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 Israel Lobby

A professor of international relations at Harvard University's Kennedy School, Stephen M. Walt discusses how unconditional support for Israel has had negative effectis on both U.S. foreign policy and Israel itself. Walt is the author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-written with Professor John Mearsheimer of the University...

Ilan Pappe on decolonization

As we continue our series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, we listen to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s March 2017 presentation to the National Press Club   Al-Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe, the name given to the dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 by Zionist militias who violently seized their...

Israel’s Culture War

A prolific scholar who has dedicated his life to examining the Israel-Palestinian conflict, 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 divide creating tensions in U.S. society. Finkelstein discusses the record of...

Monodrama by Palestinian returnee

We continue our series on the Nakba, the name given to the dispossession of Palestinians that began even before 1948 and continues today. Bayan Shbib, who returned to Israel/Palestine from Syria in 1993 after the Oslo Accords, is now an acclaimed theater actress and playwright at the Ashtar Theater in...

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...