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A weekly take on US politics and policies and how they affect the world.
171 Episodes
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After Amazon and Google signed a $1.2bn contract to launch Project Nimbus, providing cloud technology to the Israeli government and the military, tech workers started to notice more Israeli use of artificial intelligence against the Palestinian people.Many of those engineers have become activists for “No Tech for Genocide”, including Zelda Montes, who was one of the dozens of Google staff who were recently fired for protesting against their company’s involvement with Israel.Montes and tech entrepreneur Paul Biggar, who founded Tech for Palestine, tell host Steve Clemons why they refuse to build technology used for oppression, surveillance, warfare and apartheid.
In this episode, host Steve Clemons speaks with Ussama Makdisi, professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley; and Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.The exchange of direct attacks between Iran and Israel is likely to subside, but the shadow war goes on, which could intensify as long as the war on Gaza continues, argues Vaez.And as long as the wider Palestinian issue remains unresolved, there is little to no hope for long-lasting stability throughout the region, says Makdisi, especially with the US policy of rejecting equal regard for the rights of the Palestinian people.
1To the United Nations official tasked with reporting on Palestinian human rights, international law is clear: Israel should withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967.Instead, Israel aims for the “impossibility to continue civil life in Gaza,” as UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese tells host Steve Clemons.Israel doesn’t deny the killings and mass destruction, but instead justifies its behaviour as “compliance with international humanitarian law”, Albanese says.And the failure of governments around the world to force Israel to stop the onslaught only weakens the idea of international law, “because it creates precedents for others to violate it”.
In this episode, Annelle Sheline tells host Steve Clemons that the contradictions in US policy toward Israel’s war in Gaza made her job as a State Department officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor “so difficult”. Sheline announced her resignation publicly on March 27.And Khaled Elgindy, a political scientist at the Middle East Institute, argues that US President Joe Biden is a big factor in the country’s stagnant policy toward Israel – supporting the war, with some alleviation of the humanitarian crisis. “Most people in the administration have probably moved on in their thinking,” Elgindy says.
The Biden administration has fallen into a predictable pattern on Gaza, according to Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch: Talk about concern for civilian casualties, but undercut any pressure on Israel to stop the war.Roth tells host Steve Clemons that US President Joe Biden is engaging in “cynical” election politics by refusing to enforce the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, or the World Court ruling ordering Israel to allow more food into Gaza, where starvation and disease are spreading because of Israeli measures.US disregard for international law will have far-reaching consequences, says Roth.
All of Israel’s modern wars have ended with US intervention, but the current war in Gaza has gone on for half a year because “Biden is a slow learner”, argues University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick.Israel needs an outside power to blame when it cannot achieve its aims. “That's because the war aims are fundamentally political, and the military cannot achieve them,” says Lustick.Lustick and Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti talk to host Steve Clemons about the current situation on the ground and the debate within the Democratic Party in the United States.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
“Does the United States want to be complicit in genocide?” This is the question that US leaders should be asking themselves as Israel’s war on Gaza continues, argues Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs.Sachs tells host Steve Clemons that Israel could not continue “for one day” without US support, and the rhetoric from top Democrats criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “meaningless” because no action is taken to stop the war crimes.This has led to US isolation on the world stage, as Israel is allowed to continue “whatever they have in their minds… which will never lead to peace”.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
US Senator Chris Van Hollen says it is time for the Biden administration to tell Israel, “If you continue to ignore us, there will be consequences.”Senator Van Hollen, who is one of seven senators (out of 100) to have called for a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, tells host Steve Clemons that Hamas’s surprise attack last year “does not justify the humanitarian catastrophe that we’re witnessing in Gaza”.The Democratic senator from Maryland said that the United States has to use “all the levers of our power and influence” to allow more aid to get to starving Palestinians.
US policy on Israel “looks incoherent because it is incoherent,” argues Matt Duss, former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, and this is making the United States look “feckless and weak”.Duss tells host Steve Clemons that Israel is violating US law by using US-supplied weapons while preventing humanitarian aid. But President Joe Biden “has simply taken the tools of leverage off the table”.Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, says there are still no indications that the Abandon Biden movement within the Democratic Party, nor Israel’s war crimes, will lead to a shift in course anytime soon.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis was the last big medical facility in the Gaza Strip destroyed by Israel’s war.The World Health Organization says Israel killed 627 doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and other healthcare workers between October and January.With almost no supplies entering Gaza, what is next for the 2.3 million Palestinians forced to live in inhuman conditions?Host Steve Clemons speaks with Dr Thaer Ahmad, an emergency room physician in Chicago who recently returned from volunteering at Nasser Hospital; and with Dr Muaiad Kittaneh, a haematologist/oncologist who co-founded the Palestinian-American Medical Association.
About 20 countries have announced suspension of funding to UNRWA, the agency that has been providing services to Palestinian refugees since 1950.The official reason for the suspension was Israel’s accusation that a dozen UNRWA employees in Gaza had participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks.To understand the potential consequences of undermining UNRWA – especially amid a humanitarian catastrophe – host Steve Clemons speaks with Leila Hilal, a former adviser to the UNRWA commissioner-general, and Anne Irfan, lecturer at University College London and author of Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the International Refugee System.
The United States' support for Israel’s war on Gaza makes the country look ineffectual and hypocritical to the rest of the world, according to Harvard University professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.Walt tells host Steve Clemons that Israel and the US-Israel relationship have changed over the decades, but US President Joe Biden is holding on to a view of Israel formed in the West in the 1970s.By rejecting a ceasefire, the US looks like it "encourages conflict" instead of being a peacemaker, Walt argues, especially since Israel has no political strategy for resolving the Palestinian question.
American voters feel “impotent and hopeless” as they approach an election where the main choices are a “neo-fascist Pied Piper” (Donald Trump) or “the war criminals of the Democratic Party”, argues independent presidential candidate Cornel West.West, one of the United States’s pre-eminent philosophers and justice activists, tells host Steve Clemons that President Joe Biden is enabling Israeli genocide and that Israel cannot be secure if “precious Jewish security and safety is predicated on the domination of precious Palestinians”.West argues that recent talk of a two-state solution is “subterfuge – a refusal to deal with the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank”.
Actions speak louder than words, so journalists should conclude that Israel’s war on Gaza is proceeding exactly as the Biden administration likes, argues Jeremy Scahill, one of the co-founders of the independent news website The Intercept.Scahill tells host Steve Clemons that the United States offers political, legal, diplomatic and military support for Israel’s scorched-earth campaign, while some officials have voiced concern for Palestinian lives.Scahill argues that even if Hamas did not exist, Israel would face armed resistance because, over the decades, Palestinians have been sent the message that diplomacy would not work and Israel would not treat them as human beings.
President Joe Biden’s failure to demonstrate the same regard and sympathy for Palestinian suffering as he has shown Israel has turned the United States into “Israel’s lawyer,” says former US State Department official Aaron David Miller.Miller tells host Steve Clemons that Israel has lost the Western perception of being David in the story of “David v Goliath,” and its image will be further damaged the more its people veer to the right.US officials “don't have any better answers right now than the Israelis do”, Miller says, adding that there will be no “open breach” in relations with the Netanyahu government.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
Israel waged 15 wars against Gaza in the last 75 years, and all failed to resolve the core issues, says former French diplomat Jean-Pierre Filiu, professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po.Filiu tells host Steve Clemons that Gaza’s rich history as a trading post connecting Africa and Asia goes back 4,000 years. The way Israel has cut it off from the world “goes against its history and the nature of its people”.He says Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s heritage sites - ancient mosques, churches, museums - means that “the memory of humanity is being erased before our eyes.”
By mimicking United States tactics in World War II in Germany and Japan, Israel has made a grave mistake with its war on Gaza, according to retired US Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.Kimmitt tells host Steve Clemons that Israel’s tactics - firebombing and “starting new” - have made it unwelcome among the peoples of the region.Despite Israel’s assassination of a top Hamas commander in Lebanon and disruption of shipping routes in the Red Sea, the US is less concerned about regional instability than it was in October. The situation “has not hit US red lines,” he says.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
David Frum, staff writer for The Atlantic magazine and a pro-Israel supporter, tells host Steve Clemons that Israel and the United States should “avoid solution-ism” for the Palestinians and focus on day-to-day necessities, like food and water.The way Israel has responded to the Hamas attack of October 7 was “inevitable”, Frum says, adding that “Israel has never been allowed this much scope to act”, by the US, United Kingdom and European Union.Join this wide-ranging conversation on the internal debates within Israeli society, and how Israel envisions the future of the region, including rapprochement with Saudi Arabia.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
In the evangelical Christian worldview, the 1948 creation of Israel was a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and the Palestinians are either “non-existent” or “the enemies of God, because they are the enemies of the State of Israel”, explains Palestinian human rights defender Jonathan Kuttab.Kuttab tells host Steve Clemons that believers of this interpretation of holy scripture do not care about international law or catastrophic war in the region. “They say, ‘Bring it on. That’s the End Times. That’s the Second Coming. That’s wonderful.’”And if 30 percent of Americans hold these beliefs, what is the impact on US policy on Palestine and Israel?Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
“No national liberation movement in history is based on what its enemy wants,” says the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad.For the Palestinian Authority to have any legitimacy in the eyes of the Palestinian people, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would have to expand its membership to include Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Fayyad tells host Steve Clemons.Without achieving a "national consensus", the Palestinian Authority is in no position to rule the Gaza Strip when Israel's war on Gaza ends, Fayyad says. Otherwise, the United States' hopes for a “revitalised” Palestinian leadership are pointless.Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribeFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglishFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeeraCheck our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile@AljazeeraEnglish#Aljazeeraenglish#News
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This might be the dumbest general I have ever heard interviewed.