Makdisi Street

The brothers welcome artist and activist Wael Tarbieh from the occupied Golan Heights to discuss the Israeli colonization of the region since 1967, the mixed ethnic and confessional makeup of the Indigenous population, and their decades-long steadfastness in retaining their political and legal identity. For more information on the ethnic cleansing of the Golan, check out Al Marsad https://golan-ma...

The brothers welcome Palestinian anthropologist (and former chemical engineer) Hadeel Assali. They discuss the kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil, the history of tunnels and the ecology of Gaza, the ontological relationship of the Palestinians to their indigenous environment that the US-backed Zionist colonizers seek to destroy, the different forms of resistance to incessant colonial surveillance, the s...

The brothers welcome psychoanalytic scholar, professor and licensed clinical psychologist Lara Sheehi to discuss the historic role of psychoanalysis in national liberation struggles, the connection between the revolutionary work of Franz Fanon and the Palestinian resistance, and how liberal educational institutions are facilitating fascist attacks on oppositional voices. Watch the episode  on our...

The brothers welcome Ramallah-based journalist Mariam Barghouti (@MariamBarghouti ) to discuss the ongoing de facto annexation of the West Bank, the unchecked growth of colonial outposts, the role of the mainstream Western media in whitewashing and censoring this violence, and the position of the Palestinian Authority as a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. Watch the  episode  on our YouTube...

The brothers welcome journalist and writer Mohammed el-Kurd to the show to discuss his new book,  Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal (2025) , his family's surreal experiences with Jewish Israeli settlers in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the role of resistance in the broader meaning of the term, and why Palestinians can never surrender to the "politics of appeal." Watch the ...

The brothers welcome Aslı Bâli, Professor of Law at Yale Law School and President of the Middle East Studies Association. They discuss the increasingly repressive academic climate in the United States over the question of Palestine led by private sector as well as the current Trump Administration, how anti-Palestinian racism is used as a wedge issue in contemporary culture wars, how Zionist and ri...

The brothers welcome their cousin Wadie Said, Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, to reflect on Donald Trump's personalized domestic and Middle East agenda, the Gaza ceasefire deal and the demise of international legal order. The conversation then focuses on insidious concepts of "terrorism" in the US, and its legal implications for those accused on trumped up charges as well its weapo...

Note: we recorded this before the appalling AHA leadership veto on Jan. 17 of the democratic vote of its membership to condemn Israeli scholasticide The brothers welcome Professor Sherene Seikaly, historian at University of California at Santa Barbara and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and Anthony Alessandrini, Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College and of Middle Easter...

The brothers welcome the world-renowned economics professor and bestselling author, and Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University. They discuss the nature of U.S. global hegemony, idealism vs. realism, the possibility of de-dollarization, BRICS, the delusional notions of perpetual US and Israel hegemony, and why their killing lots of civilians does not translate into political victory, the...

The brothers welcome University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer to the show to discuss the power of the Israel lobby in the US, the relationship between the US and the Israeli state (and whether the dog wags the tail or the other way around), the possibility of change in US policy on Palestine and the Arab world, recent developments in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, and, finally, how transfor...

The brothers welcome Syrian political economist and Hampshire College professor Omar S. Dahi (@omardahi) to offer personal reflections on the early days of the post-Assad era in Syria, who exactly Ahmad Shara/ Al Jolani is, Syrian policy choices and national interests in the context of external interventions and Turkish influence, and the implications of Israeli expansionism and destruction of Syr...

The brothers welcome Nimer Sultany , a Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London. They discuss the difference between the hypocrisy of the Western liberal legal order versus the Western liberal abandonment of its own international order to protect Israel, the imperatives of justice in Syria at a time of injustice in Palestine, the ICC and ICJ cases, the fact that South Africa stopped appea...

The brothers welcome National Book Award for Poetry Finalist Fady Joudah (@fadyjoudah)  for a searing and intimate discussion of Palestine in English versus Palestine in Arabic, about writing poetry in a time of genocide, about the limits and hubris of solidarity, about the necessity of common decency in the face of horror, and about the meaning of Palestinian love confronting the Israeli inferno...

Ta-Nehisi Coates  joins the brothers for a wide-ranging discussion drawing on his new book, The Message (2024) , and covering the parallels and differences between the Black American and Palestinian experiences, the culture of denial suppressing the realities of the system of apartheid in Palestine, the challenges of gaining access to Palestinian voices, the power of conveying the raw reality of P...

The brothers welcome analyst Tareq Baconi , author of Hamas Contained (Stanford University Press, 2018) and president of the board of Al-Shabaka. One year into the Gaza genocide, they discuss the emergence Hamas and its role in the Palestinian political polity, its sweeping electoral victory in Gaza in 2006 as well as its subsequent governance in Gaza and attempts to contain its growth through blo...

The Brothers welcome journalist and founder of Zeteo, Mehdi Hasan  (@mehdirhasan ) to the pod. They have a spirited discussion about anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in the mainstream media, the price of compromise to gain access, and whether voting for Harris is a vote against fascism or a vote endorsing genocide. Watch the  episode  on our YouTube channel Date of recording: Oct 22, 2024. Follow us...

Maya Berry (@imayaberry) , Executive Director of the  Arab American Institute , joins the brothers for a wide-ranging conversation covering anti-Arab racism in the United States, hate crime tracking, the location of Arab Americans in the US racial lexicon, and the impossible position Arab Americans find themselves in the build-up to the 2024 presidential election. Watch the episode  on our YouTube...

The brothers welcome Laila al-Arian, executive producer for the Al Jazeera English documentary series Fault Lines. They discuss the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim orthodoxies of the mainstream Western media, the coverage of the genocide in Gaza, the dissenting spaces opened up by critical alternative and social media, and Laila's harrowing documentary The Night Won't End that tracks t...

The brothers welcome the war correspondent Elijah Magnier (@ejmalrai)  to the show to discuss the expansion of Israel's war on civilians to Lebanon, as well as the tactical and strategic challenges and opportunities in confronting it on the ground and the implications of Iran's direct intervention in what is already a regional war. Watch the episode on our YouTube channel Date of recording: Oct 4,...

The brothers welcome Trita Parsi ( @tparsi ), co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, to discuss the three-way relationship between the US, Israel, and Iran, the pathetic state of US diplomacy, the role of the Zionist lobby in defining US interests, and the consequences of any potential Iranian military intervention. Watch the episode  on our You...

The brothers discuss the latest developments from the Gaza genocide, the murder of American citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi followed by the wholesale media silence around it, and to what degree the US is calling the shots over the looming regional war. Watch the episode  on our YouTube channel Date of recording: Sept 11, 2024. Follow us on our socials: X:  @MakdisiStreet YouTube:  @MakdisiStreet Insta: ...

The brothers welcome Yara Hawari (@yarahawari) , Co-director of Al-Shabaka , to discuss how the Oslo Accords transformed Palestinian civic life, the emergence of the PA from the PLO, the significance of the increasing number of political and social ruptures among Zionist settlers, and what role the Global South can play in the movement to liberate Palestine. This episode is co-published with Al-Sh...

The brothers welcome distinguished writer, novelist, and intellectual of the New Left Review Tariq Ali to Makdisi Street. They discuss the similarities and differences between the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s and contemporary demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza; the role of the U.S. empire and global capitalism as a bitter opponent of popular liber...

The brothers gather in the garden of their family home in the mountains of Lebanon to discuss recent Israeli escalations and the possible consequences from Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere, following the Israeli bombings in Beirut and Tehran; the focus of the discussion is the fact that, despite inflicting massive and irreparable trauma on civilian life in Gaza, the Israelis have been sinking deeper an...

The brothers welcome journalist Lina Attalah  (@linaattalah), the co-founder and chief editor of MadaMasr,  an independent online Egyptian newspaper. They discuss the current situation in Egypt, political despotism and the war on normal politics, media censorship, the question of Camp David and why the political and military elite are so wedded to it, the nature of Egyptian sovereignty in Sinai, a...