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The +972 Podcast — News & Politics
The +972 Podcast

Dive past the headlines in Israel-Palestine to explore the issues and stories other outlets tend to ignore with +972 Magazine writers and local activists, politicians, and experts. +972 Magazine is owned and operated by a group of Israeli and Palestinian journalists, providing fresh, in-depth reporting and analysis directly from the ground in Israel-Palestine. The magazine is committed to human rights, democracy, and freedom of information, and actively opposes the Israeli occupation.

Latest Episodes:

What happened to the Green Line? Sep 16, 2022

Last month, a controversy erupted in Israel when the Tel Aviv municipality, in time for the new school year, distributed maps to classrooms that showed the Green Line. Although the 1949 armistice lines that formed Israel's unofficial borders at the cessation of the 1948 war are internationally recognized, in Israel the Green Line is a contentious point, seen as incorrectly demarcating between "Israel proper" and the settlements in the occupied West Bank. Indeed, in sending the maps to schools, the Tel Aviv municipality flouted Education Ministry guidelines.

The episode was a timely reminder of what +972 editor Amjad Iraqi and Meron Rapoport, an editor at Local Call, argued in a pair of essays they wrote for The Nation in August: that the Green Line, both as a result of Palestinian grassroots resistance and Israeli efforts to undermine the idea that the West Bank is a separate entity, is gradually becoming irrelevant.

You can read Iraqi and Rapoport's pieces at +972 Magazine here and here, or at The Nation here and here.

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The Jewish Comedian Calling Out Apartheid in Arabic Feb 25, 2022

Noam Shuster-Eliassi, an Israeli comedian based in south Tel Aviv, spent her childhood and early adulthood invested in a traditional model of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Growing up in Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam, a mixed community in central Israel where Jews and Palestinains live together by choice, Shuster-Eliassi took to peace activism as a young adult, becoming part of dialogue groups and working with a UN subsidiary.

Yet she came to find this mode of activism inadequate, she told the +972 Podcast. "I got to a very extreme point where I couldn't deal anymore with how much we were not making any progress in humanitarian work and in the NGO world."

Turning to stand-up comedy, she said, not only helped her feel less alone in struggling against the situation in Israel-Palestine, but also helped the trilingual Shuster-Eliassi — she speaks Hebrew, Arabic, and English — express herself in the way that she wanted. "[Comedy] released my voice. It made me say the things that I dreamed of saying, it made me reach the people I'm dreaming of reaching — it made me speak in all the languages that I know."

The music in this episode is by DAM and Ketsa.

The audio clips in this episode are taken from the short documentary "Reckoning With Laughter," directed by Amber Fares and produced by Rachel Leah Jones. "Reckoning With Laughter" can be watched at either Al Jazeera or The New Yorker.

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Excavating Israel's underground settlements Jan 13, 2022

Archeology is presumed to be a neutral endeavor, a practice of excavation that merely uncovers clues about the past. But according to Israeli archeologist Yonathan Mizrahi, it's easy to frame archeological discoveries in a way that privileges one narrative or one history over another. That's very much what is happening in Israel-Palestine, and a lot of that is concentrated in East Jerusalem.
Until recently, Mizrahi served as the executive director of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO that examines the interplay between archeology and the occupation. In his 15 years at the helm, he witnessed the increasing encroachment of right-wing settler groups on the city's Palestinian neighborhoods — a process which has, to a significant extent, relied on archeological excavations.
Such digging "brings [settlers] the opportunity to justify the settlement," said Mizrahi. "Instead of looking at the settlers as a group of people living in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, they can come and say, 'Listen, we are living in Jewish history. We have historic rights here. It's not just the Bible — you can see the ruins here."
The music in this episode is by Ketsa.
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The Role of Fiction in Palestinian Liberation Nov 09, 2021

When Sahar Mustafah, a Palestinian-American author and teacher, heard about the 2015 murder of three Muslim students in North Carolina by their white neighbor, she turned to writing to process the attack and its ramifications.

"It was the kind of event that just rattled me to my core," says Mustafah, who is based in Chicago. "What compels someone that you know, a neighbor, to bring a gun to your door and shoot you in cold blood?"
That Mustafah's 2020 debut novel, “The Beauty of Your Face,” was timely is beyond doubt: it arrived in the final year of a Trump administration that had opened the floodgates of white nationalist violence and further inscribed Islamophobia into federal law. Yet in shopping the book to publishers, Mustafah says, it was precisely the sections involving the shooter's attack on a Muslim girls' school run by the main character, Afaf, that led most publishing houses she approached to pass on the novel.
In this episode, editor Natasha Roth-Rowland interviews Mustafah about the responsibility of representing her community to a mainstream audience, the grief of immigration, and writing as a critical tool of emancipation.
The music in this episode is by Ketsa.
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Resisting Apartheid Behind Israel’s Prison Walls Oct 07, 2021

Perhaps the most enthralling story in Israel-Palestine last month was the startling escape of six Palestinians from the notorious Gilboa prison, using simple tools like spoons to dig a tunnel out of their cells and on to freedom. Although the prisoners were re-captured several days later, their feat dominated Israeli news headlines and captured the Palestinian popular imagination.

To unpack the story, +972 editor Amjad Iraqi interviews attorney Abeer Baker, a Palestinian human rights lawyer based in Akka who represents Palestinian prisoners before Israeli courts, about the sweeping nature of Israel’s incarceration regime, the ways in which Israeli law legitimizes the state’s policies, and how Palestinians are resisting their jailers even behind prison walls.
The music in this episode is by Ketsa.
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A Little Ice Cream Goes a Long Way Jul 29, 2021

Earlier this month, American ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s announced that will stop selling their products in Israeli settlements located in the occupied West Bank.

The company’s decision has sparked an uproar by Israeli politicians, from the far-right to the Zionist left. Along with cries of “antisemitism” and “economic terrorism,” the Israeli government has called on U.S. states to sanction the company through domestic laws that effectively punish any boycotts or divestments relating to Israel.

In the latest episode of The +972 Podcast, editors Edo Konrad and Amjad Iraqi discuss the significance of the company’s decision and the backlash it continues to face, the shifting opinions among American Jews, and what this moment could mean for the movement for Palestinian rights.
The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Crowander.
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The Israeli Researchers Unearthing Their Country's Dark Past Jun 29, 2021

It was in the early days of the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research that one of the researchers stumbled upon a document that had disappeared since first being published in the mid-1980s. Dubbed the Immigration Document, the 18-page memo authored by an Israeli intelligence officer in 1948 lists the Palestinian villages and towns that had been depopulated by Israeli forces, as well as the ways they had been depopulated.

“It says, among other things that some 70 percent of Palestinian depopulation in Palestine, up to that point in early March of 1948, was due to activities by Jewish forces rather than what we learned, a result of Palestinian leadership calls for people to evacuate or other similar reasons,” explains Lior Yavne, the founder and director of Akevot.

On the latest episode of The +972 Podcast, Yavne and Akevot researcher Adam Raz talk about the need for archival research in human rights work in Israel, the impact that concealing official documents has on Israeli society, and the challenges the organizations faces in their efforts to declassify and access records.

The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.
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An Uprising for Palestinian Unity Jun 02, 2021

In late May, Israeli police launched the largest nationwide crackdown against Palestinian citizens of Israel in decades. The campaign, known as Operation Law and Order, has led to the arrest of hundreds of Palestinians who participated in last month’s wave of protests, sparked by the imminent expulsion of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, the police raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the war on Gaza.
The editors of +972 Magazine sat down at the height of the crackdown to discuss what led to this moment, the synchronization of the Palestinian struggle from the river to the sea, and how Israeli and international media have been covering recent events.
The music in this episode is by Ketsa.
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A Night of Jewish Supremacist Violence in Jerusalem Apr 30, 2021

In this episode, we interview +972 contributor Orly Noy about the shocking display of racism and brutality in Jerusalem last week, when hundreds of Israeli Jews, many of them young men, marched through the streets of the city chanting "Death to Arabs.” The march was organized by Lehava, a notorious extreme right wing organization, after several videos posted on TikTok showed Palestinians harassing ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Noy, who witnessed the violence that night, spoke about how Lehava preys on disempowered young Mizrahi and ultra-Orthodox Jews, how the Israeli and international media got the story wrong, and what kind of hope, if at all, she has for the city she has called home for most of her life.
You can also read her essay, titled "I write to remember the brutality of Jewish violence I saw in Jerusalem," here.
The music in this episode is by Ketsa.
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Will This Palestinian Matriarch Get to Keep Her Jerusalem Home? Mar 30, 2021

As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world this past year, 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 Silwan. The Jewish National Fund and the Elad organization have long been promoting Jewish settlement in the area — often at the expense of the Palestinian residents.

In April, after a decades-long legal battle, an Israeli court will finally decide whether the Sumarin family will be forcibly evicted from their home. On this episode of the +972 podcast, we teamed up with Unsettled Podcast to tell the story of the Sumarin family and their struggle to remain in the house they've lived in for generations.
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Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions.

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Six Shots in Two Seconds: Investigating the Fatal Shooting of Ahmad Erekat Feb 26, 2021

On June 23, 2020, Ahmad Erakat crashed into the Container checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. Border Police officers shot him six times in two seconds, claiming he had attempted a car-ramming attack. But a new forensic investigation undermines the authorities’ version of events.

At the request of the Erakat family, Forensic Architecture, a research agency that relies on spatial and media tools to investigate human rights violations, in collaboration with Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, examined the incident. The visual reconstruction was published this week, eight months after the crash.

The investigation sought to establish the circumstances of of the car crash, the use of lethal force, whether Ahmad received medical care after being shot, and how the various Israeli authorities at the scene treated Ahmad’s body.
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The music in this episode is by Circus Marcus, Daniel Birch, and The Joy Drops.

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Why is Netanyahu Suddenly Courting Palestinian Voters? Jan 29, 2021

Israel is heading into its fourth election in less than two years, and with the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing rather uncharted territory. Like previous rounds, these elections are in many ways a referendum on Netanyahu. But there are bigger factors that could determine if the fourth contest will be different from the last.

+972 Magazine Editor-in-Chief Edo Konrad and Editor Amjad Iraqi sat down to talk about how the elections are pitting different strands of the Israeli right against each other for control of the government, and the reasons behind the disintegration of the Palestinian-led Joint List.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Crowander.

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How Palestine Advocates Are Gearing Up for the Post-Trump Era Dec 18, 2020

There was palpable relief, and even joy, throughout the progressive movement when the U.S. presidential race was finally called for Joe Biden at the beginning of November. Four years of an administration that relentlessly attacked every minority group imaginable would finally be coming to an end, and with it, perhaps, a move away from constant firefighting.

Yet Biden's election was by no means welcomed by progressives as an unmitigated win. Beyond the unimaginable wreckage left behind by the Trump administration — damage that will likely outlast Biden's presidency — those in the movement are also clear-eyed about the limitations of a centrist Democratic government.

Nowhere does that assessment ring as true as in the Palestine movement, where, as Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, tells the +972 Podcast, activists have to reckon with an administration that is "no friend of Palestine."
At the same time, Tamari stresses, there is cause for optimism: unlike the Trump White House, a Biden administration is "a target that can be moved." The current generation of Palestinian activists are more than up for the task, Tamari adds, calling them "more fearless and unapologetic than ever before."

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.

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How the Palestinian Authority Undermines Resistance to Annexation Jul 03, 2020

Significant historic threats have befallen the Palestinian people this year, including the Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century” and Israel’s current push to formally annex parts of the occupied territories. But it is still unclear how Palestinians plan to confront these events, both on the leadership and grassroots levels.

For example, why have there been no mass protests akin to the intifadas of 1987 or 2000? Why has the Palestinian leadership not put forward a new political strategy to face these threats? What is preventing Palestinians from breaking the so-called “status quo” designed to suppress them?

On the latest episode of The +972 Podcast, Dana El Kurd, an assistant professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, answers these questions and more. El Kurd is the author of “Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine,” a book that examines how the Palestinian Authority, which was created under the Oslo Accords in 1993, repressed and diluted political activity in the occupied territories.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.

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The Jewish Israelis Helping Make Palestinian Return a Reality May 29, 2020

This is the third and final episode in our series on the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

In the first, we got a glimpse of what return might feel like with Tarek Bakri’s visual documentation project. Then, BADIL’s Lubnah Shomali discussed the practical ways in which return can be made possible. In this episode, we explore what Jewish Israelis think about return.

According to Tom Pessah, the answer is not what you might think.

Tom is an academic who serves as the chairperson of the board of Zochrot, an Israeli nonprofit bringing awareness to the Nakba among the Jewish Israeli public.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.

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How Can the Return of Palestinian Refugees Become Feasible? May 22, 2020

Palestinian refugees are the longest-standing displaced population in modern history. There are currently more than 8 million displaced Palestinians, including internally displaced persons inside Israel.

In the second episode of a three-part series on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Lubnah Shomali from BADIL, a Palestinian center that advocates for the rights of refugees, discusses the practicalities of return.

She answers questions like, how would return be facilitated? Who would be involved in the process? And what happens in cases where refugees aren't able to return to their original homes?

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.

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The Project Bringing Palestinian Refugees Back Home May 15, 2020

Almost 10 years ago, Tarek Bakri accidentally started a project called Kunna ou Ma Zilna, Arabic for “we were and are still here,” as a way of visually documenting Palestine in the social media era.

Using old photos and oral history, he helps Palestinians find their original homes and villages, many of which are now depopulated, destroyed, or occupied by Jewish Israelis.

The right of return for Palestinian refugees is often sidelined in discussions on Palestine-Israel. To shift back the focus on this issue, we at +972 Magazine set out to explore what return means — 72 years since the Nakba, the catastrophe that culminated in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, and which continues to impact millions more to this day. Is return merely a symbolic demand? Is it at all feasible?

This episode is the first in a three-part series on the right of return for Palestinian refugees. We will be releasing a new episode every Friday over the next few weeks, starting with Tarek. With his help, we will travel from Safad, to Akka, to Jaffa, to Beit Nabala, and get a sense of what return might look like.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.

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Deciding the Fate of Palestinians — Without Palestinians Mar 06, 2020

A month after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his Middle East plan, Israelis went to the polls for a third time in a year. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to declare victory, not much has shifted the deadlock from the previous two rounds, and no party is able to form a government yet.

For Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights lawyer, analyst, and former advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the contents of the “Trump-Netanyahu plan,” as she calls it, are cause for alarm.

The arrogance that characterizes the deal, which deliberately excludes Palestinians from the conversation, reflects an Israeli “fantasy” that “somehow Palestinians are going to agree to their own subjugation,” says Buttu. That exclusion is compounded by the Palestinian Authority’s failure to effectively respond to the plan, she explains.

The Trump plan has also “showed Netanyahu’s true face,” says Buttu. “It says to Palestinians who are living in the occupied territories, ‘We don’t want you.’ But the plan is also saying to Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, ‘You also don’t belong in the State of Israel, and so we have the right to get rid of you.’

For Buttu, this was one of the reasons Palestinians in Israel voted in even greater numbers this time around. That fact that Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party, supports the Trump deal and echoes many of Likud’s policies shows “just how far to the right Israeli society is.”

Despite — or perhaps because of — mounting racist attacks, the Palestinian-led Joint List won a record 15 seats, making it the third-largest party once again. But now, its members must decide how to use this political capital.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.

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Does this Far Right Group Expose What Israel Tries to Hide? Jan 17, 2020

When Meir Kahane, an extremist rabbi who advocated for Jewish supremacy through the use of violence, ran in Israel’s 1988 elections, the state’s Central Elections Committee barred his party, claiming it incited racism and threatened the democratic nature of the state. Similar to the fascist movements of 1930s Europe, Kahane envisioned a Jewish society that is ethnically and religiously “pure.”

Decades later, Kahanism is still viewed as radical in Israeli society. Otzma Yehudit, the political party formed by Kahane’s disciples, remains outside the halls of power — even with support from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But according to +972 Magazine editor Natasha Roth-Rowland, who is a doctoral student researching the Jewish far right in Israel and the United States, Kahanism doesn’t even need a party for its extremist ideology to permeate Israeli society.

“Since Kahane exploded onto the Israeli political scene, the entire spectrum of political discourse and political action has shifted vastly to the right in Israel society,” Roth-Rowland says on The +972 Podcast.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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The Palestinian Musician Shattering Taboos Dec 27, 2019

Singer-songwriter Maysa Daw always knew she wanted to become a musician. At 27, the Haifa native has a debut album out and is a member of two bands: famed Palestinian hip hop group DAM and new, all-women ensemble Kallemi.

In this episode, Maysa talks about the importance of shattering social taboos and airing out the dirty laundry, about her journey toward radical self-acceptance, about writing music in Arabic without access to the Arab world, and about the struggle to remain authentic while going mainstream.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and DAM.

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Who Will Israel Deport Next? Nov 27, 2019

The deportation of Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, put a spotlight on Israel's attempts to suppress dissent and criticism of its policies in the occupied territories.

For Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, one of the lawyers representing Shakir in his lengthy battle to stay in the country, the deportation “has huge potential ramifications” not only for foreign nationals trying to enter the country to work, study, or visit family, but also Israeli citizens and particularly Palestinians living under occupation.

“The minute that Israel decides that it’s its right to vet who gets to come in and work for human rights organizations is the minute that we see crystal clear that Israel’s democracy is eroding," Schaeffer Omer-Man told The +972 Podcast.

While Israel has always had laws that allow it to conduct security screenings and background checks on people living in and entering the country — as other countries also do — she says that Shakir's case shows Israel's turn toward policing speech and political opinions.
Advocates around the world have condemned Israel’s decision to kick Shakir out, warning of a chilling effect against other human rights workers in the country. Those effects, says Schaeffer Omer-Man, can already be felt: visitors, citizens, and activists alike are now silencing themselves in fear of retaliation.

“That obviously harms any movement to progress forward with Palestinian human rights and Palestinian freedom," she says. "It also denies Palestinians access to those who would otherwise support them, stand in solidarity with them and speak out on their behalf and alongside them. And it means that the Israeli human rights community starts to feel smaller and smaller."

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa and Chad Crouch. The news clip is courtesy of Activestills.

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What Does Israeli Liberalism Look Like? Sep 27, 2019

Almost two weeks after Israeli voters cast their ballots for a second time this year, it is still unclear which candidate will lead the country. To make sense of all this, The +972 Podcast turns to leading public opinion analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who says not much has changed since the April elections.

What’s different this time, however, is the growing debate over the separation of religion and state in Israel. This internal conflict “is not new, but it became a new arena of political competition in these elections,” explains Scheindlin. She posits that this extremely narrow view of liberalism could potentially grow into something bigger.

“Ultimately, that will open people’s eyes to all the other related values of a liberal society,” she says. That shift could inspire a deeper discussion on civil and individual rights in Israel, and perhaps push many Israelis to rethink the consequences of endless occupation.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Will Netanyahu's Attempt to Suppress the Palestinian Vote Backfire? Sep 13, 2019

Whereas in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu tried to appeal to his voter base by warning of Arabs going to vote “in droves,” now he is openly accusing Palestinian citizens of voter fraud and of “stealing” the elections.

Sawsan Zaher of Adalah, the legal center for Palestinian rights in Israel, talks to The +972 Podcast about how this voter intimidation campaign is affecting Palestinians in Israel, what Arab voters care about, and why some are deciding to vote for Zionist parties.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Has International Law Failed Palestinians? Aug 30, 2019

By understanding Zionism as a white supremacist project, the division between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians becomes reductionist, says Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights activist and author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.

Thinking of racism merely as a distinction between Jews and non-Jews pits Palestinians against the very groups who also suffer from Israel’s aspiration to whiteness, like Arab Jews and African immigrants and asylum seekers.

Reconstructing the racial dimensions of the Palestinian struggle can therefore offer new alliances and ways of thinking about the future. It can “create a place where we can all have dignity,” and where justice can be achieved for all, argues Erakat.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Could Mizrahim Find Their Most Natural Allies in Palestinians? Aug 16, 2019

It is no secret that for decades, the Zionist left discriminated against Mizrahim, or Jews with roots in Arab and Muslim countries, treating them as second-class citizens and pushing them to the economic, political, and cultural margins of Israeli society.

Mizrahim took matters into their own hands, forming political movements and parties of their own. Their resentment against the left pushed many of them into the arms of the right-wing Likud party.

And yet, says +972 writer and veteran Mizrahi activist Orly Noy, more than 70 years after Israel’s founding, Mizrahim are still fighting for crumbs from the Ashkenazi elite, whether on the left or the right.

Mizrahim now have an opportunity to move beyond the politics that have kept them marginalized, Noy says, by standing alongside Palestinian citizens of Israel.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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How BDS Became Such A Big Deal in American Politics Aug 01, 2019

The United States’ approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dramatically transformed since Trump took office, but a lot of those changes — from legislation to defund the Palestinian Authority to an attempt to criminalize boycotting Israel — actually came from Congress.

It’s BDS and the idea of boycotting Israel to pressure into changing its policies, however, that has turned into a major wedge issues in American politics. Republicans are pushing radical legislation that would criminalize boycotting Israel, a move opposed by the ACLU and others as unconstitutional, and Democrats are falling into their trap.

"There's got to be a point when you say, whether or not I adopt this tactic, this is a legitimate nonviolent tactic that we will defend," says Lara Friedman, an expert on everything Israel-Palestine on the Hill, and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Democrats need to decide not to throw those in their party who do support boycotts under the bus "in order to make the right, which will never ever be satisfied with our position, feel better about us. We're never going to be in that tent — we don't want to be in that tent," she says.

Follow Lara Friedman on Twitter: @LaraFriedmanDC

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Exposing Israel's Arms Sales to Oppressive Regimes Jul 12, 2019

Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack is working to uncover both Israel’s historic ties to brutal military regimes, such as Pinochet’s Chile, as well as its current arms exports to countries carrying out gross violations of human rights, like South Sudan and Myanmar.

Israel's ticket to becoming an arms exporter — with deals dating as far back as the 1950s, when the global arms industry was already saturated — is Israel’s “no questions asked” policy, explains Mack: “You don’t criticize what we are doing in the occupied territories and inside Israel, and we won’t say anything and won’t ask questions about what you’re doing.”

Read more about uncovering Israel’s shady arms sales:

Just a reminder that +972 Magazine and The +972 Podcast are nonprofit journalism. Like what you hear? Please consider making a donation: https://972mag.com/donate.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Israel Wants to Deport this Human Rights Defender Jun 28, 2019

For more than a year now, Israel has been trying to deport the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir. The ongoing litigation began in May 2018, when Israel decided to revoke Shakir’s work authorization in Israel.
This was the first time the Israeli government had used a 2017 amendment to its Law of Entry, which denies entry to those who publicly support a boycott of Israel, to deport someone already present in the country.
Shakir's case has become a watershed moment for democracy and free speech in Israel. In the latest episode of the podcast, he talks about Israel's attempt to limit criticism of its policies in the occupied territories, and the impact this crackdown has on Palestinian rights in particular.
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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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The Other Two-State Solution: Confederation Jun 13, 2019

Is the two-state solution really dead? Who knows if it ever will be. But an equitable one-state solution isn’t a given, and there are other models out there for creating a Palestinian state.

Confederation keeps the basic idea of two states but without separation between them. Borders are open and meant to facilitate movement instead of hinder it. Palestinians and Israelis alike can live anywhere between the river and the sea. But both peoples have their own government and get to exercise their right to national self-determination.

Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin joins The +972 Podcast to talk about how the plan addresses Palestinian refugees, why physically splitting Jerusalem is a horrible idea, and to discuss other models of confederation and what we can learn from them.

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The theme music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Being Palestinian During Israeli Pride Week May 31, 2019

Every year, thousands of tourists travel to Tel Aviv in mid-June to take part in the annual Pride Week festivities.

For LGBTQ Palestinians living in Israel, however, the celebrations are far more complicated. Israel likes to celebrate how liberal and pluralistic it is while covering up — or “pinkwashing” — its human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, says our guest on this episode, journalist Zizo Abul Hawa.

Caught between wanting to celebrate their gender identities and stand up for Palestinian rights, Pride Week brings into focus the balancing act that queer Palestinians often face.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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The Other Palestinian March of Return May 15, 2019

Every year for over two decades, thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel have marked Nakba Day by marching to the site of a different village that was depopulated and destroyed during the Nakba.

While the story of Palestinian refugees — 700,000 of whom were driven out or fled in 1948 — is relatively well known, we rarely speak of those who were internally displaced during the war. They remained in what became Israel but were never allowed to return to their homes.

This year, the Return March marking Nakba Day was held in one such village, Khubbeiza. +972 Magazine's Henriette Chacar went to the march to hear from participants of various ages what it means to them.

See photos from this year's return march.

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The theme music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Watching a Revolution in Exile May 07, 2019

In early April, Sudanese armed forces deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity after nearly three decades of rule.

The Sudanese refugee community in Israel celebrated al-Bashir’s fall, which came after months of protests across Sudan. Along with the excitement of regime change, however, there’s concern that those who deposed al-Bashir are the same generals who committed genocide in his name.

In this episode, our guest Mutasim Ali, a refugee from Darfur and one of the leaders of the Sudanese refugee community in Israel, talks about witnessing a revolution in exile, being a refugee in Israel, and his dreams of returning home.

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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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What Just Happened? — A Post-Election Debrief Apr 18, 2019

A week after Netanyahu easily won another election, things don’t look all that different in Israel-Palestine. But one thing has changed: Everyone who told themselves Israel was seeking a two-state solution all this time now has some difficult and painful questions to face.
Our guest this week, +972 Magazine co-founder and contributing editor Lisa Goldman, doesn’t think most people have the courage to look that reality in the eyes.
“They're going to come up against a pretty thick wall pretty soon. How can we be a democracy if half the people living permanently under Israeli control can't vote? That's going to be pretty difficult to explain to the outside world.”
In this week’s episode, we debrief after the elections and discuss both their short and long-term consequences.
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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Why Voting to Maintain the Occupation is Rational for Israelis Apr 04, 2019

Israeli elections are right around the corner. But for a country that controls millions of non-citizens, the concept of democracy becomes muddled.
In this episode, +972 Magazine writer Noam Sheizaf explains why, as opposed to the one- or two-state paradigm most of the world thinks in, Israelis consistently vote for a third option: maintaining the occupation just as it is.
"Netanyahu and the right have been saying to Israelis that, not only is the status quo is significantly better than the one-state or two-state solution, but some of the things that people said you can only achieve through a peace deal, can [actually] be achieved within the status quo."
In the second half, former +972 writer Omar Rahman, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, talks about what it means for Palestinians to have no say in elections that in many ways could determine their national fate, in addition to their daily lives.
"When we're looking at Israeli elections, whether it's the left or the center or the right or the far-right that's elected, that has a tremendous impact on the daily lives of Palestinians and they don't have any say over that. So there's a deep uneasiness over what's coming, which you have no control over."
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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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'Accidental' Rockets from Gaza? Mar 29, 2019

Two rockets fired toward Tel Aviv from Gaza were described, by both Israel and Hamas, as "mistakes" in recent weeks. Tareq Baconi, of the International Crisis Group, joins The +972 Podcast to talk about why that's probably not the whole truth (14:00), how the Great March of Return (8:40) and Israeli elections come into play (15:30), and the consequences we're starting to see from the Trump administration's change in approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (24:50).
"I personally don't believe the story that the two rockets were fired by mistake. This narrative allows both Hamas to claim that it is still is abiding by its policy of not firing rockets, and giving Israel the leeway to not respond in force or through a major escalation. It's basically a fig leaf that allows both parties to to pretend that they're still interested in averting an escalation, but also reminding the other that they could if the cease fire doesn't hold."
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The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Do Ethiopian-Israelis Have Anyone to Vote For? Mar 20, 2019

Decades after the first Ethiopian immigrants arrived in Israel, the community still suffers from high poverty, discrimination, and recent police shootings have brought on mass protests. Mazal Bisawer, a prominent activist, says Israelis can't seem to admit that anti-black racism exists in their society.

Later in the episode, editor-in-chief Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man discusses the Supreme Court's recent decision to disqualify a Jewish supremacist candidate from running in Israeli elections, and why nobody should be celebrating quite yet.

Read Edo Konrad's full article: 'To be Ethiopian in Israel is to be constantly struggling for something'
Read Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man's article: These elections are a choice between resignation and despair

The music in this episode is by Ketsa.

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Should Palestinians Vote in Israel? Mar 11, 2019

Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli rule don't get to vote in the upcoming Israeli elections — but some other Palestinians can. Rejecting calls to boycott the elections, Palestinian Member of Knesset Aida Touma-Sliman says that when things get hard you're supposed to fight harder, not run away.
In the first episode of The +972 Podcast, we speak with MK Touma-Sliman about the Palestinian struggle for equality as an oppressed and persecuted minority in Israel.
Later in the episode, +972 co-founder Noam Sheizaf discusses the political re-alignment taking place in Israel, the anyone-but-Netanyahu platform of his sole challengers, and why Kahanists in the Knesset is such a scary proposition.
The music in this episode is by Ketsa.
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