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Understanding Israel Palestine
Understanding Israel/Palestine advocates for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. The program offers multiple perspectives through interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by mainstream media.
Episodes
154 episodes
Bills Before Congress Deepen U.S.-Israeli Military and Intelligence Ties
Ben Freeman discusses a provision in the fy 2027 National Defence Authorization Act that would deepen and entrench U.S.-Israeli military cooperation to an unparalleled degree, creating partnerships hard to unravel and gutting Congressional over...
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The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction
The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored DestructionIn this archival dive from September 2021, Alison Weir, executive director of If Americans Knew
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Part II of 'From Oslo to Gaza': Mideast Peace Negotiator Robert Malley on the Errors of the Past
This is Understanding Israel Palestine. I'm Margot Patterson, the producer of this week's episode. ’ll be talking to Robert Malley again, Mideast peace negotiator and author of the recent book Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death a...
The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War
The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless WarPart Two: The Nakba’s Blast Radius and the Capture of U.S. Foreign PolicyEpisode DescriptionSeventy-eig...
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From Oslo to Gaza: Mideast Peace Negotiator Rob Malley on the Revenge of History
Longtime Mideast peace negotiator Robert Malley discusses how diplomatic illusions, blunders and deceptions undermined the Oslo Accords and created an endless, unproductive peace process that led to the atrocities of Oct. 7 and Israel's calamit...
Arts and Culture in a Palestinian Refugee Camp
Abdelfattah Abusrour, founder and director of Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society in Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, Palestine, joined the show this week to discuss his life's work. We discussed how he came to found Alrowwad and the many inspira...
The Structural Origins of AIPAC & The History of Israeli Espionage in the U.S. (with Grant Smith)
Understanding Israel Palestine: A Beyond the Walls EditionEpisode: The Structural Origins of AIPAC & The History of Israeli Espionage in the U.S.Guest: Grant Smith, Research Director at the Instit...
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We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel
Jews, especially American Jews, have never been of one mind about Israel and the United States’ support for it. Eric Alterman, Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, CUNY, joins the show to discuss his 2022 book We Are Not On...
Deja Vu: Israel Wages Another War on Lebanon
Sonya Meyerson-Knox spent 16 years in Beirut, Lebanon working as a journalist and for U.N. agencies. She discusses the new war in Lebanon that began after the United States and Israel attacked Iran February 28, 2026, describing the war within t...
The Israel-Silicon Valley Nexus and the Penetration of U.S. Critical Infrastructure (with Mary Silva)
Beyond the Walls: The Israel-Silicon Valley Nexus and the Penetration of U.S. Critical Infrastructure (with Mary Silva)Episode Overview: While public discourse naturally gravitates toward the physical realities of the occup...
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The Struggle to Educate in the West Bank
Palestinians have long faced difficulties accessing education, and these only intensified in the West Bank following Oct. 7, 2023. Aisha Al-Khatib, a principal in Nablus and a peace activist with Combatants for Peace, joined the show to discuss...
The War on Iran Is About Palestine
Journalist, author, academic and editor of the news site The Palestine Chronicle, Ramzy Baroud discusses the connections between the Israeli-U.S. war on Iran, Israel's war in Lebanon and Israeli actions in the Occupied West Bank and the Gaza St...
Genocide 2.0, the Iran Assassinations, and the Architecture of Regional Chaos (with Richard Silverstein) [Radio Edit]
As the devastation in Gaza threatens to be spilled over into a full-scale annihilation of Beirut, the Middle East crossed a Rubicon the morning this episode was recorded. With Israel’s sudden announcement of high-level assassinations targeting ...
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War Escalates as Energy Prices Climb
Civilian casualties continue to climb in the region, especially in Iran and Lebanon, as the US and Israel intensify their assault on Iran. Iran retaliates by using its array of drones and missiles to hit US and Israeli military targets in the r...
Building Hope with Nonviolent Communication and Action
Mai Shaheen is a Palestinian peace activist and therapist who uses nonviolent communication in her work with victims of trauma. In a conversation both frank and inspirational, she talks about how nonviolent dialogue brings Israelis,...
Antisemitism Bills Proposed in Several State Legislatures
In light of the recent passage of a bill in Missouri codifying the IHRA definition of antisemitism for K-12 schools and college campuses, in addition to similar efforts in several other stage legislatures, we are reposting an interview conducte...
The Unlikely Future of the Gaza Peace Plan; What U.S.-Iran Talks Require for Success
Paul Pillar discusses the multiple obstacles facing Phase 2 of the Gaza Peace Plan and prospects for the U.S.-Iran talks now underway even as U.S. forces are poised to attack Iran. A 28-year veteran of the CIA, Pillar is a non-resident fellow a...
Overcoming the Structures of Erasure and the Semantics of Genocidal Management with Aseel AlBajeh
Overcoming the Structures of Erasure and the Semantics of Genocidal Management with Aseel AlBajeh"How do we talk about a reality that is being systematically erased in real-time?"O...
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Beyond the Language of the Israel-Palestine 'Conflict' and the Unconscious Grammar of Genocidal Consent
Beyond the Language of the Israel-Palestine 'Conflict' and the Unconscious Grammar of Genocidal Consent with Alex McDonaldOn this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine, a Beyond the Walls edition, we move beyond the k...
Injured Gazans Struggle to Leave as Rafah Crossing Opens
As the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt prepares to open, we're rebroadcasting a show about the crisis of disability in Palestine and particularly in Gaza. With thousands of amputees struggling to get the care they need in Gaza, the...
On the Ground in Gaza: An Aid Worker Describes Continuing Violence and Fear
Rasha Abouselem has been a humanitarian aid worker since 2014. In December she was in Gaza preparing a field assessment for an aid organization there. She reports on the conditions she found there, the violence Palestinians continue to live wit...
Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls — “Blowing the whistle on ADL spying for Israel in bed with apartheid South Africa against U.S. civil society” with Jeffrey Blankfort
January 2026. We navigate a landscape where advocacy, social media, and surveillance blur into a digital haze. To face the mounting crisis, we must trace the analog patterns that first forged the cage.In July 2021, I spoke ...
A New Policy for the United States in Israel and Palestine
Josh Paul joins the show again to discuss A New Policy, the organization that he co-founded with Tareq Habash. A New Policy is an organization dedicated to transforming American foreign policy toward Israel/Palestine to reflect American values ...
The Pro-Palestine Movement in the United States Today
Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, speaks to Margot Patterson about the war in Gaza in 2025 and the Trump administration's efforts to repress Palestinian activism in the United States over U.S. suppo...
We Refuse to Be Silent: Having Faith in the Truth
This is a rebroadcast of the second portion of a talk organized by Eyewitness Palestine entitled We Refuse to Be Silent: Having Faith in the Truth. This portion was given by Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and...