Understanding Israel Palestine

Naomi Shihab Nye on Peace, Poetry and Palestine 04.07.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail Acclaimed poet and writer Naomi Shihab Nye discusses her life and work in this conversation that originally aired in March of 2023 on KKFI's Understanding Israel Palestine program. The daughter of a Palestinian refugee and an American mother, Nye was a teenager living with her family near Jerusalem when the Six-Day War broke out in 1967, causing the family to return to the United States. She reads from her poetry and talks about how her experiences in Palestine affected...

Bills Before Congress Deepen U.S.-Israeli Military and Intelligence Ties 20.06.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 oversight and accountability. An equally alarming provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027 would force the U.S to share almost all intelligence about the Middle East with Israel. The president would have to go be...

The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction 12.06.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction In this archival dive from September 2021, Alison Weir, executive director of If Americans Knew, exposes the calculated rollout of weaponized antisemitism laws. Five years later, the true design behind that campaign is undeniable. Host Jeremy Rothe-Kushel breaks out the tape to reveal how this premeditated legal framework was built specifically for this moment: to...

Part II of 'From Oslo to Gaza': Mideast Peace Negotiator Robert Malley on the Errors of the Past 31.05.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine after news briefs. A yearlong Al Jazeera investigation found that as many as 51 countries armed Israel during its war on Gaza — including many that publicly condemned Israel, announced embargoes on weapons...

The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War 22.05.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War Part Two: The Nakba’s Blast Radius and the Capture of U.S. Foreign Policy Episode Description Seventy-eight years ago, the Nakba dismantled Palestinian society. Today, we are living inside its blast radius. What began in 1948 with the violent mass displacement of over 700,000 people has metastasized into a sprawling, multi-front geopolitical fire. We are now watching the Middle E...

From Oslo to Gaza: Mideast Peace Negotiator Rob Malley on the Revenge of History 17.05.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 calamitous war on Gaza.

Arts and Culture in a Palestinian Refugee Camp 08.05.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 inspirational students and works of art that have come of it.

The Structural Origins of AIPAC & The History of Israeli Espionage in the U.S. (with Grant Smith) 01.05.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail Understanding Israel Palestine: A Beyond the Walls Edition Episode: The Structural Origins of AIPAC & The History of Israeli Espionage in the U.S. Guest: Grant Smith, Research Director at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) Host: Jeremy Rothe-Kushel Episode Overview In this deep political analysis of US-Israel relations, we examine the foundational architecture and historical continuity of the modern Israel lobby within the United States. Grant Smith...

We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel 24.04.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel. He documents the ebbs and flows of American Jews’ relationship to Israel, from the more muted embrace following Israel’s establishment in 1948, to the tight embrace that followed the war in 1967 ...

Deja Vu: Israel Wages Another War on Lebanon 20.04.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 the context of previous Israeli wars on Lebanon. She views Israel's current scorched-earth campaign as not only an attack on Hezbollah but also an attempt to destroy Lebanon's pluralistic social fabric. She says Israel has long coveted L...

The Israel-Silicon Valley Nexus and the Penetration of U.S. Critical Infrastructure (with Mary Silva) 10.04.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 occupation and destruction in Palestine, a parallel, largely invisible architecture of control operates far beyond the checkpoints of Gaza and the West Bank. This digital infrastructure has actively penetrated our personal devices, corporate networks, and munic...

The Struggle to Educate in the West Bank 03.04.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 state of education in the West Bank. Since the outbreak of the war on Iran, most schools have been shuttered and only limited online learning is taking place. We discuss the role of education in peacebuilding and Aisha's activism o...

The War on Iran Is About Palestine 27.03.2026 35min

Send us Fan Mail 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 Strip.

Genocide 2.0, the Iran Assassinations, and the Architecture of Regional Chaos (with Richard Silverstein) [Radio Edit] 20.03.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 the upper echelons of Iranian leadership, the region faces an unprecedented era of engineered chaos. Is this a sudden escalation, or the culmination of a decades-old geopolitical strategy? This week on Understanding Israel Palestine: Be...

War Escalates as Energy Prices Climb 13.03.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 region, oil infrastructure, and other civilian targets. Hundreds of ships continue to be unable to transit the Strait of Hormuz, raising global energy prices. Dr. Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft joins t...

Building Hope with Nonviolent Communication and Action 06.03.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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, Palestinians and internationals together for healing, solidarity and nonviolent action. A founder of the Satyam Homeland Peace Center in the Occupied West Bank, she discusses the growing number of Palestinians and Israelis taking...

Antisemitism Bills Proposed in Several State Legislatures 27.02.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 conducted in April 2025 with Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She discusses the threat to free speech posed by the International Holocaust Rembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism being adopt...

The Unlikely Future of the Gaza Peace Plan; What U.S.-Iran Talks Require for Success 20.02.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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 at the Quincy institute for Responsible Statecraft and at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies. He’s the author of several books on foreign policy. His most recent book, published in 2023, is “Beyond the Water’s Edge...

Overcoming the Structures of Erasure and the Semantics of Genocidal Management with Aseel AlBajeh 13.02.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail 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?" On this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls, we examine the epistemology of erasure and how to transcend it through factual reframing. We explore the reality that a genocide is not just committed with bombs, but maintained with words. Host Jeremy Rothe-Kushel is joined by ...

Beyond the Language of the Israel-Palestine 'Conflict' and the Unconscious Grammar of Genocidal Consent 06.02.2026 28min

Send us Fan Mail Beyond the Language of the Israel-Palestine 'Conflict' and the Unconscious Grammar of Genocidal Consent with Alex McDonald On this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine, a Beyond the Walls edition, we move beyond the kinetic warfare on the ground to examine the cognitive warfare in our own minds. We investigate the "deep structural politics" of language—the specific mechanisms used to manufacture consent and maintain an information blockade here in the West. Our guest sug...