Bdsmovement Podcasts

Earlier this summer, we announced that Mohammed El-Kurd, the Palestinian poet, journalist, and activist, was joining our staff as the Culture Editor. This is the first podcast episode Mohammed has produced for us, and we're excited to share it with you. He is joined by the playwright Raeda Taha. – – – Support our work Help us continue our critical,…

Today we’re excited to share an episode from the Latitude Adjustment Podcast looking at the role Christian Zionism plays in continuing persecution of Palestinians. Eric Maddox completed his graduate research in Conflict Transformation from Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the Occupied West Bank, collecting oral histories from the 1948 War. He is the founde…

Today we have two interviews from our US correspondent, Michael Arria. First he speaks with Josh Ruebner about the shifting politics around U.S. aid to Israel, and later, he checks in with the victim of an anti-Palestinian smear campaign at Florida State University. We begin with U.S. aid to Israel. The fight in Congress continues to build over the…

Mondoweiss was founded by Phil Weiss, a career journalist, while he was on staff at The New York Observer. In 2006 a wealthy young man named Jared Kushner bought the Observer. After tolerating Phil’s writing on Israel for a brief period, Phil was forced out by Kushner, but he was allowed to keep his blog. Phil is a magnanimous guy and he credits Ku…

Israel’s military invasion of the Jenin Refugee Camp, dubbed “Operation Home and Garden” came to an end late Tuesday night. It left at least 12 Palestinians dead, and one Israeli soldier. Israel has, predictably, declared the operation a success. They say 120 Palestinians were arrested and weapons caches were destroyed, including bomb making materi…

Alice Rothchild is doctor, writer, filmmaker and activist who has spent decades in key social justice movements. She is the author of three books, Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience was released in 2007, On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion, came in 2014, and Co…

The Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem encompasses several key sites central to Islam, including the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site for Muslims, where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have ascended to heaven, where he spoke to God. The compound sits on the Temple Mount, where the ancient Hebrew temple once stood. Today we have a conv…

Protests continue in Israel. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked back his government’s push to overhaul the Israeli judicial system, but did not abandon the effort. Instead, the government will take it up again in a few months when the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, returns from its spring recess. As part of the agreement to delay…

In February, Students for Justice in Palestine held their 12th annual conference in Los Angeles for a weekend of critical discussion, movement building, and political education. Michael Arria spoke with a member of the group's steering committee about the themes of the conference, the state of Palestine activism on U.S. campuses, and the victories …

We have two interviews in this episode. First, I’ll talk to Mondoweiss’s Palestine News Director, Yumna Patel, about her new video report published today titled On The Brink: Jenin’s rising resistance. Then we’ll hear from Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, about their legal battle with the Jewish Nati…

Last year Tony Greenstein published a book that was the culmination of many years of research, titled “Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation”. The book examines in great detail the Holocaust mythology that Israel promotes and deploys in a strategic manner to neutralize and smear intellectual an…

In this 50th episode of the Mondoweiss Podcast, our founder and senior editor Phil Weiss speaks to Matthew Teller about his new book, Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City. The book mixes travel writing and history with the savage politics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in a city loved by people all over the world. Tell…

Last month the U.S. held its midterm elections. A "red wave" never materialized as many predicted, but Republicans did take control of the House. Our U.S. correspondent Michael Arria caught up with author and Georgetown University adjunct professor Josh Ruebner to talk about how Israel factored into the races and what we should expect from the new …

Mondoweiss has been covering the “No Tech for Apartheid” movement for over a year now. In October 2021 hundreds of workers at Google and Amazon published an open letter in The Guardian condemning Project Nimbus, a billion dollar contract between the two tech companies and the Israeli government. The deal helps provide cloud services to the Israeli …

Our fall fundraising campaign is underway and generous supporters have agreed to match your donations. Mondoweiss is a reader and listener-funded non-profit news publication. This gives us the independence to report on events in Palestine accurately and comprehensively because we answer to you, our readers and listeners. In the past 3 years we’ve i…

Stefan Christoff is an organizer with Musicians For Palestine. Hundreds of musicians from around the world signed on to their first statement of support for Palestinian freedom in 2021. Today, the group is announcing 700 new signers and releasing a second statement It reads, in part, “As musicians we can contribute to breaking the wall of silence a…

Dorothy Zellner was 22 years old when she joined the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, in Atlanta Georgia. She recruited student volunteers for the Freedom Summer Project in 1964 and helped design the logo for the Black Panthers, in 1966. Dorothy has been active in feminist movements and the Palestine solidarity movem…

On August 18th of this year, the Israeli military raided the offices of seven Palestinian civil society organizations. They ransacked the offices, stole files and other property, and sealed the doors in an attempt to prevent them from operating. Twenty-five United Nations’ “Independent Experts” issued a declaration on August 24th condemning “Israel…

On August 5th, Israel launched a three day operation in the besieged Gaza Strip. They dubbed it “Operation Breaking Dawn”. Israel’s acting Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, promote the operation as a preemptive strike to quash what he said were concrete threats by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza. Over the course of three days 49 Palestinia…

Earlier this month Israel launched airstrikes across Gaza. In our last episode, Mondoweiss’ Palestine-based staff talked about the historical and political context of this attack. Our Gaza Correspondent, Tareq Hajjaj, spoke movingly about what he experienced first hand during the assault. Listen to it here. This week we’re excited to share an episo…

Last Friday, August 5, 2022, the Israeli military launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip. In response, hundreds of rockets were fired from Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance group. Most of these were intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems. The few that managed to make it through caused relatively minor damage to a few cars and…

We are about halfway through the primary election season in the United States. This cycle has seen an explosive growth in spending from political action committees tied to pro-Israel lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. In this episode Michael Arria and I speak with Beth Miller from JVP Action and campaign co…

In May, 2021, fighting broke out between Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza and the Israeli military. Three hundred Palestinian residents of Gaza were killed, including 66 children, and thousands more were injured. The United Nation’s Human Rights Council set up a Commission of Inquiry to identify the “root causes'' of the violence. On June 7th …

Last week U.S. President Joe Biden met with senior Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a whirlwind trip through the Middle East. Biden had several top-level goals for this trip. He wanted to deepen connections between the U.S. and Israeli militaries, continue the so-called “normalization” efforts between the Israeli government and regional Arab stat…

Last month a US court of appeals upheld an Arkansas law that prohibits state contractors from boycotting Israel. The 9-1 decision reversed a previous ruling that determined the law was unconstitutional. Despite the fact that over 30 states have adopted similar laws, it was the first full federal appeals court ruling on the subject. The decision was…

In this episode I talk to Nooran Alhamdan, a recent Masters graduate of Georgetown University about the action she and other graduates took to confront Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, over U.S. support for Israel. The audio in this episode is a bit choppy, so thanks for your patience. - - - - - Support our work Help us continue our cri…

In this episode we’re excited to share an interview with Michael Lynk, the 7th Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territories, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Michael’s term in that role just ended and he spoke to scientist, author and activist David Kattenburg about the state of things in Pal…

In this episode we’re going to hear a program organized by the Adalah Justice Project and the American Friends Service Committee earlier this month, marking the Land Day anniversary and the beginning of Ramadan. The first Land Day in Palestine took place on March 30, 1976, when Palestinians organized large demonstrations and a nation-wide strike ag…

In this episode Mondoweiss’s US correspondent Michael Arria updates us on some key stories he is tracking in his weekly politics newsletter The Shift. After that Michael speaks to Zoha Khalili, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal about the organization's 2021 year-in-review report. - - - - - Support our work Help us continue our critical independen…

In this episode we have a conversation with Phil Weiss and Yakov Hirsch about the cultural sources of pro-Israel movements in American politics. For several years now Hirsch has examined what he calls "hasbara culture" -- the ways that a discourse of Jewish victimhood has conquered Jewish, Israeli, and even American political culture. Hirsch explai…

In this episode, Mondoweiss Executive Editor Adam Horowitz speaks to Lana Tatour about the recent report from Amnesty International declaring that Israel practices apartheid in order to oppress and dominate Palestinians. - - - - - Support our work Help us continue our critical independent coverage of events in Palestine, Israel, and related U.S. po…

Terry Rogers is a retired community health nurse in New York who has long been active in solidarity with Palestine. Phil Weiss spoke to her last month about the political and moral challenges involved when privileged American activists engage in these movements. Though it is essential that more Americans learn about Palestine — and educate other Am…

The Trump administration's “Abraham Accords” were championed as historic peace agreements, despite the fact they actually normalized relations between authoritarian regimes and facilitated massive weapons deals. Mondoweiss’s US. correspondent Michael Arria spoke with Beth Miller, Senior Government Affairs Manager at Jewish Voice for Peace Action ab…

In this episode our U.S. correspondent Michael Arria speaks to Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American peace activist, human rights lawyer, and now candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan. Arraf launched her campaign to unseat an incumbent Republican. However, at the beginning of this year redistricting placed her in a race for an…

In October 2021, the Israeli government designated six Palestinian civil society organizations, “terrorist institutions”, claiming the groups had ties and were channeling money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP is a secular Marxist-Leninist, and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 and, like several othe…

Happy New Year to all of our listeners, and welcome to the first Mondoweiss podcast episode of 2022. In November of last year a Palestinian Day of Solidarity was held in Philadelphia. At the event Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney delivered a proclamation in solidarity with the Palestinians. Our U.S. correspondent Michael Arria spoke with one of the lo…

In today's episode, Yumna Patel speaks with Palestinian farmers working to bring in their olive crop as the harvest season winds down. This is a shorter episode that captures their stories and some of the sounds of the olive harvest. We hope you enjoy this format. Please send me an email, or leave us a message through SparkPipe with your feedback. …

Striketober is upon us. Across the United States workers in multiple industries are striking, quitting their jobs, and engaging in solidarity actions demanding better working conditions. The movement for Palestinian liberation has long interacted with labor struggles around the world, and this moment is no different. Michael Arria has been tracking…

Today we have a conversation with Sam Bahour. Sam is a Palestinian-American businessman, born in Youngstown, Ohio, and now living in Ramallah, Palestine. He is currently an independent director at the Arab Islamic Bank, a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network, and an advisory board member of the Open Society Foundations’ Midd…

On Thursday of this past week, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would give Israel an additional $1 billion dollars in military aid for its missile defense system known as the Iron Dome. Progressives in the House had earlier managed to strip the bill as an attachment to a must-pass government funding bill known as a continuing reso…

Michael Arria and Dave Reed speak with Michael Bueckert, the Vice-President of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. The organization just published a voting guide ahead of the upcoming Canadian elections. He updated us on the politics of Palestine in the Great White North. - - - SUPPORT OUR WORK: Help us continue our critical indepen…

Mondoweiss founder and senior editor Phil Weiss speaks to Khaled Elgindy about the first meeting between President Joe Biden and newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Earlier this year Bennett joined centrist politician Yair Lapid to build an unusual coalition of rightwing, centrist, and liberal political parties to topple Benjami…

Just a few years ago the idea of a pro-Palestine political advocacy group in Washington D.C. seemed ridiculous. But U.S. politics around Palestine are shifting and a number of these groups have sprung up recently. The latest grows out of the nonprofit American Muslims for Palestine who just launched their own affiliated 501c4 organization, American…

Pitasanna Shanmugathas recently graduated with a Master of Global Affairs degree from the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Earlier this year he spoke with Dr. Lex Takkenberg and Francesca Albanese, authors of the book “Palestinian Refugees in International Law”, now in its second edition. In this conversation…

In this episode we have a conversation with Wesam Sharaf, an advocate with the Civil and Political Rights Unit at Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. In May Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in massive protests and boycotts as part of the “Unity Uprisings”. Many Palestinians described these protests as the larges…

As events in Palestine continue to develop we're bringing you this special episode in collaboration with the Groundings podcast and friend-of-the-site Devyn Springer. Devyn is a cultural worker, community organizer, and independent researcher. They are a member of the Walter Rodney Foundation, and host of the Groundings podcast. They've written and…

Last Friday, as the holy month of Ramadan came to a close, Israeli forces stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. Mondoweiss’ Palestine correspondent, Yumna Patel reported that: “The height of the violence took place inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where tens of thousands of Palestinian worshipers had gathered inside the Mosque and …

On university and college campuses across the United States and Canada, student activists are organizing for Palestinian liberation under the banner of Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP. As the student-led movement has grown dramatically over the last 20 years, so has anti-Palestinian pushback from Zionist groups and their allies. Organizat…

Earlier this year, Mondoweiss contributing writer Sarah Doyal reviewed the new book, Except For Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics, from authors Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick. Sarah wrote: “Delving into the phenomenon long-named in leftist circles as [quote] “Progressive Except for Palestine” [end quote], Hill and Plitnick metic…

This episode is all about elections. On March 23rd Israel held its fourth national election in two years. And starting in May Palestinians in the occupied territory will be holding their first elections in 15 years. Both elections will serve as a referendum on the current leaders, and both will give us insight into what the future may hold, both fo…