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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 the nuances of creating a container for the pain of all affected by violence in Palestine while remaining resolute and focused on the necessity of creative nonviolent resistance in the face of Israel's occupation.
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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." She talks with Margot Patterson about her books, the ascendency of the right wing in Israel, and the need for thoughtful reflection during a time of war.
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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.
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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 rights for Jews and Arabs. Buber never gave up on his vision during his long career, which saw him flee to Mandatory Palestine from Nazi Germany. This is the second half of our conversation. The first half aired the previous week.
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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 rights for Jews and Arabs. Buber never gave up on his vision during his long career, which saw him flee to Mandatory Palestine from Nazi Germany. This is the first half of our conversation. The second half will air the following week.
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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 resolving what some saw as Jews' problematic presence in Euopean society. From its inception, Zionism was a settler-colonial project that reflected European assumptions of cultural superiority.
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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, however, Jews lacked territory. Those seeking a place where Jews could gather and establish a state eventually fixed on Palestine, where their quest for land and sovreignty almost immediately brought them into conflict with the people living there. Trachtenberg holds the Rubin Presidential Chair in Jewish History at Wake Forest University, where he teaches courses on the history of Zionism
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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 justice system that affords them few rights.
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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.
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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 itself is a risk. They argue that their relationship, built on the basis of equality, offers a path toward reconciliation. The path of violence has led nowhere and the US has forgotten the art of diplomacy in its foreign policy.
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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 you bomb people, they bomb back," and warns of the grave consequences if the United States does not change course. Freeman was in the U.S. Foreign Service for 30 years. He served as President Nixon’s principal interpreter during Nixon’s ground-breaking visit to China in 1972 and was the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War. He is the author of three books on foreign policy and two books on diplomacy,
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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.
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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 author of several books on the history of the Middle East and on Islam.
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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 Eygi was recently killed by the Israeli army. Already tense before October 7, Anna reports that a massive escalation has taken place in the West Bank.
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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 talks with Margot Patterson about the truth of that charge and what Christians are and are not doing to stop atrocities in Palestine,
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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 critical infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Almost everyone in the Gaza Strip has been displaced, many multiple times, with some unable to afford being displaced again.
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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 to change U.S. policy on Israel-Palestine.
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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.
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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 in mind, we approach the history of terrorism in the Middle East, from the post-WWI Treaties of Versailles and Sèvres to the ongoing Gaza genocide. Our conversation concludes with a discussion of how Senator Robert La Follette, the subject of a book by Prof. Drake, came to understand US empire in the Middle East following WWI.
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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.
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