Understanding Israel/Palestine

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Episodes

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Understanding Israel/Palestine advocates for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. The program offers multiple perspectives through interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by mainstream media.

Episodes

The High Cost of "the Special Relationship"

Chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2001-2005, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson talks frankly about the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel. Fear and intimidation lead the United States to ignore or condone human rights violations by Israel, even when U.S. lives are involved. Wilkerson discusses the parallels between the killing of U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie 20 years ago by an Israeli soldier and Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu...

May 29, 2023•28 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast

Recognizing the Nakba

May 15 marks the 75th aniversaryof the Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe” when 3/4 of the indigenous population of Palestine lost their homeland in the establishment of the state of Israel. Commemorations of the anniversary are taking place across the United States, including in Kansas City where Palestinian- Americans and their friends will gather Saturday, May 20, at 6 p.m. at the Islamc Center of Greater Kansas City both to recognize the Nakba and to celebrate the survival of Palestinia...

May 17, 2023•29 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast

Jewish Nationalism in Israel Fuels Growing Attacks on Christians

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. Recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, she discusses the Israeli government’s intentional erosion of the historic status quo that has governed Jews, Christians and Muslims’ access to the holy sites in Jerusalem and the dramatic rise in attacks on Chris...

Apr 28, 2023•29 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast

The Israel Lobby

Stephen M. Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University, talks about the Israel lobby in the United States and the negative effect unconditional support for Israel has had on U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast and on Israel itself. Walt is the author, along with John Mearsheimer, of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Published in 2007, the book was controversial when it first came out but many of its arguments are now widely accepted. Walt discusses the political power...

Apr 17, 2023•29 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast

Israel's Culture War

Political scientist 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 tensions seen in U.S. society. He discusses the role and record of Israel's high court, U.S. Jews' shifting relationship with Israel, the role of the pro-Israel lobby. A prolific scholar who has spent his life examining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Finkelstein says the word "democracy" does not acc...

Mar 31, 2023•29 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye Discusses Poetry and Palestine

Acclaimed writer and poet Naomi Shihab Nye discusses her poetry, her experiences as the daughter of a Palestinian refugee, her many trips of witness to Israel and Palestine, her thoughts on the current tensions there.

Mar 18, 2023•29 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast

Tensions Grow Among U.S. Jews over Israel

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, Nir says the frenzy of legislation coming out of the new right-wing government in Israel reflects how the anti-democratic nature of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine is now seeping into Israel, with right-wing extremists seeking to permanently entrench the Occupation and make it impossible ...

Mar 05, 2023•28 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast

Erasing Palestine

Writer, anthropologist and activist Jeff Halper, chair of the Israeli Committee Against House Demlitions, discusses current conditions in Israel/Palestine -- the Israeli campaign against the last vestiges of resistance to the Judaization of Palestine, the dire choices facing Palestinians today, the acceptance of apartheid Israel by the international community, the massive protests by Jewish Israelis seeking to preserve democracy for Jews while ignoring the apartheid nature of the state for Pales...

Feb 22, 2023•28 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast

Decoding Israeli Extremism

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 assertion that Israel possesses exclusive right to all of the Land of Israel. In addition to brazenly defying international law, the assertion repudiates the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle that has been promoted ineffectu...

Jan 27, 2023•29 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast

Leader of the BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights Explains its Aims

Omar Barghouti, iconic leader of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, disccusses the aims of the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid and how it differs from the indiscriminate sanctions the West is applying to Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine. Barghouti discusses the hypocrisy in the West's response to Russia and its response to Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land and says the racism of the West is on full display. Russi...

Jan 09, 2023•29 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast

The Rise of the Right in Israel

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. Waxman discusses how and why the right has grown steadily in Israel over the last 30 years and what policies the new far-right government will pursue.

Nov 26, 2022•29 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast