Unsettled

Groundwork is a new podcast about Palestinians and Jews refusing to accept the status quo and working together for change. When war broke out between Israel and Gaza this past May, some of the worst inter-ethnic fighting in Israel’s history erupted between its own citizens. The violence showed that even in mixed cities, where people often talk of coexistence, there are deep political, ethnic, and...

As international attention turned to Israel-Palestine this May, Jonathan Brenneman and Aidan Orly co-authored an op-ed for Truthout titled “Progressives Can’t Ignore Role of Christian Zionism in Colonization of Palestine.” In this episode, producer Emily Bell interviews Brenneman and Orly about the origins of Christian Zionism; the relationship between Christian Zionism, Jewish Zionism, and U.S. f...

The Gaza strip has been under Israeli siege for 14 years, with cycles of violence happening over and over again. In the latest round of fighting, at least 254 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died. 2 million people live in the Gaza strip, and they’ve endured over a decade of air raids, and an economic blockade that deprives them of basic necessities, like power and clean water. But in the Jewish commu...

The recent escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine seemed to be happening everywhere, all at once. But one place that’s been getting less public attention is a rural part of the West Bank called the South Hebron Hills. Last weekend, Jewish settlers set fire to Palestinian fields and tried to destroy a cave in the village of Sarura. We have dedicated two past episodes of Unsettled to the story o...

Over the last two weeks, even in the face of state and mob violence, Palestinians have been organizing mass demonstrations on both sides of the Green Line: from Jerusalem to Nazareth to Ramallah. After decades of policy designed to keep the Palestinian people fragmented, they have taken to the streets in unison to demand radical change.   What does this new Palestinian uprising look like? And wher...

When violence erupts in Israel-Palestine, talking in public about Palestinian suffering is often met automatically with an assertion of Israeli suffering — as if one somehow cancels out, or even justifies, the other. It feels like compassion has become a scarce commodity. How do we grieve publicly without negating the experience of the “other side"? This episode is not an expert interview, it's a...

Meir Kahane is one of the most polarizing figures in modern Jewish history. His Jewish Defense League was labeled a terrorist group by the FBI. His KACH party was banned from the Knesset for racism. Kahane was assassinated in 1990, but his name and ideas live on. Kahanist mobs have recently marched through the streets of Israeli cities chanting “Death to Arabs” and attacking random Palestinians. A...

The imminent displacement of several Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah set off a chain of events that led to the violence we’re now seeing all over Israel-Palestine. But what’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah isn't new. Ever since Israel gained control of East Jerusalem in 1967, the state has been making life difficult for Palestinians -- and trying to get them ou...

Since last week, nearly two hundred Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Israel's defenders say the state is simply defending itself against rocket fire from Hamas; loss of life is tragic, but Hamas is to blame. But many of us know very little about Hamas itself. In this episode, originally published in 2019, producer Max Freedman speaks with Tareq Baconi, author of the boo...

There’s a lot going on right now in Israel-Palestine. Right-wing Jewish Israeli mobs are attacking Palestinians in cities like Lod and Haifa. Israel is bombing Gaza. Hamas is firing rockets into Israel. Just last week, Israeli police were attacking worshippers inside Al Aqsa mosque. This round of violence began in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. A number of Palestinian families i...

When it comes to peace in Israel-Palestine, the two-state solution has been the party line for much of the international community for a long time. But lately, many experts and activists have been saying the two-state solution is dead. If that's true, what’s the best path forward? According to Palestinian entrepreneur Sam Bahour, it’s time to try confederation. In this episode, Ilana Levinson talk...

For the past year, as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, home has become an especially important source of shelter and safety. While some governments have responded to pressure from activists and paused evictions, Palestinians in East Jerusalem still face uncertainty. That’s the case with the Sumarin family, who live just outside Jerusalem’s Old City in the Palestinian village of Si...

Israel is about to hold its fourth parliamentary election in the past two years. The last time Israelis went to the polls, in March 2020, the Joint List — a coalition of four Arab Palestinian political parties — won an unprecedented 15 seats in the Knesset. But since then, the Joint List has fractured. Why? And what does this mean for the future of Palestinian politics? Producer Max Freedman speak...

“So it becomes this dance of cameras where the whole goal of the Palestinian camera is to document a human rights violation, to take back some kind of power. And the goal of the Israeli camera is to block that power from being taken through vision.” — Liat Berdugo B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, has been running its Camera Distribution Project since the early 2000s. The project dis...

In recent years, a term has emerged in leftist activist circles: “progressive except for Palestine,” or “PEP” for short. It describes a person whose values and political leanings are consistent across issues of racial justice, homophobia, healthcare, immigration and more—but on Palestine, they are either silent, or actively hostile to a progressive point of view. It’s a worldview that permeates me...

President Joe Biden campaigned on the idea that he'd bring the country back to “normal.” But that message has raised some eyebrows, as many have pointed out that America’s “normal” doesn’t necessarily mean good, or right.  In this episode of Unsettled, producer Ilana Levinson interviews Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace , about what is considered normal U.S. foreign...

Samiha Hureini is a university student from the village of a-Tuwani, in the South Hebron Hills. She is one of the founders of Youth of Sumud , a group of young people who came together to defend their community in the wake of a dramatic direct action (chronicled in the very first episode of Unsettled ). In this interview with producer Max Freedman, Samiha explains how Youth of Sumud has maintained...

"Five years ago, Jeremy Corbyn brought Palestine solidarity politics into the heart of the largest left-wing party in Europe. And [his leadership has] ended with criticisms of the occupation being untenable in British politics." How did this happen? The unlikely election of Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party in 2015 appeared to signal the renewed political viability of both socialism and Pales...

When we first pitched our documentary "The shepherd and the settler" to be part of the "Rulebreakers" series on the BBC World Service, we started with a question: What are the rules, exactly, where Palestinian shepherds and Israeli settlers live side-by-side? Who makes the rules, and who’s breaking them? To better understand the legal landscape in the occupied West Bank, we turned to Noura Erakat:...

Amiel Vardi is a professor of Classics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the founders of a grassroots movement called Ta'ayush : Israelis and Palestinians striving together to end the Israeli occupation and to achieve full civil equality through daily non-violent direct action. Amiel was with our producer Max Freedman when he visited Rashash to report "The shepherd and the settler"...

We're back with another extended interview from "The shepherd and the settler," produced by the Unsettled team for the BBC World Service. Aviv Tatarsky is a researcher for Ir Amim and one of the founders of Engaged Dharma Israel . Aviv was with our producer Max Freedman when he visited Rashash to report "The shepherd and the settler." Listen to the full documentary to hear Aviv's close encounter w...

This is the first in a series of extended interviews from "The shepherd and the settler," produced by the Unsettled team for the BBC World Service. Muhammad Jahaleen is a 30-year-old Bedouin shepherd in the occupied West Bank, living with his family in a remote place called Rashash. Listen to "The shepherd and the settler," then return to this episode for more of Muhammad's story and more details...

Unsettled producer Max Freedman spends the day in Rashash, a small herding community in the West Bank, with a Bedouin shepherd named Muhammad. Muhammad's family has been herding sheep and goats in Rashash for 30 years, and in Palestine for generations. But since Israeli settlers recently moved in nearby, it has become difficult for Muhammad to graze his flock undisturbed. After watching this confl...

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn is one of the most iconic historically Black neighborhoods in the United States. But Bed-Stuy is changing. Fifty years ago, schools in Bed-Stuy's District 16 were so overcrowded that students went to school in shifts. Today, they're half-empty. Why? "School Colors" is a new podcast from Unsettled producer Max Freedman exploring how race, class, and power shape American...

Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip shapes people’s lives in many different ways. In this episode, we focus on the chronic energy shortage. Because energy is needed for much more than turning on the lights; water, sewage, and hospitals, schools, farms, and factories — they all depend on a steady supply of electricity. First, producer Max Freedman speaks with Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha...