In part two, historian and genocide scholar Omer Bartov discusses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions to prolong the plight of the Israeli hostages and the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza in order to remain in power. Bartov also derides the U.S. billionaires who pressured university presidents to break up pro-Palestine student encampments.
In a much-anticipated ruling, the ICJ has unequivocally denounced the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as illegal. Israeli-American historian and genocide scholar Omer Bartov contextualizes Israeli society’s widespread justification of the occupation and how Israeli politicians and mainstream media pundits are cheering on the torture of Palestinian detainees. He discusses the recent release of footage documenting the rape of Palestinians at the Sde Teiman detention center and the storming of several detention sites by Israeli far-right mobs in defense of Israel’s “right to torture.”
The assassination of Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian soil was an embarrassment to the Iranian regime and its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, lays out how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to corner Kamala Harris – should she win the presidency – into steering U.S. policy in the direction of an all-out war in the Middle East. Yet neither is her bearhug of Netanyahu, nor a war, inevitable.
Paul Jay welcomes Adolph Reed, an academic, author, activist, and organizer, for part two of their discussion. Reed says there should be no illusions about corporate Democrats’ aggressive foreign policies, especially in Gaza and Ukraine, but there should also be no illusions that Trump won’t be dangerously worse.
The Biden administration has denounced ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismael Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri. Middle East analyst Assal Rad underscores the U.S. government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes in Gaza by arming Israel despite numerous ICJ rulings calling for Netanyahu’s government to adhere to its commitments under the Genocide Convention, and most recently, to immediately halt its operation in Rafah. She also discusses the potential implications of the recent deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
In part 2, journalist Tom Stevenson discusses the nuclear threat posited by the ongoing war in Ukraine, with Russia recently staging tactical nuclear exercises close to the Ukrainian border, allegedly in response to provocative statements made by U.K.’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron endorsing Ukraine’s potential use of British-supplied weapons to strike Russian territory. He also breaks down Israel’s destructive aims in Gaza and why certain bloody conflicts, such as the war in Tigray, have been forgotten.
Following Israel’s killing of 7 WCK aid workers, Western politicians appeared to reconsider their unwavering support of Netanyahu’s government, if only for a brief moment. Iran’s attack on military targets in Israel, in response to Israel’s strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, has since been cited by the U.S. and Germany as a justification for continued military support for Israel. Sari Hanafi, Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut, discusses Germany’s past genocidal war crimes as well as the ICJ case brought by Nicaragua examining Germany’s complicity in genocide in Gaza.
The fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX passenger aircraft and the recent Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 incident, in which a door-plug blew out after take-off, are consequences of Boeing’s systemic incentivization of profits over safety. Katya Schwenk, reporter at The Lever, discusses the policies of recent administrations to enable Boeing’s industry takeover and criminal negligence, as well as similar practices of covering up safety issues in the shipping industry, which potentially led to the Dali cargo ship’s collapsing of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
The Israeli attack on a civilian aid convoy, which killed seven World Central Kitchen workers, has pushed U.S. officials to entertain policy alternatives to unconditional aid to Israel. Bill Hartung, national security and U.S. foreign policy analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, discusses the Biden administration’s weapons sales to Israel, many of which have not been reported to U.S. Congress. Hartung addresses the role of venture capital firms in shaping the U.S. defense industry, firms which advocate the development of dual-use technology or artificial intelligence as optimized tools to wage warfare.
In part 2, Walid Habbas provides a detailed account of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and its actions to separate Gaza into isolated areas with no public governance and little to no access to humanitarian aid. Not only is Netanyahu’s government holding up the flow of vital aid into the Gaza Strip, it is weaponizing the provision of limited aid in order to accelerate the breakdown of civilian structures and the mass starvation of Palestinians. A scholar on the unequal relations between Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories, Walid Habbas also discusses the political landscape of Palestinian ruling parties and their conflicting positions regarding the path to Palestinian liberation.
Israel has expanded its role as an occupying power in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip by building illegal settlements, establishing practices of indirect colonial management founded on military proclamations, and imposing checkpoints and blockades to control the livelihood of Palestinians since 1967 in particular. Walid Habbas, researcher at the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (MADAR), zooms out from the current atrocities and applies a bird’s eye view to flesh out the dynamics of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Besides military deployments enforcing the occupation, Walid delves into Israel’s control of Palestinian industry and the various forms of economic dependency that emerge from it.
In Part 2, Assal Rad speaks to the importance of U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., where he stated that he would “not be complicit in genocide” in the Gaza Strip. Assal Rad, scholar of the Middle East, highlights the Biden administration’s deceitful unwillingness to hold Israel to account in the face of the IDF’s well-documented atrocities in Gaza while it simultaneously withholds funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on the mere basis of allegations.
Despite the ICJ’s ruling calling for the prevention of plausibly genocidal acts against the Palestinians, the IDF continues its slaughter of civilians in the Gaza Strip with impunity. Assal Rad, historian, and Middle East scholar discusses the plight of 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah and the absurdity of placing their livelihood in the hands of Israeli officials whose aim is anything but ensuring their safety. If Israeli government plans are not just another step towards ethnic cleansing, why won’t Prime Minister Netanyahu propose evacuating Palestinians to Israel in order to ensure their subsequent safe return back to the Gaza Strip?
In part 2, Joshua Landis discusses Hamas’ recent ceasefire proposal and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned ground incursion into Rafah. Netanyahu has rejected international calls to abandon a military onslaught on the densely populated area around the Rafah Crossing, where 1.4 million Palestinians from all over the Gaza Strip are seeking shelter in a 64-square-kilometer area. Landis contends that Bibi’s explicit repudiation of a two-state solution, as well as lack of plans to guarantee the safety of civilians before launching an invasion of Rafah, does little to assuage concerns about the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Joshua Landis is a historian and Sandra Mackey Chair and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, as well as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Landis presents the case for an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal in the Middle East, arguing that many civil society groups as well as militant groups in Iraq are strongly opposed to the U.S.’ military presence there. This is Part 1 of 2.
Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi is a Professor of Language and Literacy at Michigan State University and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Michigan is key to Biden’s presidential run, where Muslim and Arab-Americans in the state have withheld support from Biden due to his full backing of Israel’s genocidal project in Gaza.
Dr. Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says the U.S. and U.K. bombing of Yemen is illegal. He highlights the U.S. and U.K.’s spin doctoring of the Houthi’s stated objective of attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea until a ceasefire in Gaza is reached. He criticizes Biden’s disdain for obtaining Congressional authorization to launch offensive strikes in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria.
Dr. Ardi Imseis is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Queen’s University, as well as a legal practitioner, having spent 12 years working for the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Imseis argues that the UN has not been the standard-bearer of the international rule of law but, since 1947, has enforced “rule by law” in the way it has created and then “abused and selectively applied” international law with regards to the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. He discusses UN General Assembly Resolution 77/247, which calls on the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on the legal status of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Israeli Member of Knesset Dr. Ofer Cassif is a member of the Hadash Party, which supports Jewish-Arab cooperation and workers’ rights. MK Cassif highlights how the occupation generates class inequalities and a regime of elite oppressors vs. the oppressed, which is not exclusively based along ethnic or religious lines. He outlines Prime Minister Netanyahu’s disregard for the well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians, as well as a history of propping up Hamas.
This interview was originally published on July 9, 2014. Mr. Hever says he became politically active after the Second Intifada was repressed with extreme violence by the Israeli military and police.
This interview was originally published on July 11, 2014. Mr. Hever says Israel sells weapons and equipment of repression to countries with extreme inequality.
This interview was originally published on July 10, 2014. Mr. Hever says in colonial conditions the master fears and hates the servants who might rise up and demand their rights.
This interview was originally published on July 13, 2014. Mr. Hever says the occupiers always want peace – a peace that strengthens the status quo.
Nadim Houry, Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative, discusses the role of Arab countries in the Middle East in demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and negotiating the release of hostages taken by Hamas. Normalization between Bahrain and the UAE with Israel, in addition to negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, has been disrupted as the Israeli bombardment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza continues. Houry also addresses previous attempts to advance peace, such as the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, and argues that a regional rather than bilateral approach with Israel is necessary, one which requires a non-negotiable end to settlement expansion in the West Bank and brings Iran and other regional actors into the fray.
Retired U.S. Colonel Larry Wilkerson discusses the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombardment of Gaza and large-scale indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian civilians. He points to state-sanctioned torture and other unlawful acts committed by the U.S. after 9/11 and asserts that the Israeli government is responding to Hamas’ attacks in a similar fashion by wholly disregarding international legal norms. In doing so, Israel is putting its own population at risk, as well as collectively punishing the Palestinians.
The Government™ has made an ad about Israel & Gaza, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative.
Israeli-born political economist Shir Hever joins host Paul Jay to discuss the urgent need for a cease-fire, humanitarian aid, and a negotiated end to what’s becoming a genocide.
Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, analyzes Iran’s role in supporting Hamas’ brutal coordinated attack on civilians in Israel. Parsi unpacks Palestinian grievances, as well as Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment and illegal blockade of Gaza. With host Talia Baroncelli.
This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced on March 20, 2016. Paul Jay speaks to Roger Waters and Sut Jhally about the new film “The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States.”
This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced March 27, 2015. On Reality Asserts Itself, Craig and Cindy Corrie tell Paul Jay that in ruling against their claim, the Israeli Supreme Court essentially said that Israel is beyond international law.
This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced March 27, 2015. On Reality Asserts Itself, Craig and Cindy Corrie tell Paul Jay, “people find hope in the work that we’re doing and in the fact that Rachel was there that day, and stood against what was happening to all of those families in the Gaza Strip”.
This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced March 27, 2015. Sixteen years ago, Israel’s IDF murdered solidarity activist Rachel Corrie as she defended a Palestinian home from demolition; we replay our 2015 interview with her parents, with host Paul Jay.
Eva Bartlett talks about her experiences living in Gaza. This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced October 5, 2014, with Paul Jay.
Eva Bartlett talks about her experiences living in Gaza. This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced October 5, 2014, with Paul Jay.
Mr. Abunimah says there’s conspicuous consumption in Palestine but the reality for the vast majority in the West Bank and Gaza is increasing poverty. This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced May 18, 2014.
Mr. Abunimah, founder of Electronic Intifada, says after the Israeli 2006 invasion of Lebanon and the 2008 attack on Gaza, he knew what he had to do. This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced May 13, 2014.
On Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay, Phyllis Bennis examines proposals to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced December 13, 2013, with Paul Jay.