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.
April 19, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Part VI of the Israel Lobby: Advocates Double Down after Oct. 7
In the last part of a series on the Israel lobby in the United States, Alison Weir, founder and executive director of If Americans Knew, a non-profit established more than 20 years ago to educate Americans about the Israel-Palestine conflict, discusses some of the many groups and individuals that comprise the Israel lobby, why and what Americans should know about them, and how Israel's advocates have been responding to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the controversy over Israel's war in Gaza.
ListenApril 12, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Part V of the Israel Lobby: The ADL’s Exploitation of the Charge of anti-Semitism
Dr. Sam Brody, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at The University of Kansas, discusses the history of the Anti-Defamation League (or the ADL) and the role it plays as a part of the Israel lobby. Dr. Brody contends that the ADL’s stance that anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism is wrong-headed, cynical, and ahistorical. He argues that countering anti-Semitism can only be done in coalition with other liberation movements, including the Palestine solidarity movement. We conclude by discussing the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and how muddying the distinctions between them ultimately makes it harder for Jews to address real instances of anti-Semitism.
ListenApril 5, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Part IV of the Israel Lobby: The Unexamined Underside of the ADL
James Bamford speaks about his recent article in The Nation magazine, "The Anti-Defamation League: Israel's Attack Dog in the U.S." Bamford writes that for much of its history, the ADL has operated as a hostile intelligence agency, surveilling a wide array of U.S. groups and passing information about them to Israel, the U.S. government and apartheid South Africa. Since the war began in October, ADL is claiming a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism, citing statistics disputed by its own staff.
ListenMarch 29, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Part III of the Israel Lobby: The Evolution of AIPAC from an Insider’s Perspective
MJ Rosenberg, political commentator, joined the show this week to discuss the Israel lobby from his vantage point as a former insider. Rosenberg worked for AIPAC for four years. He shares how AIPAC intervenes in Congressional elections through directing donations to candidates who support Israeli government policy. Until recently, AIPAC formally eschewed the use of a political action committee (PAC). Several years ago, AIPAC evolved and now openly intervenes in Democratic primaries with the use of dark money from primarily Republican donors through its United Democracy Project PAC. Rosenberg blogs on Substack at substack.com/@mjx847.
ListenMarch 22, 2024 Local, News & Public Affairs, Podcast
Part II of The Israel Lobby: AIPAC’s History as a Foreign Agent
Grant F. Smith, the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, discusses the influential American-Israel Public Affairs Committe (AIPAC). Smith has written several books on AIPAC. which was started with foreign funding, largely from Israel, but eluded U.S. efforts to register it as a foreign agent. While it's treated as a domestic lobbying organization, Smith says AIPAC today continues to act as a foreign agent for Israel, employing campaign contributions, covert pressure campaigns and espionage in collusion with Israel to advance policies that serve the state of Israel but not the United States or the public good.
ListenMarch 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.
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