This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Mehdi Hasan, formerly of MSNBC and now founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo. It’s a little unnerving to be interviewing Mehdi, who may be the single best political interviewer in America. We’ll talk about why American journalists don’t ask tougher questions. But we’ll also talk about more personal things. Mehdi isn’t only one of the most important progressive voices in American media. He’s also a Muslim ...
Apr 13, 2026•8 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guest this week is Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of three remarkable books on the relationship between the United States, Israel and Iran. For as long as I’ve followed Trita’s work, he’s been warning that if hawks in Washington got their way, we would end up with the kind of catastrophe we’re witnessing in the Middle East. I invited...
Apr 12, 2026•12 min
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of three remarkable books on the relationship between the United States, Israel and Iran. For as long as I’ve followed Trita’s work, he’s been warning that if hawks in Washington got their way, we would end up with the kind of catastrophe we’re currently witnessing in the Middle East. I want to ask him...
Apr 06, 2026•8 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Rabbi Dr. Ismar Schorsch is chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and the Rabbi Herman Abramovitz Distinguished Professor of Jewish history. He’s had a long, illustrious career of service to the Jewish community. Last year, we spoke after he wrote critically about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. In a time when so many Jews are hungry for moral leadership, Rabbi Schorsch’s courage an...
Apr 01, 2026•10 min
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe
Mar 30, 2026•11 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com In the shadow of the war with Iran, Israel is doing terrible things in Lebanon: demolishing homes , killing more than one thousand people , displacing close to a million from their homes and perhaps pushing the country toward civil war . To discuss all this, our guest is Rami Khouri, a deeply knowledgeable commentator on Lebanese and international politics. He is Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the Issa...
Mar 29, 2026•12 min
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. In the shadow of the war with Iran, Israel is doing terrible things in Lebanon: demolishing homes , killing more than one thousand people , displacing close to a million from their homes and perhaps pushing the country toward civil war . To discuss all this, our guest will be Rami Khouri, a deeply knowledgeable commentator on Lebanese and international politics. He is Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the Issam Fares ...
Mar 23, 2026•7 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guest is Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst with Israeli citizenship. Since this war began, I’ve struggled to understand why most Israeli Jews support it. I discussed this last week with the Iranian, Jewish, and Israeli writer Orly Noy. But sometimes, the people who best understand a society are those who live within it as outsiders. It’s that experience of marginality, of seeing thin...
Mar 22, 2026•11 min
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst based in Israel. Since this war began, I’ve struggled to understand why most Israeli Jews support it. I discussed this last week with the Iranian, Jewish, and Israeli writer and translator Orly Noy. But sometimes, the people who best understand a society are those who live within it as outsiders. It’s that experience of marginality, of seeing things...
Mar 16, 2026•11 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guest is Chris Hayes, host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNOW and the Why Is This Happening? Podcast. He’s also author most recently of The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource . Chris sits at a difficult and crucial intersection, between the progressive world (he’s the former Washington editor of The Nation ) and mainstream television. I want to talk about how he navig...
Mar 15, 2026•11 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com I taped a conversation with Orly Noy , an Israeli writer born in Iran who translates Farsi literature into Hebrew. We talked about the excruciating experience of watching her adopted country attack the other nation that she considers home....
Mar 11, 2026•10 min
Cited in Today’s Video The video of Marine veteran Brian McGinnis shouting “No one wants to fight for Israel.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe...
Mar 09, 2026•12 min
Our guest is Aslı Ü. Bâli , the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale. Given the magnitude of what the US, with Israel, has now done, I wanted to talk about more than just Iran, about the kind of global power the United States has become, and what it means, not just for the safety of people in the Middle East, but for people across the world. Aslı is the most brilliant thinker I know about international law, American foreign policy, and the Middle East. I’m grateful she made time for this...
Mar 05, 2026•57 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Nader Hashemi is Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University. We spoke about the roots of America’s antagonism with the Islamic Republic, comparisons between Iran and Cuba, and why Iranians deserve a democratic revolution but Trump and Netanyahu won’t create one....
Mar 02, 2026•11 min
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe
Mar 01, 2026•11 min
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterbeinart.substack.com/subscribe Topics include: * Mark Carney’s speech * the role of University Hillels * the intelligence of Zionists * Gaza and the West Bank today * Report from Minnesota * how we speak of our opponents * weighing truthfulness against political expediency * speaking to progressives and liberals * polling Jews The monthly AMA live session and full video is a...
Feb 23, 2026•11 min
A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Negar Mortazavi, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and host of the excellent Iran Podcast . We’ll talk about the potential for another US and Israeli attack on Iran, how Iranian dissidents view such a move, the role of the Iranian diaspora, and America and Israel’s efforts to boost Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah....
Feb 23, 2026•7 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guest is Sabri Jiryis, who for more than half a century has been among the most important Palestinian intellectuals trying to understand Zionism and promote Palestinian freedom. As a young man, he helped found al-Ard, the first Palestinian political movement in Israel, which called for Palestinian national rights and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 1966, he wrote The Arabs in...
Feb 22, 2026•11 min
This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Sabri Jiryis, who for more than half a century has been among the most important Palestinian intellectuals trying to understand Zionism and promote Palestinian freedom. As a young man, he helped found al-Ard, the first Palestinian political movement in Israel, which called for Palestinian national rights and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 1966, he wrote The Arabs in Israel ...
Feb 16, 2026•9 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Sari Bashi, is the founder of Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the leading Israeli human rights group offering legal assistance to Palestinians. She’s also author of the new memoir, Upside-Down Love , about her love affair with a Palestinian professor confined by Israel to the West Bank city of Ramallah....
Feb 15, 2026•9 min
Ethan Katz is Associate Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. He’s the faculty director of the Center for Jewish Studies and co-founder of both the Antisemitism Education Initiative and the Bridging Fellowship Dialogue program. His most recent co-edited book is When Jews Argue: Between the University and the Beit Midrash . He recently wrote an essay for Sources entitled When Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitic? Getting Beyond the Polemics and, while I didn’t agree with all of...
Feb 13, 2026•53 min
In this age of unfathomable cruelty and suffering, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But I want to highlight one individual, and one campaign, for you to consider supporting. The individual is Abdullah Awwad , a surgeon in the Gaza Strip I interviewed last year. He’s been working for years in horrifying conditions. He’s been accepted to multiple overseas medical programs but needs the money to leave Gaza with his family. The campaign is by Shir Tikvah, the synagogue whose rabbi, Arielle Lekach-Rose...
Feb 09, 2026•5 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guest is Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, lead rabbi of Shir Tikvah , a “justice-seeking, song-filled” congregation in South Minneapolis. With a background in organizing for migrant rights, she has bridged faith and activist communities locally and nationally to confront the Trump administration’s ongoing siege of Minneapolis, including by co-convening a recent gathering of over 650 clergy in the city....
Feb 08, 2026•10 min
A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, lead rabbi of Shir Tikvah , a “justice-seeking, song-filled” congregation in South Minneapolis. With a background in organizing for migrant rights, she has bridged faith and activist communities locally and nationally to confront the Trump administration’s ongoing siege of Minneapolis, including by co-convening a rec...
Feb 02, 2026•7 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and author of State of Palestine NOW . He supports two states, because “the most urgent and doable solution now is the creation of an independent state of Palestine that can live at peace with Israel.” His brother, Jonathan Kuttab is a co-founder of the human rights groups Al Haq and Nonviolence International and author of Beyond the Two State Solution ....
Feb 01, 2026•11 min
A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Last week’s guests were two Jewish brothers who disagree politically. This week, the intra-family disagreement will be between two Palestinian brothers. Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and author of State of Palestine NOW . He supports two states, because “the most urgent and doable solution now is the creation of an independent state o...
Jan 26, 2026•9 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guests are brothers Yehuda and Joel Beinin and the director of the 2025 documentary about them, Holding Liat . On October 7, 2023, Yehuda’s daughter, Liat Atzili, was abducted by Hamas, and spent 54 days in captivity in Gaza before being released. Yehuda’s son-in-law, Aviv Atzili, was killed. In the film, Yehuda and Joel offer different understandings of the political context in which October 7 occurred. ...
Jan 25, 2026•13 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Cherien Dabis is an actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. In March 2022, Dabis was named Laureate for Cultural Excellence by the Takreem foundation for her work on authentic Arab representation in Hollywood. Dabis produced, wrote, directed, and acted in her latest film, All That’s Left of You . It follows a Palestinian family across three generations....
Jan 23, 2026•10 min
A list of ways to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern time. Our guests will be two brothers, Yehuda and Joel Beinin. Yehuda is a landscape architect in Kibbutz Shomrat in northern Israel. Joel (“Joey” to his family and friends) is Emeritus Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University. On October 7, 2023, Yehuda’s daughter, Liat Atzili, who lives in Kibbutz Nir Oz, was abducted by Hamas, and spent 54 day...
Jan 19, 2026•6 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Trita Parsi is an expert on Iran, author, and executive vice president of The Quincy Institute . I asked him to help make sense of the current situation in Iran.
Jan 13, 2026•8 min
