Citizens for Justice in the Middle East provided our inspiration for this show. For twenty years CJME has advocated for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy. CJME believes an even-handed policy should recognize the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. An even-handed policy should work for a political solution promoting those rights. Thus, CJME’s mission has been to educate people about the injustices created by the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories.
This show extends that mission. For anyone confused about the current impasse, we offer historical information that helps explain it. For anyone who has been hearing only a one-sided narrative that lacks balance and context, we offer a balanced narrative.
Accordingly, we broadcast interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists who provide perspectives from both sides. In contrast to headline news that focus on the what but not the why, our programs clarify underlying issues. The programs reveal the counter-productive role the United States has played over the years in supporting one side over the other.
Public debate about the oppression of Palestinians continues to be stifled. For this reason, we offer these programs as a resource for those seeking truthful, uncensored information about relations between Israel, Palestine and the United States. Furthermore, we hope these programs get people to listen, learn, and do their own research into what is and has been taking place in Israel Palestine.
March 15, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Part I: The Israel Lobby, U.S. Foreign Policy and the War in Gaza
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 Israel Lobby on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the ongoing war in Gaza. The 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. Prof. Walt argues that this unconditional support runs counter to U.S. national interests.
ListenMarch 1, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Medical Missions in Gaza: On the Ground Experiences
Margot Patterson concludes last week's conversation with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson about the U.S.-Israeli relationship and 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. After months of effort to get into Gaza, PAMA medical missions are now there. Dr. Hamarshi reports on what teams are seeing and experiencing.
ListenFebruary 23, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Is Israel an Asset to the United States or a Liability?
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 about the war in Gaza, what he believes Israel's intentions are for it, and the blowback that may be in store for the United States for arming and enabling Israel's war. Colonel Wilkerson served as special assistant to General Colin Powell when he 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. He now teaches government at the College of William and Mary and is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
ListenFebruary 16, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
The Crime of Scholasticide: Israel’s War on Palestinian Knowledge
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.
ListenFebruary 9, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
The Import of Cuts in Aid to Gaza and the ICJ Ruling on Genocide
Scott Paul of Oxfam America talks about why 20 aid organizations are protesting a pause in U.S. funding to UNRWA, the main aid agency in Gaza offering services that Paul 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 follows still-unverified allegations that 12 of UNRWA's staff in Gaza may have links to the Hamas attack on Israel October 7. The funding pause comes on the heels of the World Court ordering Israel to take provisional measures to prevent genocide in Gaza. 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.
ListenFebruary 2, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
We All Live in Gaza: Reporting from the Rubble
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.
ListenJanuary 26, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Genocide: South Africa vs. Israel at the World Court
Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international at Princeton University and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Territories, 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 countries, and the long-standing crisis of implementation at the United Nations that has kept it from acting effectively to prevent war.
ListenJanuary 19, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
The Israeli-American Business of Occupation and Apartheid with Dr. Noam Perry
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.
ListenJanuary 12, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
US. Militarism Raises Risk of Wider Mideast War
Mideast expert Phyllis Bennis at the Institute for Policy Studies discusses the war in Gaza, how U.S. miliarism is fanning tensions in the Middle East and raising the risk of a wider war, what 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.
ListenJanuary 5, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Christian Zionism, Palestinian Liberation, and Indigenous Solidarity with Rev. Dr. Robert Smith
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 solidarity with Palestinians.
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