Understanding Israel/Palestine

In the last part of a series on the Israel lobby in the United States, Margot Patterson talks to Alison Weir, founder and executive director of If Americans Knew, a non-profit established more than 20 years ago to educate Americans about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Weir discusses some of the many groups and individuals that comprise the Israel lobby, why and what Americans should know about the lobby, and how Israel's advocates have been responding to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the controversy over Israel's war in Gaza.

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. Brody contends that the ADL’s stance that anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism is wrong-headed, cynical, and ahistorical. He argues that countering anti-Semitism can only be done in coalition with other liberation movements, including the Palestine solidarity movement. We conclude by discussing the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and how muddying the distinctions between the two ultimately makes it harder for Jews to address real instances of anti-Semitism.

Award-winning journalist,  author and documentary film-maker James Bamford discusses his recent article in The Nation magazine, "The Anti-Defamation League: Israel's Attack Dog in the U.S." Since the war in Gaza began in October, the ADL is claiming a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism, citing statistics disputed by its own staff, some of whom have quit the ADL in protest at the conflation of anti-war protests with anti-Semitism.  Bamford speaks to Margot Patterson about the ADL's underside as a propaganda arm for Israel and its history as a hostile intelligence agency, surveilling a wide array of U.S. groups and passing information about them to Israel, the U.S. government and apartheid South Africa. 

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, Rosenberg worked for AIPAC for four years. Rosenberg recounts his experiences being threatened with destruction of his career as a Hill staffer. He also shares how AIPAC has intervenes in Congressional elections through directing donations to candidates who support Israeli government policy. While it formally eschewed the use of a political action committee (PAC), AIPAC now openly intervenes in Democratic primaries with the use of dark money from primarily Republican donors through its United Democracy Project PAC. Rosenberg blogs on Substack at substack.com/@mjx847.

Grant F. Smith, the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, discusses the influential American-Israel Public Affairs Committe (AIPAC). Smith has written several books on AIPAC. which was started with $6 million in foreign funding, largely from Israel, but eluded U.S. efforts to register it as a foreign agent. While it's treated as a domestic lobbying organization, Smith says AIPAC today continues to act as a foreign agent for Israel, employing campaign contributions, covert pressure campaigns and espionage in collusion with Israel to advance policies that serve the state of Israel but not the United States or the public good. 

In Part I of a series on the Israel lobby, Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard and co-author of the book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," discusses the effect of the lobby on U.S. foreign policy and the ongoing war in Gaza. The Israel lobby is an informal alliance of various interest groups that work to foster unconditional American support for Israel by pressuring Congress, the executive branch, media institutions and the academy. Professor Walt argues that this unconditional support runs counter to U.S. national interests. The consequences, which include the stalled and defunct peace process and U.S. complicity in Israel’s apartheid system and “plausible genocide” in Gaza, have seriously damaged the credibility of the United States and threatened its foreign policy priorities.  Walt notes the biggest factor that explains the continuining overwhelming support in the U.S. Congress for Israel's war in Gaza  is the  Israel lobby. Backing for Israel's military campaign continues in Washington despite domestic and international pressure to end the war,  which is devastating Gaza and has killed 31,000 people. Subsequent episodes in the new UIP series will examine how the Israel lobby started and evolved, how it operates and why it is so effective.

Last week's conversation with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson about the U.S.-Israeli relationship concludes. Wilkerson  was chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and now teaches government and public policy at the College of Willliam and Mary.  Margot Patterson then speaks to Dr. Majdi Hamarshi, founder of the Palestinian-American Medical Association (PAMA). Since 2013, PAMA has been sending medical missions to Gaza and the Occupied West Bank to help meet the medical needs of Palestinians living there. Now PAMA is sending medical missions to Gaza to help local doctors and nurses in Gaza treat the many wounded by the war. Dr. Hamarshi reports on the difficulties PAMA has faced getting teams into Gaza and what its doctors and nurses are seeing and experiencing there.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson discusses U.S.-Israel relations today and how the Israel lobby shapes U.S. politics and U.S. foreign policy. He speaks to Margot Patterson about the war in Gaza, what he believes Israel’s intentions are for it, the anger the war is creating and the blowback he sees in store for the United States for its role in arming and enabling Israel’s campaign. Colonel Wilkerson served as special assistant to General Colin Powell when Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later served as chief of staff to General Powell when Powell was U.S. Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005.  Col. Wilkerson teaches government at the College of William and Mary and is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

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 Nakba, but the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza has seen an intensification of this scholasticide, or the destruction of knowledge. They also speak about how Palestinians have resisted the destruction of their cultural heritage and embraced alternative platforms to keep narrating the story of their people.

Scott Paul, associate director of peace and security at Oxfam America, talks about why 20 aid organizations have issued a public letter protesting a pause in Western funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency  (UNRWA), the main aid agency in Gaza offering services that the aid groups says are indispensable in the current crisis. Oxfam, Save the Children, the AFSC and other aid groups working in Gaza say cutting aid to UNRWA will have devastating effects on what is already a humanitarian catastrophe.  The suspension of funds to UNRWA by 18 countries, including the United States, the Uniked Kingdom, Germany and others, follows still-unverified allegations that 12 of UNRWA's employees in Gaza may have links to the Hamas attacks on Oct 7.  UNRWA  employs 13,000 people in Gaza and 30,000 throughout the region and may be forced to cease operations by the end of February unless funding is resumed. The pause in aid to UNRWA come on the heels of the World Court ordering Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaz and to provide more humanitarian aid. Margot Patterson talks to Chimène Keitner, an expert on international law and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California-Davis, about that ruling and its significance and impact.

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 several months of war despite much of their equipment being destroyed. We focused on individual stories that testify to the resilience of the Palestinian people and displayed on we-gaza.com. We also discussed the Hamas government in Gaza, primarily composed of bureaucrats and civil servants like fire fighters, police, and the like. 

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of Palestinian human rights in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, discusses the case South Africa has brought to the International Court of Justice charging Israel with genocide in Gaza and asking the ICJ to order preventive actions.  Falk discusses the divide between white settler-colonial states and European former colonial powers on one hand, and the Global South on the other, over Israeli actions in Gaza, the merits of the arguments by South Africa and Israel, the crime of complicity perpetrated by the United States and some other Western countries, and the long-standing crisis of implementation at the United Nations that has kept the U.N. from acting effectively to prevent war. This Jan. 20th interview provides the background to the ICJ decision rendered Jan. 26

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. Since Israel began assaulting Gaza after Oct. 7, the AFSC has put together a comprehensive resource on their website detailing the weapons companies fueling Israel's genocidal campaign. This resource is part of a larger investigative project detailing the intersection of the weapons, prison, border, and surveillance industries. Dr. Perry concludes by detailing steps people can take to avoid being financially complicit in human rights violations and state violence.

Mideast expert Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC,  discusses how U.S. militarism is raising the risk of a wider Mideast war, what more the United Nations could do to press Israel and the United States to adopt a ceaefire in Gaza, and the suit South Africa has filed at the International Court of Justice charging Israel with the crime of genocide. At the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project, focused on U.S. mllitarism, the Middle East, and the United Nations. She is a long-time analyst and commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the author and editor of 11 books on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. Her popular book Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict was recently updated and is now in its 7th edition.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Smith discusses 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 America, and professor history, Smith lived in Palestine for several years working for the University of Notre Dame before returning to Turtle Island/United States. Our conversation began with a discussion about the intersection between Smith's work in Palestine and his Indigenous identity before we defined and dissected the phenomenon of Christian Zionism. Smith then articulated the tenets of Palestinian liberation theology, the most substantial critique of Christian Zionism. Finally, we discussed the broader frame of settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance to it.

Historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the Israel-Hamas war in the context of the past century of Israeli settler colonialism and Palestinian resistance.  The current war has seen Israel push Palestinians in Gaza from the north to the south and is another step in a process of ethnic cleansing and depopulation long pursued by Zionist forces and the Israeli state, with the support first of Great Britain and later the United States. This episode repeats one aired 6 weeks ago

After over 11 years working as a Director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Josh Paul recently resigned from the State Department. In this role he was responsible for U.S. defense diplomacy, security assistance, and arms transfers. He joined the show this week to discuss the pipeline of US weapons being sent to Israel. While the letter of the law has perhaps been followed regarding these arms transfers, Josh argues that its spirit has not. Congress is failing to perform its oversight role and hold the Biden administration accountable. We discussed the laws that are supposed to govern the transfer of weapons, namely the Arms Export Control Act, the Leahy Laws, and the Foreign Assistance Act and their circumvention by the Biden Administration. We closed by discussing the larger lessons that the US should draw from its own experience fighting the Global War on Terror.

Three experts on the Holocaust discuss the uses and abuses of Holocaust memory in the context of current events in Israel/Palestine and the war in Gaza. They note that since Oct. 7 the Holocaust has been invoked by Israeli leaders with accompanying calls for mass violence against Palestinians and a war in Gaza that has now killed close to 20,000 people.   The conversation was convened in November by Jewish Currents magazine and the Diaspora Alliance. The historians are Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and the author of Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine; Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide; and Jelena Subotić, the author of Red Star, Yellow Star: Holocaust Remembrance After Communism.Moderator Linda Kinstler is the author of Come to this Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends and a contributing writer to Jewish Currents.

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, why the Holocaust is not a justification for oppression, and why he thinks arguments for Jewish exceptionalism are flawed and not in Jews’ best interests.

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, civil institution that works to support Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons. In the first half of our interview, we talked about the Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel as a part of the recently-negotiated deal between Israel and Hamas. In the second half our interview, we turned towards the broader legal architecture of Israel’s system of military rule in the occupied Palestinian territories. We also highlighted the individual stories of some of the Palestinian political prisoners.

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 and a shambolic U.S. policy, characterized as a run-away train with no brakes and no destination.

Historian Rashid Khalidi discusses  the current Israel-Hamas war in the context of the past century of Israeli settler colonialism and Palestinian resistance.  The current war has seen Israel push Palestinians in Gaza from the north to the south and is another step in a process of ethnic cleansing and depopulation long pursued by Zionist forces and the state of Israel, supported first by Great Britain and then by the United States. An advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the 1991 Madrid Conference,  the Columbia University professor says the 30-year failed U.S.-sponsored  peace process opened the door to Hamas. While the United States has brokered peace beetween Israel and Arab countries, it  has never made resolving the Israeli-Palestinian a strategic concern and has undermined peace by its one-sided support for Israel.

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, or is returned to, the picture of Palestine.” In his book Makdisi highlights several historical pivot points to chart the trajectory of the two-hundred-year-long relationship between the Arab world and United States, one that has been fraught with tension and resentment. What began in the nineteenth century as a favorable exchange of cultural understanding and economic opportunity deteriorated with America’s increasing interest in oil, and finally collapsed when America pushed for the legitimization of the State of Israel. The United States’ support for Israel’s ongoing assault on the Palestinian people of Gaza, unprecedented in its ferocity and wanton disregard for civilian life, has driven the final nail in the coffin of America’s reputation in the Arab world.

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, before going on to discuss the numerous Israeli assaults in the West Bank and their context in international law. He notes the deleterious effects on Palestine's environment of colonization before turning his attention to Israel's attempt to starve out the trapped Palestinian people in Gaza. The rhetoric of Israel's leaders and the war crimes of its military lead him to an inescapable conclusion: the Israeli government is carrying out a genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip. 

Film-maker Maurice Jacobsen speaks about efforts he and long-time colleagues in Gaza have been making to document the war as best they can with "We All Live in Gaza: The War Chronicles," short videos posted on the Internet. Journalist Yousef Al-Jamal talks about the recent book he contributed to, "Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire," his growing up in Gaza, the 16-year siege imposed by Israel and the Israel-Hamas war now devastating Gaza.

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. 7 attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas as well as Hamas' ongoing missile strikes on Israel violate international law. So too does Israel's indiscriminate shelling of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and its tightening siege. Lynk addresses the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and says the Biden administration's support for Israel's actions is complicity in war crimes.

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, a program which allows citizens from select countries to travel to the United States without a visa. Arab-American, Palestinian-American and U.S. Muslim civil rights groups say Israel doesn't meet the United States' own established criteria for admission to the program and violates Arab-Americans' rights as U.S. citizens to equal protection under the law. The visa waiver program requires reciprocity in how citizens enrolled in the program are treated, but as 15 U.S. senators noted in a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken dated Sept. 8, Israel does not yet meet the standards for admittances, and Israel continues to discriminate against Arab-Americans, particularly Palestinian-Americans, seeking to travel to and inside Israel and the Occupied Territories. Berry says her own country is now facilitating Israeli discrimination against her and other U.S. citizens, not only Arab-Americans but all U.S. advocates of Palestinian human rights, who also face discrimination at Israel's borders.

The Rev. Dr. Fahed Abu-Akel joined Understanding Israel Palestine to share about his journey from his childhood in Palestine to becoming a pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA and then Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA, the highest elected position in the church. In the latter half our discussion, we turned our attention towards interfaith dialogue on the conflict, the theology operating in the Holy Land, and Rev. Abu-Akel's view of the current situation.

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 Deprivation in the West Bank," which examines Israel's discriminatory use of water to control the Palestinian population under military occupation. Though Israel is a water super-power, producing twice as much water as it receives from natural sources, it limits Palestinians' consumption of water and prevents them drilling new wells or supplying water to needy communities.  Nancy Murray of the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine speaks to the toll the shortage of water takes on Palestinians' lives, health and economy and addresses the effects of this not only in the West Bank but also in the Gaza Strip,where 98 percent of the ground water is now contaminated.

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, and the increasing turn to armed resistance among Palestinians.

A day after Israel's passage of a highly contested bill to curb the power of the Supreme Court, Mickey Gitzin, director of the New Israel Fund, a non-profit in Jerusale that works to advance liberal democracy in Israel, and Nivine Sandouka, a Palestinian who heads the NGO Our Rights in Jerusalem, discuss its significance, the dangers of the far-right government, the contradictions in the Israeli protest movement and some new openings for progress they see emerging. Gili Getz, chair of the board of American Friends of Combatants for Peace, which sponsored the discussion, moderates. Combatants for Peace is a peace group composed of former Israeli and Palestinian fighers, which since 2006 has worked to promote peace and end the Israeli military occupation.

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. He discusses Gaza today amid new concerns raised in the wake of the Israeli attack on Jenin in July that Israel may begin treating the West Bank as it does Gaza, subjecting it to increased closures and aerial bombardment. Abusalim notes that the international community is doing nothing to end the siege of Gaza, and that its promise to put pressure on Israel in exchange for the Palestinian Authority pursuing a policy of pacification in the West Bank has not been met. The PA has emphasized economic opportunity over political and civil rights for Palestinians, but Abusalim says the failure of the policy is increasingly evident to Palestinians, who see Israel confiscating more and more of their land.

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 strategy to deny Palestinians access to education and, accordingly, the ability to even live in area C, argues Samer Daoudi. Jonathan Kuttab contends that the demolition of the school is in keeping with the goal of preventing the Palestinians from exercising their right to self-determination.

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 Akleh's death in 2022 in what many believe was an Israeli extra-judicial murder and says securing accountability for Abu Akleh's death is no more likely now than it has been for Rachel Corrie's family, whom he tried to assist when in the State Department. The wide-ranging conversation includes a discussion of the many factors in  the U.S. invasion of Iraq, including Israel, and the misdeeds and crimes of the CIA.

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 Palestinian culture. In this episode members of the local Palestinian community in Kansasa City share their recollections of the Nakba, their reflections on its continuance and why they are commemorating it. 

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 Christians.  Though both pre-date the current government, Cannon says they have escalated under the new government and reflect rising Jewish nationalism that is undermining religious tolerance and human rights. Churches for Middle East Peace is a coalition of more than 30 church communions in the United States that advocates for just, comprehensive, long-last resolutions to conflicts in the Middle East, and the obstacles. 

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 of the lobby and changing views of Israel in the United States since the book was written. 

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 accurately describe Israel today.

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.

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 for future governments to end it. The assault on democracy and religious pluralism in Israeli is leading more U.S Jewish leaders to speak out against the government there.

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 Palestinians.
Please note: This same episode appeared a few days ago under the title "Saving Democracy/Ignoring Apartheid in Israel," but then was no longer available.

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 ineffectually and often cynically by international diplomacy for the last several decades. Professor Falk says Netnyahu's claim on behalf of Israel to all of historic Palestine, including the West Bank, represents what could be the final chapter in the Zionist project. He paints a somber scenario of what it is likely to mean for the Palestinians unless civil society mobilizes to defend them.

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. Russia should be sanctioned for its agression,  but boycotting individuals for their identity or political beliefs is not something the BDS movement supports. Barghouti discusses U.S. support for Israeli apartheid and the constant threat from Israel to his activism and to his life.

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.