentation to the National Press Club - Al-Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe,
A prolific scholar who has dedicated his life to examining the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Norman Finkelstein discusses the massive protests taking place in Israel, describing them not as a battle for democracy but as a culture war not unlike the divi...
We continue our series on the Nakba, the name given to the dispossession of Palestinians that began even before 1948 and continues today. Bayan Shbib, who returned to Israel/Palestine from Syria in 1993 after the Oslo Accords,
In this episode, the fourth of our Nakba Project, we listen to portions of a discussion among the three authors of a new book, Protecting Human Rights in Occupied Palestine: Working Through the United Nations.
The award-winning author of more than two dozen books, acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye discusses her work and life, her experiences as the daughter of a Palestinian refugee and her thoughts on the current tensions in Israel and Palestine.
Ori Nir, vice-president of public affairs for the liberal Zionist peace group, Americans for Peace Now, talks about tensions within the U.S. Jewish community over Israel. An Israeli journalist for 24 years,
Fida Jiryis, author and advocate for Palestinians’ right to freedom, dignity and the internationally recognized right of return to their homeland, tells the story of her return to Palestine in 1995. Her book, Stranger in My Own Land,
Writer, anthropologist and activist Jeff Halper, co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, talks about the conpletion of the conquest of Palestine, the dire choices facing Palestinians,
In this our second episode of the Nakba Project we listen to more stories of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon taken from videotaped interviews in the Nakba Archive. 20 years ago the Nakba Archive was co-founded by Diana Allan,
This episode is the first in a series taken from the Nakba Archive, a collection of more than 500 recorded interviews of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon by a team of scholars. 1948, the year when Israel first celebrated its existence as a nation state,...
Richard Falk, international law expert and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, discusses the significance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent as...
Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights, discusses the aims of the BDS movement, U.S. support for Israeli apartheid and the double standard evident in the West's response to Russia's invasion ...
In this our last episode of the year 2022, we reflect on harbingers of hope. On the political front, in response to Israel’s November election that added fascist elements and resulted in a near-total erasure of the parliamentary left,
In this our last episode of the year 2022, we reflect on harbingers of hope. On the political front, in response to Israel’s November election that elected fascist elements and resulted in a near-total erasure of the parliamentary left,
The Rev. Dr. Alex Awad talks about the realities of today's Bethlehem where, like elsewhere in the West Bank, local residents are experiencing the expropriation of their land. A Christian Palestinian minister who grew up in Bethlehem and returned to w...
The documentary film "Boycott" looks at how and why 34 U.S. states have passed laws targeting Americans who boycott Israeli products in support of Palestinian rights. "Boycott" tells the story of three Americans who challenge the anti-boycott laws in t...
The word Intifada in Arabic means a shaking off. The First Intifada began in December 1987, thirty-five years ago, and lasted more than five years, ending in 1993 when its momentum was undercut by the Oslo negotiations.
Dov Waxman, professor of political science and the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies at UCLA, assesses the likely consequnces of the far-right coalition government taking shape following the November elections in Israel.
Voices From the Holy Land chose The Settlers for its November online film salon. A 60-minute online panel discussion about the film has been edited for this episode of UIP. Under the expert guidance of moderator Lara Friedman,
Son of a famous Israeli general in the Six-Day War, Israeli peace activist Miko Peled discusses his memoir "The General's Son" and how he came to reject the Zionist principles he grew up with. Service in the Israeli military disillusioned him,
Chen Alon and Osama Iliwat discuss how they came to join Combatants for Peace, a group that brings together combatants on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to work for peace. Alon was an Israeli soldier before he co-founded the group in 20...
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, discusses the recent elections in the United States and in Israel; Jonathan Kuttab, international human rights lawyer and director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA),
We explore three alternative resolutions to what we will term the “conflict” between Israelis and Palestinians. Which frameworks are being considered today to resolve this conflict that has lasted for 75 years since Israel declared itself a state?
Alice Speri, a journalist for The Intercept, discusses her recent reporting on the U.S. government's failure to demand accountability for the death of its citizens at the hands of Israeli soldiers. In her article "No Path to Justice: Israeli Forces Kee...
Ellen Siegel, an American RN, relates her eyewitness account of the 1982 massacre of refugees living in the Sabra Shatila camp in Lebanon. She witnessed the killing of thousands of Palestinian men, women, children and elderly.
We listen to a conversation between two men: Alan Edelman, a Zionist and longtime Kansas City Jewish professional, and Alex McDonald, a Quaker and non-Zionist who began twenty years ago to study the history of Israel/Palestine and many unresolved issue...
Omar Shakir, Israel-Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, discusses Israel's Aug. 18 closure of seven leading Palestinian human rights organizations and the threat this poses to Palestinian human rights and to Palestinian civil society in general.
An offstage Voice begins the play It's What We Do by Pam Nice, prompting each of three Israeli soldiers to tell their stories of military actions in the occupied territories, actions they personally witnessed and participated in,
Khaled Elgindy, director of the Program on Palestine and israeli-Palestinian Affairs at the Middle East Institute, explains Israel's three-day assult on Islamic Jihad in August. William Deere, acting director of the U.S.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson was chief of staff to General Colin Powell when Powell was Secretary of State from 2001-2005. Wilkerson offers his insider perspective on the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship," which he says has left Israel feeling immune f...
Keifah Addera tells her story from Tuwani, how she helped organize the women in Tuwani to realize some amazing accomplishments: sending young women to university and bringing electricity to the village. Tuwani is one of many small villages in Masafer Y...
Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who directs its program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, discusses the internal and external factors that created the split in the Palestinian government after Hamas won Palestin...
We explore the controversy around the Mapping Project, a publication that sparked extensive controversy after it went live on June 3. The Mapping Project identifies and maps hundreds of policing institutions, universities, weapons manufacturers,
Maha Nassar’s book Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World tells the story of Palestinian writers and intellectuals in Israel for two decades following the 1948 war. To overcome the isolation abruptly imposed on them by the ne...
In May a decades-long legal battle ended with the Israeli Supreme Court ruling that Palestinians living in an area in the south Hebron Hills in the Occupied West Bank could be forcibly expelled from their homes to make way for an Israeli firing zone.
Part I (first 27 minutes). Dr. Virginia Tilley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Carbondale was co-author with Richard Falk of a 2017 report for the United Nations that concluded the international criminal law concept of ...
Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known Palestinian reporter for Al Jazeera,was shot dead May 11, 2022 as she covered an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Occupied West Bank. Her death is regarded by Al Jazeera as an Israeli assassination.
After the United Nations partitioned the Palestine Mandate giving 55% to the proposed Jewish state, Israel declared independence, the large-scale expulsions of Palestinians began and almost immediately violence broke out,
In this episode we interview two guests; both promote Palestinian art and cultural production as necessary for the survival of the Palestinian people. Susan Greene has been enabling communities in Palestine to create public murals since 1989.
Michael Lynk, an associate professor of law at the University of Western Ontario and U.N. Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967, discusses the special report he issued at the end of Marc...
Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace speaks about tensions in Jerusalem as Palestinians, Jewish settlers, Israeli Police and IDF soldiers all staked their claims for control of the al Aqsa Mosque and its surrounding area in ...
Rebecca Stein, Associate Professor of anthropology at Duke University and author of Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine gives an overview of how cameras have been used in the Occupied Territories since 2014,
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights, discusses the aims of the BDS movement and compares its targeted sanctions against Israeli Occupation and apartheid with the indiscriminate U.S.
Our New Year's Eve show reviews some key events in Israel-Palestine in 2021 with clips from the past year's programs. Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, explains the role of home demolitions and land confiscation i...
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, recounts how CAIR recently discovered that Steven Emerson, an American journalist and anti-Muslim activist, has worked with the Israeli government to spy on ...
In this Christmas Eve broadcast, Sami Awad, founder of the Holy Land Trust, talks from Bethlehem about conditions in Bethlehem, what this year's Christmas looks like there, community life and the ongoing work of the Holy Land Trust in fostering peace.
Richard A. Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since1967, discusses international law as it applies to t...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls — “From the Architects of Repression to Transcending the Israel Lobby at Home & Abroad” with Walter Hixson (3-4-22) - For this week's episode, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with diplomatic & cultu...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls — “From Imperialism & War to Architects of Repression: Settler Colonialism & the US-Israel Special Relationship” with Walter Hixson (12-17-21) - For this week's episode,
Madeleine Cereghino, director of government relations for Americans for Peace Now, a non-partisan non-profit that defines itself as a Jewish pro-peace organization, talks about settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and why APN is no...
Lubna Alzaroo grew up in Hebron, possibly the most violent city in the West Bank. How do the 800 Israeli settlers make life hell for the 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron? How do Israeli soldiers protect the settlers but not the Palestinians?
Jamie talks with Virginia Tilley, professor at University of Illinois, about why the two-state solution would still leave Israel an apartheid state. Tilley co-wrote with Richard Falk the 2017 UN report that concluded Israel is an apartheid state.
Born into a prominent Zionist family, son of a famous Israeli general in the Six-Day War, author, activist and karate instructor Miko Peled discusses how his views on Israel and Palestine evolved over time to what they are today.
On Oct. 21, Israel charged six prominent Palestinian human rights groups with being terrorist organizations. Israeli, European, and international human rights organizations, U.N. experts, and others have denounced the charge as baseless and politically...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls — "Psychoanalysis Under Occupation; Practicing Resistance in Palestine" with Lara & Stephen Sheehi (Part 2 -- 12-10-21) - For this week's program, we listen to the second part of producer Jeremy Rothe-K...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls — "Psychoanalysis Under Occupation; Practicing Resistance in Palestine" with Lara & Stephen Sheehi (Part 1 -- 11-19-21) - For this week's program, we listen to the first part of Jeremy Rothe-Kushel's in...
For this week’s show, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Kirby Sommers, author of books like "Jeffrey Epstein: Predator, Spy" & "Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography" and an advocate for victims of sex trafficking,
In early September six Palestinian prisoners tunnelled out of a maximum-security prison in Israel, reportedly using only a teaspoon to do so. Their unlikely escape highlighted the situation of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and riveted the attent...
In beginning to critically deconstruct the key role of the Anti Defamation League in the Israel Lobby, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Jewish American Journalist & Pro-Palestinian activist Jeffrey Blankfort,
For this week's program, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with journalist and managing editor of The American Prospect, Jonathan Guyer, about his articles titled "Biden Advisers Ride on Pegasus Spyware: The NSO Group...
For this week's program, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Alison Weir, author of "Against Our Better Judgement: The Hidden History of How the US was used to create Israel" and Executive Director of If Americans Knew about her newly updated pape...
For this week's show, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with security journalist Richard Silverstein about his recent stories, "Iron Dome Vote Rammed Down Throats of House Democrats After Pressure from Israeli Foreign Minister" and "Israel's "AI Kill...
In August, the International Crisis Group and the U.S. Middle East Project published an in-depth report on events in Israel-Palestine between April and July. Based on over 100 interviews with Israeli, Palestinian, U.S and European Union officials,
The Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP), an interdenominational group of Palestinian-American Christians, wrote a letter to the Biden administration in June urging it to recognize Hamas. The Rev. Dr. Alex Awad,
Emmaia Gelman and Lara Kiswani talk about the little-known history of the Anti-Defamation League and why progressive groups have launched an information campaign to publicize the ADL's history of surveilling and undermining marginalized groups.
Farah Nabulsi, the Palestinian-British director and writer of the award-winning short film, "The Present," discusses her new film. "The Present" tells the story of a Palestinian man who sets out with his young daughter to buy his wife an anniversary gi...
Farah Nabulsi, the Palestinian-British director and writer of the award-winning short film, "The Present," discusses her new film. "The Present" tells the story of a Palestinian man who sets out with his young daughter to buy his wife an anniversary gi...
Farah Nabulsi, the Palestinian-British director and writer of the award-winning short film, "The Present," discusses her new film. "The Present" tells the story of a Palestinian man who sets out with his young daughter to buy his wife an anniversary gi...
Farah Nabulsi, the Palestinian-British director and writer of the award-winning short film, "The Present," discusses the success of her new film. "The Present" tells the story of a Palestinian man who sets out with his young daughter to buy his wife an...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls — “100 Years of Palestine's Response to Zionism, and the Real Palestinian Political Consensus” with Zahir Zaydani (4-30-21) - For this week's program, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel asks Zahir Zaydani,
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls -- "Palestinian Political Positions Then and Now, and the Prospects for the Unity Intifada" with Huwaida Arraf (7-2-21) - For this week's program, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel features an interview with Palestin...
Liel Maghan and Tareq Nassar of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), also known as the Israel Palestine Center for Regional Initiatives, a joint Israeli-Palestinian NGO started in 19888 to build bridges between Israelis and...
Eric Goldstein, acting Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, discusses the human rights organization's new report "A Threahold Reached: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.
Khalid Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of its program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, discusses the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in May that killed 12 Israelis and 242 Palestinians.
In commemoration of the recent 18th anniversary of the launch of the Iraq War, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel curates and plays an excerpt of a live recording from March 20, 2021 by the co-hosts of The AnteDote (Greg McCarron & Jeremy Rothe-Kushel),
For this week's program, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel interviews international human rights attorney and long-time Palestinian legal and civil society advocate Jonathan Kuttab about his solutionary ideas put forth upon the release of his book "Beyond the Two St...
Mitchell Plitnick, author of the recently published book Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics, discusses how concern for Palestinian human rights is often excluded from the progressive political agenda in this country.
This week's show, a compilation of interview segments with journalist Whitney Webb put together by Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, focuses on the intent of Israeli cyber espionage & the networks of power behind the Israeli military intelligence-sponsored Epstein ...
This week's show, a compilation of interview segments with journalist Whitney Webb put together by Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, focuses on the intent of Israeli cyber espionage & the networks of power behind the Israeli military intelligence-sponsored Epstein ...
Issam Adwan is project manager of We Are Not Numbers, a program in the Gaza Strip that seeks to help young writers in Gaza develop their writing skills in English and bring their diverse perspectives and experiences to an international audience.
Facebook is under pressure to include criticism of Israel in its hate-speech policy. After more than 100 Jewish organizations around the world pressed Facebook to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism in i...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls - "Can Israel be both Jewish and Democratic?" & "Conflating Judaism & Zionism: Bad for the Jews" with Richard Silverstein (2/26/21) For this week's show, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Richard Silverst...
Lara Friedman, director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, discusses the increase in Jewish settlements on the West Bank during 2020 and the rise in settler violence. Both escalated as Israelis took advantage of the Trump administration to increa...
KANSAS CITY-- A month after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis Jamie Jackson interviewed journalist Eli Day about the solidarity of the Black community in the United States with Palestinians.
Since 1948, Israel has destroyed more than 160,000 Palestinian homes. Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, says house demolitions are the essence of Israel's drive to replace an Arab state with a Jewish state through...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls (12/25/20) - "End of 2020 Show: Interview Retrospective" - December 25, 2020 - - Jamie Jackson features her interview with Mazen Qumsiyeh. - http://qumsiyeh.org/ - -
The Rev. Alex Awad, formerly a United Methodist missionary in Jerusalem, laments that the existence and experience of Christian Palestinians is largely ignored by Christians in the United States. He talks about bringing his experience as a Palestinian ...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls - "Cyberweaponry, Kill-Switch Diplomacy and the Technology of Occupation" - December 18, 2020 - After the headline news, Jeremy takes on the question of recent reports about Israeli intelligence based ...
Iran expert Trita Parsi discusses relations between Iran, Israel and the United States and examines the significance of last week's assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Barbara Slavin,
Long Description: Aaron David Miller talk about the death of longtime Palestinian negotiator Saab Erekat - -