The brothers welcome Melani McAlister, professor of American Studies at George Washington University, author of the new book Promises, Then the Storm and scholar of American culture and evangelical culture. They discuss the meaning and nature of Christian Zionism, Melani's own insight after growing up an evangelical in North Carolina, how she learned about Israel before discovering the question of Palestine, the diversity within the evangelical movement, the different ways American evangelicals are Zionist, the significance of the evident generational fracture over Palestine, and her sense of the indictment of American liberalism over its denial of the Gaza genocide.

Date of recording: Oct 13, 2025.

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The brothers welcome Mandy Turner, a senior researcher with Security in Context, to discuss the world of think tanks, how they operate as hegemony factories, and the divergence between public opinion and elites on the Gaza genocide

Check out her article, "Hegemony factories or independent thinkers? Western think tanks on Israel and Palestine after October 7"

Date of recording: Sept 16, 2025.

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The brothers discuss the "ceasefire" in Gaza, the Trump plan, and the potential contradictions between Israel and its partners and enablers.

Date of recording: Oct 21, 2025.

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**Producer's note: This episode was marred by technical problems and connection issues. Apologies for the sound quality**

The brothers welcome the Canadian-Palestinian lawyer and former negotiator Diana Buttu (@dianabuttu) to the show to discuss the ceasefire in Gaza and the context of the Trump-branded "peace plan" for Gaza and its historical antecedents and possible outcomes.

Date of recording: Oct 9, 2025.

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The brothers welcome their father, Samir Makdisi, Professor Emeritus at the American University of Beirut, to the show. They discuss the significance of Makdisi Street—the street itself!— in Beirut's cultural history, the social and political location of Ras Beirut in the larger context of Beirut and Lebanon itself, student movements in the 1950s and 1960s, the gradual consolidation of a sectarian political culture in Lebanon and the many forms of resistance to it, and the transformations in Beirut and Lebanon since the onset of the Lebanese war in 1975. They also discuss the history of their own family in relation to Makdisi Street, Ras Beirut, Beirut and Lebanon, in addition to Palestine and the Arab world more generally.

This episode was recorded live and produced by Layla Makdisi.

Date of recording: August 8, 2025.

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The brothers get together for a spirited debate on the age-old question: Is Israel a proxy of the US?

Date of recording: Sept 9, 2025.

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The brothers welcome the prominent violinist, classical musician and Professor at the Barenboim-Said Akademie Michael Barenboim to have a heart-felt discussion about the relationship between classic music and dissent, his regret at not speaking out earlier in his life about Palestine, his horror at the ongoing Gaza genocide, and the implications of anti-Palestinian racism and repressive climate in Germany despite Berlin having the largest Palestinian community in Europe, the question of boycott, and the legacy and current meaning of his father and (our uncle) Edward Said's famous collaboration in creating the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin.

Date of recording: September 1, 2025.

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The brothers welcome back to the show Michael Fakhri (@michaelfakhri), United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, to discuss the open war of starvation on Gaza, how international institutions have abjectly failed their moral and legal duties, the role of the media, and what individuals can do to hold the responsible actors to account.

Check his episode from April 2024, "Famine is never a natural occurrence"

Date of recording: Aug 26, 2025.

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The brothers welcome to the show the Palestinian theologian and pastor Munther Isaac to discuss Palestinian Christianity in the context of the depravity of the Gaza genocide, the theology of empire, the anti-Palestinian distortions in both so-called Christian Zionism and liberal Western Chrisian churches, the urgent need for rethinking the meaning of witness and the need for global intervention because of the horrors of the Gaza genocide, as well as his recent book Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza (2025).

Date of recording: August 19, 2025.

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We welcome two brave California educators, Dr. Theresa Montano of Cal State Northridge and Dr. Christine Hong of UC Santa Cruz, who have been at the forefront of developing and advocating for a California Ethnic Studies Curriculum grounded in liberation and social justice rather than identity politics. We discuss how Ethnic Studies went from an insurgent field of knowledge in the 1960s to one adopted in 2017 by California. We also cover why the racist Palestine exception remains alive and well in the state of California; how educators, progressive politicians, and union organizers are pressured into complicity in denying Palestinian history; and we examine, as a generational shift takes place in support of Palestinian freedom and humanity, the insidious California Assembly Bill 715, which was brought by the Jewish Legislative Caucus in the midst of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza; we discuss how the bill would censor as "antisemitic" the teaching of Palestinian history by defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism, by amending the state education code to define nationality as a social group with shared values, and by creating a statewide K-12 antisemitism "coordinator" to police teachers and prevent students from learning about Palestine.

Date of recording: July 16, 2025.

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