Makdisi Street

The brothers welcome back Aslı Ü. Bâli , Professor of Law at Yale Law School, for an intense and wide-ranging discussion of the state of the Middle East in the aftermath of the failed US-Israeli war on Iran.  They discuss the potential geopolitical outcomes the apparent US strategic defeat, examine the nature and assumptions of what had been American primacy over the Gulf, the liability and costs...

With the 2026 World Cup having started in the USA, the brothers welcome  Abdullah Al-Arian , Chair of History at Georgetown University Qatar and editor of Football in the Middle East: State, Society, and the Beautiful Game. We talk about how football shapes Arab identity, including the role of diaspora, and how it is instrumentalized by Arab states. We also talk about the controversies and politic...

In anticipation of the publication of Eyal Weizman's new book, Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide , which will be released in the US next month, the brothers hosted a livestream with Eyal to which our Patreon supporters had access, including the opportunity to ask questions of Eyal either via the livestream chat (which we will moderate) or in advance via email. Watch the livestream edition...

The brothers discuss the latest developments in the regional war, with a special focus on Lebanon and the nature of Israeli bombardment of civilian homes, which is tied to the destruction of homes on different scales across historical Palestine since 1948. The brothers also discuss co-existence in the Mashriq region and the Zionist challenge to that. Check out Ussama's article https://www.nytimes....

The brothers welcome Trita Parsi back to the show to discuss the status of US-Iran negotiations, the pressures of the ongoing stalemate on both sides, the prospects of an agreement given Israel's continued disruption in Lebanon and the vagaries of Trump's egotism, whether Iran can coerce a stop to Israeli aggression in Lebanon & Germany's experience of schadenfreude in the UN. Check out Trita's Su...

The brothers get together for a conversation about the ongoing Israeli war on Lebanon, the meaning of deterrence, the role of Iran in Lebanon, the question of Lebanon's sovereignty, and the divisions within Lebanon about how best to defend the country and its people. Watch the  video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: May 28, 2026 Follow us on our socials: X: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @...

The brothers welcome Lebanese scholar and original "Angry Arab" Asad AbuKhalil, author, columnist, professor, and public intellectual.  The discuss the increasing depravity of a long history of Israeli wars on Lebanon going back to 1948; why so many in Lebanon continue to put their faith in the pipe-dream of peace with a state that is actively committing genocide, the neglect of the South during t...

The brothers welcome to the show Jehad Abusalim , who grew up in the city of Deir el Balah in the Gaza Strip and now heads the Gaza Genocide Center.  They discuss what it was like to grow up under occupation in Gaza, what normal life was like for a generation under siege, isolated and cut off from the world.  They discuss the ongoing Gaza genocide, still being perpetrated by Israel (though it is n...

The brothers welcome to the show Michael Young , journalist and editor of the Carnegie Middle East Center's Diwan blog, to discuss the vexed and controversial question of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations against the background of the continued Israeli bombardment and occupation of Lebanese territory and the deliberate destruction of entire towns along Lebanon's southern border. Date of recording: Apr...

**Producer's note: This is a special co-published episode with Psychic Militancy , hosted by Makdisi Street guest Lara Sheehi.   Make sure to subscribe to her channel if you haven't already!!**   In this episode, I sit down with ‪ Makdisi Street podcast hosts and brothers, Karim, Ussama and Saree Makdisi to discuss the current situation in Lebanon. We get into a lot, as you can imagine, including...

The brothers welcome Yousef Munayyer of the Arab Center in Washington, DC to the show to discuss the US-Israeli war on Iran and Lebanon, the role of the Zionist lobby and the nature of the relationship between the US and Israel, rapidly shifting attitudes on Israel and the Palestinians among the American public, the ferocious crackdown on dissent and protest against Israeli apartheid and genocide,...

The brothers welcome University of Exeter Professor Laleh Khalili to the show to discuss the geopolitical and geoeconomic contexts of the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran, including the role of Iran and the Gulf in global energy and trade markets and circuits; shifts in international trade and finance away from circuits controlled by the US and its coercive mechanisms of financial and trade sa...

The brothers welcome the human rights advocate Omar Shakir to the show to discuss the legal basis for the Palestinian right of return, Israel's crime against humanity for denying the right of return, the ongoing attempt to recuperate a "good Israel" of 1948 from a "bad Israel" of 1967, the approaches and limitations of human rights work, and his recent resignation from Human Rights Watch as a resu...

The brothers convene to discuss the US-Israeli attack on Iran, Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, the positions and alignments within Lebanon, Iran's objectives in the containing and responding to the attack, and the Israelis' sense that they are losing America and hence face a last chance opportunity to take advantage of American power to try to impose control over the region—a risky project of dom...

The brothers are joined by the award-winning Lebanese investigative journalist Hala Jaber ( @HalaJaber) to discuss the ongoing Israeli war on Lebanon in the context of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the timing of the unexpectedly strong re-emergence of Hizballah following 15 months of Israeli violations of the Nov 2024 ceasefire, the humanitarian catastrophe and displacement of hundreds of thousands...

***Note: This was recorded on the eve of Israel's expansion of its ongoing bombardment and destruction of Lebanon***    The brothers welcome the Lebanese investigative journalist Jad Ghosn to the show to discuss the internal tensions and crises in Lebanon on the eve of Israel's expansion of its ongoing destruction of the country. They discuss the Lebanese sectarian system dominated by oligarchs an...

The brothers welcome the London-based Iranian analyst and journalist Ali Alizadeh to the show to discuss the history and context of the US-Israeli attack on Iran, internal dynamics within post-revolution Iran, the background of and political framework of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, and the scope and scale of damage being inflicted by US and Israeli forces on Iran as the current war a...

**Note: This was recorded before the US-Israeli aggression on Iran** The brothers welcome Farea Al Muslimi, founder of Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, research fellow at Chatham House in London, and analyst of Yemen and wider  Gulf region. We discuss the implications of the new Yemeni government formation at a time of open Saudi-UAE conflict, contextualize this within the period since the Arab...

The brothers welcome the investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News back to the show to discuss the looming threat of a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, the various forces driving US foreign policy, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the capacity of Palestinian steadfastness to withstand either the plan for the dystopian reduction of Gaza to a wasteland of biometric concentration cam...

The brothers welcome Drop Site News journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous to the show to discuss the latest developments in Gaza, as, despite a nominal "ceasefire," Israel's genocide grinds on, and as, meanwhile, dystopian plans to remake Gaza put forward by the likes of Jared Kushner are slowly put into place, which would see Palestinians forced into biometrically controlled concentration camps as par...

A special edition of the Makdisi Street podcast in which Ussama interviews fellow historian Avi Shlaim in Jaipur, India where both were attending the Jaipur Literature Festival.   Ussama asks Avi about his new book Genocide in Gaza , the history of coexistence devastated by the project of colonial Zionism, and about when and why Avi became an anti-Zionist.   They discuss the importance of archives...

The brothers welcome Professor Greg Grandin to the show to discuss the US kidnapping of the Venezuelan president against the historical context of other American imperial interventions in Latin America, the recurring use of Latin America as a stage to reboot US interventions elsewhere around the world, different models of regime change, the collapse of international law and legitimacy and the spec...

The brothers talk with the prominent Palestinian politician, activist and medical doctor Mustafa Barghouti, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, and presidential candidate during the last elections in Palestine in 2005. We discuss the awful realities of Palestinians living under Israeli genocide and attempted ethnic cleansing despite a "ceasefire," the essence of Palestinian s...

Special Christmas/New Year edition with the brothers' mother! The brothers welcome their mother, the author and educator Jean Said Makdisi, to the show, to discuss her books, her memories of growing up between Palestine and Egypt, living in America in the 1950s and 1960s and returning to Lebanon, where she raised her children through the 1975-1990 war while teaching at Beirut University College. S...

***Producer's note: This is a repost of an episode we released two years ago. Wishing you a Merry Christmas from the Makdisi Street team! Thanks for your support! FREE PALESTINE*** The brothers welcome  Dr. Mitri Raheb  to the show to talk about the role and visibility of Christians in Palestine's ecumenical culture, so-called Christian Zionism, and how the Bible can be read either as a text autho...