The brothers welcome journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates back to the show to discuss Kamala Harris's ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign and the debacle of the Democratic Convention's exclusion of Palestinian-American voices (about which he's written recently for Vanity Fair), the betrayal of the radical Black tradition, tensions in the civil rights movement over the question of Palestine and the significance of the emerging break with Zionism on the American right.   Check out his article:  https://www.vanityfair.com/story/the-next-black-president?srsltid=AfmBOorwIn31nJd05iOQ99YVlFQ7ldQCrcpGKRpwpda8EBI4DZctwE7j Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel https://youtu.be/rZrXgODaPV4 Date of recording: July 13, 2026 X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Check out Ussama's personal SubStack https://makdisi.substack.com/ Music by Hadiiiiii Consider supporting the showwww.patreon.com/makdisistreet    

**Please join our Patreon for access to our next livestream and to submit your questions/comments**   Come and join the brothers for another patron-only livestream discussion of the situation in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza. We look forward to your questions and comments! Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: July 16, 2026 X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Check out Ussama's personal SubStack https://makdisi.substack.com/ Music by Hadiiiiii Consider supporting the showwww.patreon.com/makdisistreet    

The brothers welcome back Aslı Ü. Bâli, Professor of Law at Yale Law School, for an intense and wide-ranging discussion of the state of the Middle East in the aftermath of the failed US-Israeli war on Iran.  They discuss the potential geopolitical outcomes the apparent US strategic defeat, examine the nature and assumptions of what had been American primacy over the Gulf, the liability and costs to the US and the Middle East of the decades-long American political embrace of an Israel drunk on borrowed power and impunity, Turkey's role in the regional realignment, the question of pipelines and resources, and the importance of international law in the context of the Gaza genocide. Check out her recent article, "Object Lessons" https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/object-lessons/ Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: June 23, 2026 X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Check out Ussama's personal SubStack https://makdisi.substack.com/ Music by Hadiiiiii Consider supporting the showwww.patreon.com/makdisistreet  

With the 2026 World Cup having started in the USA, the brothers welcome Abdullah Al-Arian, Chair of History at Georgetown University Qatar and editor of Football in the Middle East: State, Society, and the Beautiful Game. We talk about how football shapes Arab identity, including the role of diaspora, and how it is instrumentalized by Arab states. We also talk about the controversies and politics of the World Cup, including the journey of Team Palestine during a genocide, and discrimination against Iran's team and fans from across the global south. We wrap by discussing the question of FIFA Eurocentrism, corruption, and double standards, including FIFA's cowardice in not banning Israel. For the record, we all try to predict who will win the World Cup! Date of recording: June 19, 2026 Follow us on our socials: X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii Consider supporting the showwww.patreon.com/makdisistreet  

In anticipation of the publication of Eyal Weizman's new book, Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide, which will be released in the US next month, the brothers hosted a livestream with Eyal to which our Patreon supporters had access, including the opportunity to ask questions of Eyal either via the livestream chat (which we will moderate) or in advance via email. Watch the livestream edition https://youtu.be/EInAD1Utpgw Date of recording: June 16, 2026 Follow us on our socials: X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii Consider supporting the showwww.patreon.com/makdisistreet

The brothers discuss the latest developments in the regional war, with a special focus on Lebanon and the nature of Israeli bombardment of civilian homes, which is tied to the destruction of homes on different scales across historical Palestine since 1948. The brothers also discuss co-existence in the Mashriq region and the Zionist challenge to that. Check out Ussama's article https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/03/opinion/lebanon-israel-iran-war.html Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: June 8, 2026 Follow us on our socials: X: @MakdisiStreet YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet Music by Hadiiiiii Consider supporting the show for access to the first Makdisi Street Reviews livestream!

The brothers welcome Trita Parsi back to the show to discuss the status of US-Iran negotiations, the pressures of the ongoing stalemate on both sides, the prospects of an agreement given Israel's continued disruption in Lebanon and the vagaries of Trump's egotism, whether Iran can coerce a stop to Israeli aggression in Lebanon & Germany's experience of schadenfreude in the UN. Check out Trita's Substack https://tritaparsi.substack.com/ Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: June 4, 2026 Follow us on our socials: 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 brothers-only conversation.

The brothers get together for a conversation about the ongoing Israeli war on Lebanon, the meaning of deterrence, the role of Iran in Lebanon, the question of Lebanon's sovereignty, and the divisions within Lebanon about how best to defend the country and its people. Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Date of recording: May 28, 2026 Follow us on our socials: X: @MakdisiStreet Insta: @Makdisist TikTok: @Makdisistreet YouTube: @Makdisistreet Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to access all the bonus content, including the latest brothers-only conversation.  

The brothers welcome Lebanese scholar and original "Angry Arab" Asad AbuKhalil, author, columnist, professor, and public intellectual.  The discuss the increasing depravity of a long history of Israeli wars on Lebanon going back to 1948; why so many in Lebanon continue to put their faith in the pipe-dream of peace with a state that is actively committing genocide, the neglect of the South during the decades of alleged Lebanese prosperity in the run up to the civil war, the origins of the Dahiye, why the current Lebanese government has turned its back on resistance, and the extent to which Lebanese leaders and politicians have collaborated with Israel since 1948, the difference between the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and today, the price of, and discontent with resistance, and the anti-Shii bigotry of Lebanese political culture. Date of recording: May 13, 2026 Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Follow us on our socials: 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 brothers-only conversation.

The brothers welcome to the show Jehad Abusalim, who grew up in the city of Deir el Balah in the Gaza Strip and now heads the Gaza Genocide Center.  They discuss what it was like to grow up under occupation in Gaza, what normal life was like for a generation under siege, isolated and cut off from the world.  They discuss the ongoing Gaza genocide, still being perpetrated by Israel (though it is no longer being covered in Western media), the conditions for yet again displaced Palestinians living in the aftermath of Israel's destruction of Gaza and in the deliberate limbo covered up by Trump's Orwellian "Board of Peace."  And they take up the question of Gaza's possible futures in the face of brazen indifference and inhumanity. Date of recording: May 7, 2026 Watch the video edition on our YouTube channel Follow us on our socials: 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 brothers-only conversation.