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Since 1967, Israel has imprisoned as many as one million Palestinians—men, women, and children. Many are “administrative detainees,” taken without charge or a fixed release date, and receiving little or no due process and no trial by jury. Original detention orders can be renewed repeatedly. Many remain imprisoned for years, subjected to mental and physical abuse and torture. Might these detainees, arrested for so-called “public security,” more appropriately be called captives, hostages, or abductees? Journalist Hind Shraydeh joined us to discuss these Israeli arrest practices, prison conditions, prisoner abuse, the impact on families and communities, and efforts to end the occupation and its unjust system of abduction and incarceration. Hind will also be a panelist on this topic for the Voices from the Holy Land Film Salon on 8/17 at 3PM. More info can be found at voicesfromtheholyland.org.

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Lecturer, anthropologist and activist Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, continues talking with Margot Patterson about Israelis and Palestinians' past, present and future together. He discusses how Zionists historically and today perceive Israel's right to Palestine, their views of Palestinians and the ongoing war in Gaza, and  how Israel's brutal conduct of the war is altering Americans' perception of Israel and ending the taboo on criticism of it. A co-founder of the One Democratic State Campaign in Israel, Halper explains why a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is no longer possible; living together in one democratic state is the only way forward for Israelis and Palestinians.

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Anthropologist, activist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Jeff Halper speaks to Margot Patterson about how Israel’s genocide in Gaza and recent attack on Iran fit into its larger geopolitical goal of normalization with the Arab world and regional hegemony. Halper says Israel is intent on breaking Palestinian resistance, pacifying Palestine and creating a period of industrial quiet in which it can normalize relations with the Arab world via the Abraham Accords. 

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Dr. Emilio Dabed, who we last spoke with one year ago in July of 2024, returns to the show to offer a retrospective on the argument he advanced in an article published around that time. In that article, Dr. Dabed argues that the true purpose of international law is to administer colonial violence, and he defends this contention in light of the ICJ ruling that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. Only with a strategic and disciplined mass solidarity movement behind them will Palestinians may be able to make use of the international legal system.

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For this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine — a Beyond the Walls edition — Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Matthew Ghobrial Cockerill, a doctoral candidate in International History at the London School of Economics (LSE) and holds a law degree from the University of Chicago.

Cockerill’s research, especially during the past year, hones in on the demographics of fatalities in the Gaza Strip and their implications for determining the true nature & real intent of Israeli military conduct. His research exposing various Israeli claims as reliant on a falsification of the relevant statistics has been primarily published by the British NGO Action on Armed Violence.

Under his History Speaks social & multimedia platforms, Cockerill engages as a public intellectual, in vigorous public interest dialogue, analysis & debate, while contributing to the crucial aforementioned research about the reality of the genocidal Israeli assault on & criminal atrocities in Palestinian Gaza done under the apparent pretext of a war in response to the October 7th attacks.

https://x.com/history__speaks

https://www.youtube.com/@historyspeaksYT

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Masafer Yatta is a collection of hamlets in the Occupied West Bank that Israel has long tried to wrest from Palestinians living there. The intensifying struggle there is the topic of the recent Oscar-winning documenary "No Other Land." Robert Suberi is an American who has been going to Masafer Yatta since 2019 to document human rights abuses and to  be a protective presence for Palestinians under threat of attack by Israeli soldiers and state-backed settlers.  Suberi  talks about his evolution from ardent Zionist to a critic of the Israeli state committed to solidarity with the besieged residents of Masafer Yatta. Tthere are many groups providing protective presence in Palestine; Suberi discusses what they do and his own positive experience with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

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In this rebroadcast of our July 2024 interview with Dr. Emilio Dabed, a Palestinian-Chilean lawyer specializing in constitutional matters, international law, and human rights, we discuss his recent article for 972 Magazine entitled, "By failing to stop the Gaza genocide, the ICJ is working exactly as intended." We discuss the ICJ's failure to order a ceasefire in Gaza in the South Africa vs. Israel genocide case. Dabed argues that this reveals the true purpose of the international legal order: the administration of colonial violence. In light of Dabed's argument, we conclude by turning to the more recent ICJ case demolishing the legal foundations of Israel's occupation of Palestine. 

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This prescient conversation with Richard Falk, international law expert and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Occupied Palestine, anticipates the catastrophe that has been unfolding in Gaza for the past 18 months. In an interview recorded January of 2023, Falk discusses the significance of Israel’s 2018 nation-state law and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that Israel possesses exclusive right to all of the Land of Israel. Brazenly defying international law, the assertion repudiates the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle that has been promoted by the international community for decades. Professor Falk says Netanyahu’s claim on behalf of Israel to all of historic Palestine, including the West Bank, represents the final chapter in the Zionist enterprise. Like successful settler-colonial projects in the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, it will entail the elimination or complete marginalization of the indigenous population. Falk paints a somber scenario of what it is likely to mean for the Palestinians unless civil society mobilizes to defend them. 

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Pollster and Middle East scholar James Zogby discusses his recent column on the Drobles plan for Palestine, which he says Israel is advancing in Gaza and the West Bank despite or perhaps aided by its recent attack on Iran. Founder and president of the Arab-American Institute and managing director of Zogby Research Services, Dr. Zogby has written a weekly column on American politics for Arab newspapers for more than 30 years.  He speaks to Margot Patterson about the goal of ethnic cleansing that undergirds Israel and the United States' new aid mission in Gaza (the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation), Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran, the international community's weak response to it and to Israel's brutal war on Gaza,  and the U.N. conference on Palestine scheduled for June 17-20, which has now been cancelled. 

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 Since it's founding in 1996, Jewish Voice for Peace has advocated for Palestinian freedom and an end to Israeli occupation, apartheid and war. In early May, JVP held its first national meeting since 2017.  Some 2,000 members attended the national meeting in Baltimore, which JVP said was the largest gathering of anti-Zionist Jews in history. The convention drew well-known figures including Angela Davis, writer Naomi Klein, Congressman Rashida Tlaib, journalist Amy Goodman and others to discuss and organize how  to end U.S. support for the ongoing genocide in Gaza in the face of increasing government repression.  This episode airs some of  the speeches from that meeting. It  includes remarks by Stephanie Fox, executive director of JVP, and Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a board-certified  emergency medicine physician  at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Chicago who has provided emergency care to wounded patients in Gaza.