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Understanding Israel Palestine
This show is inspired 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.
Omar Shakir, Israel-Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, discusses Israel’s Aug. 18 closure of seven leading Palestinian human rights organizations and the threat this poses to Palestinian human rights and to Palestinian civil society in general. The shuttering of these organizations follows Israel’s charge in October, 2021, that six of the seven groups have ties to terrorists, a charge the organizations deny and which UN experts and the European Union have found unsubstantiated after examining the evidence. The U.S. has taken no position on the charges, though the CIA is also reported to have found the evidence Israel supplied unconvincing. Shakir says the international community, including the United States, must forcefully condemn Israel’s effort to silence Palestinian criticism of its policies and demand Israel reverse its closure of these organizations.
