Podcast – Understanding Israel Palestine

The show is hosted 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.

The Evolution of Hamas

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, Hroub has studied and written about Hamas for 25 years....

06/14/2024

By Margot PattersonComments Off

Israel’s Turn Toward Fascism

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 express dissent, including tenured professors. An Israeli by birth, Dr....

06/07/2024

By Eamon OrmsethComments Off

Assessing War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide in Gaza

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 Hamas leaders and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister...

06/01/2024

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Mubarak Awad on Nonviolence as a Path to Palestinian Liberation

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, he talks to Margot Patterson about his childhood in Jerusalem, how he came to embrace the principles of non-violence,...

05/17/2024

By Margot PattersonComments Off

Stopping Famine in Gaza

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 realm of international politics and the key...

05/10/2024

By Eamon OrmsethComments Off

Islamophobia Is Ignored in Ferment over Anti-Semitism on Campus

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, and how pervasive anti-Muslim bias in U.S. society and U.S. foreign policy perpetuates a one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian...

05/03/2024

By Margot PattersonComments Off

Breaking the Siege of Gaza: Freedom Flotillas since 2008

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, was imprisoning Gaza. The email proposed chartering a big boat to sail...

04/26/2024

By Eamon OrmsethComments Off

Part VI of the Israel Lobby: Advocates Double Down after Oct. 7

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, discusses some of the many groups and individuals that comprise...

04/19/2024

By Margot PattersonComments Off

Podcast - Understanding Israel Palestine