The Mondoweiss Podcast

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 National Fund. First, to the Jenin refugee camp. On J...

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 and political criticisms of its human rights violati...

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. Teller is a British journalist who worked for years i...

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 congress on Palestine. Ruebner is the author of Is...

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 Defense Forces. The letter reads: "We cannot look...

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 invested pretty heavily to grow our team of report...

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 and protest these great injustices taking place aga...

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 movement for  many years. Phil Weiss, founder and senio...

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's escalating attacks against Palestinian civil so...

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 Palestinians were killed, including 17 children. According t...

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 episode of the North Untapped podcast , hosted by Ale...

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 buildings. In contrast, 48 Palestinians died from...

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 consultant Peter Feld about how this direct campaign...

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 of this year the Commission presented its first re...

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 states, and convince the Saudi Arabian government to i...

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 written by Judge Jonathan Kobes, a Trump appointe...

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 critical independent coverage of events in Palestine,...

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 Palestine and reflections on his service. Before we g...

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 against Israel's plan to seize Palestinian land to b...

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 independent coverage of events in Palestine, Israel, and rel...

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 explains how this "hasbara culture" worldview has been p...

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. politics. Donate today at https://mondoweiss.net/don...

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 Americans about what they've seen – the goal of the...

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 about the impact of the agreements and recent congre...

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 open seat. Last week, Michael asked Huwaida about...