Independent journalist and documentarian Abby Martin joins me to discuss Earth's Greatest Enemy, a feature length documentary that examines one of the largest polluters and contributors to global climate change in the world: the United States military. I ask Abby what the seeds of this massive project were, and why the military-industrial complex is the "elephant in the room" in the political discourse on human-caused climate change. Also, we connect this subject to the horrific mass violence in Gaza being enacted by the State of Israel—with full US complicity—to the ecocide implicit in the maintenance of US hegemonic interests globally.
Read MorePalestine
#355 | The Ongoing Nakba: The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine w/ Rashid Khalidi
Professor and historian Rashid Khalidi joins me to discuss his book The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Professor Khalidi weaves his multigenerational familial roots to historic Palestine with decades of academic scholarship to present a narrative that plainly addresses the so-called Israel-Palestine conflict for what it is. He addresses how Palestinian identity was catalyzed and formed over the past century, as well as the responsibility foreign interests have—historically and presently—in perpetuating the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.
Read More#353 | A Nation For A Nation: Full-Scale Vengeance; Antisemitic Zionism w/ Shane Burley
Journalist and author Shane Burley returns to the podcast to discuss his article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches. He addresses historical traumas and contexts that underlie, in part, the dramatic escalation of violence by the State of Israel in the Palestinian territories since Hamas’s October 7th attack. This is a two-part interview.
As of the release of this episode, the Gaza Health Ministry has reported over 10,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the ongoing incursion by the Israeli military, with over 4,000 of those being identified as children—nearly half. Since the October 7th attack by Hamas militants, Israel has bombed hospitals, refugee camps, aid convoys, and entire neighborhoods, while cutting off electricity, fuel, and other vital supplies and utilities to the over two million residents of the Gaza Strip, with no way for them to escape.
To describe this as anything other than genocide would be to betray the Palestinian people, as well as our humanity. With the full backing of Western powers—especially the United States—Israel is engaging in an ethnic cleansing campaign, one that has been ongoing for the better part of a century. The founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was an act of settler colonial violence, one that instigated the Nakba—the “disaster” or “catastrophe”—expelling 750,000 Palestinians from their lands. To discuss the October 7th attack by Hamas militants, or the recent bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, without contextualizing the colonial realities Palestinians have endured for many decades—even before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948—is to perpetuate a wholly unjust, murderous status quo.
While stating the obvious is crucial, there are complexities that need to be contended with. To describe this situation as “complicated” or “complex” is often part of a rhetorical cop-out—an obfuscation from speaking to the vast scale of injustices the Palestinian people and their allies are fighting against. That’s not what I’m referring to in this introduction, and not what I’m gesturing toward in this interview with Shane Burley. There are diasporic historical traumas that need to be reckoned with to, at the very least, understand how this horrific ongoing catastrophe reached this inflection point and commonly perceived intractability.
Read More#123 | A Bull In A China Cabinet: Israel, Gaza, & The Madman Theory w/ Zak Witus
In this episode, I speak with Zak Witus, freelance journalist and activist. Zak discusses the unfolding events in the Gaza Strip, in which thousands of Palestinians, over the past several months, have demonstrated against the horrific conditions imposed on the Palestinian territory by the state of Israel. Over a 100 Palestinian demonstrators have been killed by Israeli forces, with over 1200 injured, during what has been called "The Great March of Return," a large scale protest that demands “that Palestinian refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to what is now Israel.”* Zak also goes over the recent decision made by the Trump Administration to move the US Embassy to the city of Jerusalem, and how this decision fits into the demonstrations in the Gaza Strip.
In the later half of this episode, Zak and I discuss his most recent piece in Truthout titled ‘Israel Continues Aggression Against Syria While Playing the Victim,’ an article that explores Israel’s belligerent and aggressive relationship with it’s neighboring nations, in particular Lebanon and most recently, and frequently, with Syria. To quote from the article: “[o]ver the past six years, Israel has launched at least 100 attacks against convoys in Syria that were allegedly carrying weapons (perhaps advanced missiles) to Hezbollah and other Shi’ite militias. In February, the Guardian reported that Israel had been conducting near weekly strikes in Syria for the past 18 months, and there’s little reason to think that the rate of attacks has since ebbed. These attacks, which escalated under Trump, target Syrian government forces, Hezbollah and, as of late, Iran.” What are the aims of the Israeli government in Syria? How does US President Nixon’s infamous “Madman Theory” describe the kind of behavior coming from the state of Israel? Zak goes over this, and more, in this episode.
Zak is a freelance writer, and a recent graduate from the University of Michigan, where he studied Cognitive Science and Art History. His research and writing post-graduation have focused on US foreign policy and international relations, particularly the US role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Zak presently lives in Jerusalem, and is participating in Achvat Amim (Solidarity of Nations), a service-learning program dedicated to the principle of self-determination for all peoples in the place that they call home. **
*Source: https://bit.ly/2LjQ2FM
**Sources: https://bit.ly/2JenmNG / https://bit.ly/2sySYGE
Episode Notes:
- Read Zak’s most recent piece in Truthout ‘Israel Continues Aggression Against Syria While Playing the Victim’ here: https://bit.ly/2stsHKZ
- Follow Zak’s recent articles on Truthout: https://truthout.org/authors/zak-witus
- Also on Times of Israel: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/zak-witus
- Follow Zak on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZakWitus
- The song featured in this episode is “Badd” by Sporting Life from the album 55 5’s.