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 Settlers and debate about Zionism

Voices From the Holy Land chose The Settlers for its November online film salon. A 60-minute online panel discussion about the film has been edited for this episode of UIP. Under the expert guidance of moderator Lara Friedman, filmmaker Shimon Dotan and Rabbi Yakov Shapiro, both scholars of Zionism, engage...

Combatants For Peace Share Their Stories

Chen Alon and Osama Iliwat discuss how they came to join Combatants for Peace, a group that brings together combatants on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to work for peace. Alon was an Israeli soldier before he co-founded the group in 2005; Osama Iliwat was a Palestinian resistance fighter...

Eve Spangler: Understanding Israel Going Forward

We explore three alternative resolutions to what we will term the “conflict” between Israelis and Palestinians. Which frameworks are being considered today to resolve this conflict that has lasted for 75 years since Israel declared itself a state?  What resolutions are considered feasible? What do Israelis want, what do Palestinians...

“Israeli Forces Keep Killing Americans”

Alice Speri, a journalist for The Intercept, discusses her recent reporting on the U.S. government's failure to demand accountability for the death of its citizens at the hands of Israeli soldiers. In her article "No Path to Justice: Israeli Forces Keep Killing Americans while U.S. Officials  Give Them a Pass," she...

Eyewitness account of 1982 massacre in Sabra Shatila

Ellen Siegel, an American RN, relates her eyewitness account of the 1982 massacre of refugees living in the Sabra Shatila camp in Lebanon.  She witnessed the killing of thousands of Palestinian men, women, children and elderly.  Although it was the Lebanese Philangists who executed the killing, Ellen observed the complicity...

A Zionist and non-Zionist have a conversation

We listen to a conversation between two men: Alan Edelman, a Zionist and longtime Kansas City Jewish professional, and Alex McDonald, a Quaker and non-Zionist who began twenty years ago to study the history of Israel/Palestine and many unresolved issues in Israel/Palestine today. They offer differing narratives about Palestinian refugees...