Understanding Israel Palestine
Understanding Israel Palestine
KKFI 90.1 FM
Understanding Israel/Palestine advocates for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. The program offers multiple perspectives through interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by mainstream media. 
U.S. Media Complicity in Israel's Genocide in Gaza
Send us Fan Mail Margot Patterson talks to Robin Andersen, professor emerita of communications at Fordham University, about Andersen's new book, The Complicit Lens: U.S. Media Coverage of the Genocide in Gaza. In it, Andersen writes that the mainstream media in the United States abandoned journalistic standards of accuracy and impartiality in its coverage of events following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. Recycling Israeli talking points without adequate scrutiny, U.S. legacy media becam...
Aug 3
28 min
Al Mufta7 (The Key) and the Long View from the Palestinian Intellectual Street (with Zahir Zaydani)
Send us Fan Mail For this episode, we return to a 2021 interview with Zahir Zaydani, the penname of a grassroots Palestinian intellectual from the West Bank. As the news cycle escalates, returning to deeper, historical lines of analytical frameworks closer to the source ensures that we don't let the headlines obscure the forest for the trees. But first, some news... Story 1: When Ferran Torres scored in the 106th minute to seal Spain’s 1–0 World Cup victory over Argentina, the street ce...
Jul 24
28 min
Telling Essential Stories Through Independent Media
Send us Fan Mail The life and work of journalist Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now," is the subject of award-winning film-makers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's new documentary film, "Steal This Story, Please." Goodman has provided close amd consistent attention to Gaza and the Occupied West Bank since and even before Oct. 7. She talks about the role her Jewish upbringing has played in highlighting the oppression of Palestinians. She and Lessin discuss Israel-Palestine, the importanc...
Jul 20
28 min
How to Divest from Genocide by Direct Vote
Send us Fan Mail Do you want to take action but don't know where to start? Ben Case, organizer, author, and co-founder of Project for Responsive Democracy joins the show to talk about Not on Our Dime Pittsburgh, a local campaign to divest from genocide by direct vote. He details how the effort started, its results, and his advice for people hoping to take action.
Jul 10
28 min
Palestine's Prisoners
Send us Fan Mail In this rebroadcast of an earlier episode, Eamon speaks with Hind Shraydeh, Jerusalem-based journalist, about the practice of administrative detention in Palestine and her own husband's ordeal as a prisoner (administrative detainee).
Jul 6
28 min
Naomi Shihab Nye on Peace, Poetry and Palestine
Send us Fan Mail Acclaimed poet and writer Naomi Shihab Nye discusses her life and work in this conversation that originally aired in March of 2023 on KKFI's Understanding Israel Palestine program. The daughter of a Palestinian refugee and an American mother, Nye was a teenager living with her family near Jerusalem when the Six-Day War broke out in 1967, causing the family to return to the United States. She reads from her poetry and talks about how her experiences in Palestine affected...
Jul 4
28 min
Bills Before Congress Deepen U.S.-Israeli Military and Intelligence Ties
Send us Fan Mail Ben Freeman discusses a provision in the fy 2027 National Defence Authorization Act that would deepen and entrench U.S.-Israeli military cooperation to an unparalleled degree, creating partnerships hard to unravel and gutting Congressional oversight and accountability. An equally alarming provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027 would force the U.S to share almost all intelligence about the Middle East with Israel. The president would have to go be...
Jun 20
28 min
The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction
Send us Fan Mail The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction In this archival dive from September 2021, Alison Weir, executive director of If Americans Knew, exposes the calculated rollout of weaponized antisemitism laws. Five years later, the true design behind that campaign is undeniable. Host Jeremy Rothe-Kushel breaks out the tape to reveal how this premeditated legal framework was built specifically for this moment: to...
Jun 12
28 min
Part II of 'From Oslo to Gaza': Mideast Peace Negotiator Robert Malley  on the Errors of the Past
Send us Fan Mail This is Understanding Israel Palestine. I'm Margot Patterson, the producer of this week's episode. ’ll be talking to Robert Malley again, Mideast peace negotiator and author of the recent book Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine after news briefs. A yearlong Al Jazeera investigation found that as many as 51 countries armed Israel during its war on Gaza — including many that publicly condemned Israel, announced embargoes on weapons...
May 31
28 min
The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War
Send us Fan Mail The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War Part Two: The Nakba’s Blast Radius and the Capture of U.S. Foreign Policy Episode Description Seventy-eight years ago, the Nakba dismantled Palestinian society. Today, we are living inside its blast radius. What began in 1948 with the violent mass displacement of over 700,000 people has metastasized into a sprawling, multi-front geopolitical fire. We are now watching the Middle E...
May 22
28 min
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