Makdisi Street

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Latest Episodes:

"Israel is a dependent empire" Jun 02, 2025

Show notes

**Producer's note: The brothers are hosting their first livestream this coming TUESDAY (O6/03) at 10 am EST! It will be a Patreon-exclusive Q&A so only supporters of the show can submit questions or watch live. Sign up for as little as $5 a month and access all the great bonus content as well**

The brothers explore the latest Gaza ceasefire negotiations, the abject failure of the corporate media to cover the crude and explicit expressions of racism and genocidal intent from across the spectrum of Israeli society, the sudden shift among European leaders as they attempt to rhetorically distance themselves from the genocide, and the continuing cost to those who speak out against the genocide in increasingly repressive Western societies.

Credit to Nikita Gill for her poem concluding this episode

Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: May 27, 2025.

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Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one

"Israel is synonymous with the end of the rules-based order" w/ Noura Erakat May 27, 2025

Show notes

**Producer's note: The brothers are hosting their first livestream! It will be a Patreon-exclusive Q&A so only supporters of the show can submit questions or watch live. Sign up for as little as $5 a month and access all the great bonus content**

The brothers welcome legal scholar Noura Erekat to the show to discuss how the Gaza genocide has threatened to end the "rules-based international order;" the failure of international legal institutions to take meaningful action to stop the genocide; the collapse of Israel's standing and reputation in Western societies; and how to retain "infallible optimism" despite the most disturbing assessments of the status quo.

Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: May 20, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one

"Zionism is an anachronism" May 17, 2025

Show notes

The brothers discuss the extent to which Trump represents a possible shift in US policy in the Middle East, contrasting the possibility of new deal-making in the Gulf region and elsewhere (Iran, Syria) with the retrograde pull of Zionist pressure to extend the genocide in Gaza and derail the drive towards profit-driven capitalist stabilization in the region.

Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: May 15, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"We were conscripted into the Zionist project" w/ Avi Shlaim May 07, 2025

Show notes

The brothers welcome preeminent British Israeli historian Avi Shlaim to the show to discuss the richness of Arab Jewish identity, and how the ideology of Zionism is based on the negation and denial of this identity and coexistence, his own family's migration from Iraq to newly-created Israeli state, the reception they received there, and the wider story of Jewish minorities in Iraq and other Arab countries. Shlaim discusses the role Mossad played in the uprooting of Baghdad's historic Jewish community in the early 1950s and what he sees as the undeniable signs of the implosion from within Zionism.

Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: April 15, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"Law as a cudgel that you deploy selectively" w/ Sarah Leah Whitson Apr 30, 2025

Show notes

The brothers welcome Sarah Leah Whitson, the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and former director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, to discuss the role of human rights advocacy amidst the ongoing genocide, the initiative to hold Blinken, Biden, and Lloyd Austin legally accountable, the failure of the ICC, and how Gaza has proven to be the "graveyard" of the "rules-based order."

Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: April 8, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"The Israeli disposition is to maximize what it can get" w/ Daniel Levy Apr 19, 2025

Show notes

The brothers welcome Daniel Levy, president of the US Middle East Project (USMEP) and former negotiator, to discuss how Israelis employ negotiations to pursue their political goals of expansionism, the role of the US as a supposed third-party guarantor, and the growing internal political chaos threatening the Israeli political status quo.

Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: April 7, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"An even worse collaboration than the one before" w/ Abdaljawad Omar Apr 12, 2025

Show notes

The brothers welcome Palestinian analyst and researcher Abdaljawad Omar (@hhamayel2) to the show to discuss the nature of the Palestinian Authority's collaborative dealings with the Israeli occupation, how it compares against other examples of collaboration historically, how supporters of the PA regime view their role through the prism of national liberation, and why Palestinians in the West Bank are not able to do more to fight colonial expansion.

Check out Abduljawad's recent articles and interviews

Watch the video edition on our Youtube channel Date of recording: April 1st, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"We refuse to change our Syrian identity" w/ Wael Tarbieh Apr 05, 2025

Show notes

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-marsad.org/category/map-en/

Watch the video edition on our Youtube channel

Date of recording: March 24, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"Palestinians have the right to reject surveillance" w/ Hadeel Assali Mar 22, 2025

Show notes

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 story of a secret Israeli population transfer scheme to move Palestinians from Gaza to Paraguay, and the possibilities of life and mutual aid amidst the ongoing genocide.

"Opacity in Gaza" http://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/

"Maintaining the Social Fabric: Mutual Aid in Gaza" https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1656919

Watch the episode on our YouTube channel

Date of recording: March 10, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

"Nobody wants to name the traumatizer" w/ Lara Sheehi Mar 11, 2025

Show notes

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 YouTube channel

Date of recording: March 3, 2025.

X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii

*Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest one*

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