Send us a text 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. The author of several books on Jewish mysticism, radicalism and identity, Magid says anti-Zionism is a Jewish phenomenon as old as Zionism itself, and distinct from anti-Israelism among non-Jews.P...
Mar 10, 2025•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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. He talks to Margot Patterson about the 1940s when World War II transformed Zionism from an ideology into a means of survival and describes his own evolving perspectives on Zionism. Magid is the author of several books on Jewish mystic...
Mar 02, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, joined the show to answer these questions.
Feb 21, 2025•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, Brenner also holds the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at the American University in Washington D.C. There he is also the directer of the Center for Israel Studies. He is the author of numerous books on Jewish history, including “...
Feb 15, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, pinpoints its historical origins, and connects this to the interplay between theology and Western empire in the past and present.
Feb 07, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text A retired CIA officer, senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and author of several books on U.S. foreign policy, Paul Pillar discusses his recent article on why the ceasefire in Gaza is unlikely to last. He says the political realities in Israel militate against making the ceasefire anything but a temporary pause and explain Israel's escalating attacks in the West Bank, the continued presence of Israeli troops in Lebanon and Syria and Israe...
Jan 31, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 genocide into this historical continuum.
Jan 25, 2025•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Following his death on Dec. 29th, 2024, President Jimmy Carter received accolades for his many achievements, among them his key role in the 1978 Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. But little attention has been paid to President Carter's efforts to make peace between Israelis and the Palestinians despite the ongoing war in Gaza. An international human rights lawyer and the executive director of the Christian Palestinian organization Friends of Sabeel North Am...
Jan 18, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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? Answering these questions is Joseph Daher, author of Syria after the Uprisings, The Political Economy of State Resilience; Hezbollah: the Political Economy of Lebanons Party of God; and Marxism and Palestine....
Jan 10, 2025•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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. Isaac delivered another sermon - " Christ is Still in the Rubble" - one week ago on December 20, 2024. In light of this, we're reposting our September 2024 interview with David Wildman, executive secretary for human rights and...
Dec 27, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, in his position as Co-Director of Nonviolence International, works to create spaces to heal intergenerational collective trauma and develop leadership, especially youth. We discussed the challenges of doing this in Palestine and Israel and of th...
Dec 21, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 Occupation. Shitrit is the director of the Taub Center for Israel Studies at New York University. She is the editor of the recent book "The Gates of Gaza: Critical Voices from Israel on October 7 and the War with Hamas." S...
Dec 13, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 University where he serves as director of the university's Middle East program.
Dec 06, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, whose prolific writings about Zionism and Israel/Palestine have been give relatively little attention as compared with his other works. Buber advocated for an egalitarian Zionism: a binational state in Palestine/Israel with equal ri...
Nov 29, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, whose prolific writings about Zionism and Israel/Palestine have been give relatively little attention as compared with his other works. Buber advocated for an egalitarian Zionism: a binational state in Palestine/Israel with equal ri...
Nov 22, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Barry Trachtenberg, the Rubin Presidential Chair in Jewish History at Wake Forest University, continues his discussion of the origins and early development of Zionism. A minority movement within Judaism until World War II, Zionism faced opposition from many Jews who believed it transgressed religious law and tradition. It was frequently facilitated by Christian Zionists who saw in Jews' return to Palestine after 2,000 years a fulfilment of Christian eschatology and a way of r...
Nov 18, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In the first of a new series called "What Is Zionism?" Professor Barry Trachtenberg talks to Margot Patterson about the origins of Zionism in the late 1800s. By the turn of the 20th century, Jews living in Eastern Europe had experienced two decades of rising anti-Semitism. Some sought to change the conditions of the societies they lived in; others responded to emerging nationalism in Europe by developing ideologies of Jewish nationalism. Unlike other European peoples, ho...
Nov 18, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 details the double standard that exists at Swarthmore for Palestine-related speech. Students speaking out against the Gaza genocide, many of them low-income and/or people of color, face an array of administrative charges in an internal j...
Nov 02, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Michael Lynk, professor of law at the University of Western Ontario and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied by Israel since 1967, discusses international law, Israel's defiance of it and its recent attack on U.N. peacekeeping troops in Lebanon. He notes that undergirding Western support for Israel is the residue of colonialism and the influence of a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States....
Oct 25, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 severely that he died after being released from prison. Recently, they joined forces and are now traveling across the United States speaking about the need for Americans to act now for peace in the Middle East because inaction its...
Oct 18, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Ret. Ambassador Chas Freeman, Jr., discusses the widening wars in the Middle East, Israel's hegemonic ambitions, and the catastrophic collapse of U.S. influence in the region as a result of the Biden administration's one-sided, ineffectual diplomacy. By arming and funding Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza and brutal war in Lebanon, the United States is breeding hatred in hundreds of thousands of people who are being bombed by U.S. weapons. He notes that "If y...
Oct 11, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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. We compare Israel's stated goals and tactics in Gaza with those in Lebanon. Absent a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel is unlikely to achieve its war aims in Lebanon....
Oct 05, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, Israel's maximalist goals in Lebanon, the history of Hezbollah and how the failure of the Biden administration’s policy on Gaza is scrambling traditional alliances in the Middle East and configuring new ones. Cole is the the Richard P. Mitchell collegiate professor of history at the University of Michigan. He is the auth...
Sep 27, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, Anna spoke with families separated by the closure of the Rafah Border Crossing and their struggle to survive without documents as their loved ones remain trapped in Gaza. In the West Bank, she traveled to Beita, where American activist Aysenur ...
Sep 20, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In a 2023 Christmas Eve sermon 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. Attending that Christmas Eve service in Bethlehem was David Wildman, executive secretary for human rights and racial justice with the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministries. He serves as its liaison to the United Nations, the Middle East and Afghanistan. He t...
Sep 13, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, who is leading UNRWA's efforts in the Gaza Strip. They discuss the need for a ceasefire, the ongoing polio vaccination campaign, and the challenges of providing for millions of displaced people in Gaza amid the immense and ongoing damage to c...
Sep 06, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text James Gelvin, professor of history at UCLA and author of "The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War," discusses the war in Gaza and the student protest movement it's spawned. He says there is no military solution to the war or to the century-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians other than an independent Palestinian state, unlikely as that now seems. He advises student protesters to go off-campus and get into the Democratic Party if they want...
Aug 30, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, the Handala will be on its way to Gaza after repairs are completed. Zane Wolfang also reports from the DNC in Chicago, where police and protestors have been squaring off for a week while Uncommitted Movement delegates push for an arms embargo on the inside....
Aug 23, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, while finding euphemisms for the violence we do like or support? Professor of history Richard Drake asks these questions in his popular course Terrorism - Violence in the Modern World at the University of Montana. With this critical frame ...
Aug 16, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text The former endowed chair in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Keene State College, Keene, NH, Dr. Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey is the co-founder and executive director of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. In Part II of her conversation with Margot Patterson, she discusses what the Lemkin Institute identifies as genocide not just in Gaza but throughout Palestine and the assault on democracy that Western support for Israel's genocide in Palestine involves....
Aug 09, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
