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How have humanitarian organizations managed to deliver life-saving aid to millions of Gazans despite the dangerous and difficult conditions since Oct 7? Despite their success, why have the US and Israel set up an alternative mechanism for distributing aid under the auspices of the secretive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)? What principles guide the field of humanitarian relief, and how does the existing UN-backed mechanism compare with the practices of the GHF? Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America, joined the show this week to answer some of these questions and call on the world to allow her colleagues to do what they do best: deliver life-saving food, water, and aid to the people of Gaza as the UN announces that the entire population of the enclave is now at risk of famine.

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University administrators have imposed an unprecedented array of repressive measures designed to squelch student protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Faculty have been affected as well, with many losing their jobs for advocating for Palestine. Margot Patterson talks to NYU Professor Andrew Ross, the secretary of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, a national network of 130 campus chapters supporting student protesters and academic freedom, and Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), about the repression of dissent on campuses, the weaponization of antisemitism and the new McCarthyism. They say what's involved is not just pro-Palestine speech but an effort to destroy American universities. | 

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 Zeiad Abbas Shamroukh, Executive Director of the Middle East Childrens Alliance joins the show to talk about the conditions people in Gaza are facing, as Israel's total blockade on food, water, and medical supplies enters its third month and international groups warn of starvation and famine setting in. 

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Israel is calling up thousands of reservists to escalate its war on Gaza. Its vow to conquer the entirety of the Gaza Strip, rescue the hostages and eradicate Hamas comes after 19 months of a brutal assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians but has not dislodged Hamas. Khaled Elgindy discusses how a far-right ideologically driven government and a prime minister desperate to stay out of jail are prompting Israel to declare new war aims that include holding territory in the Gaza Strip indefinitely and forcing the Palestinian population into a small area in the south. The war plan approved May 4 by the Israeli cabinet comes as Israel maintains a total blockade on food, water, fuel  and humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip imposed March 2. Middle East analyst Khaled Elgindy is the author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians from Balfour to Trump. He teaches at Georgetown University, is a frequent commentator on the Middle East for the BBC, Al Jazeera and other news outlets and is the former  director of the program on Israeli-Palestinian Affairs at the Middle East Institute.

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Middle East analyst Khaled Elgindy discusses Israel's continuing bombardment and total blockade on food and humanitarian aid to Gaza, the U.S. role in the ongoing devastation there,  and what lies ahead for Palestinians and Israelis when Israel finally ceases its onslaught. Elgindy is the former director of the Middle East Institute's program on Israeli-Palestinian Affairs and the author of "Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians from Balfour to Trump." 

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This week we are rebroadcasting an interview we aired on June 28, 2024 by my co-host Margot Patterson. She interviewed journalist Mahmoud Mushtaha, assistant manager of We Are Not Numbers, a non-profit in Gaza that pairs young Palestinian writers with professional journalists to help them tell their stories to an English-speaking audience. Mahmoud had left Gaza for Egypt just a month before the interview, in which he describes the harrowing conditions he and his family faced in Gaza. The conditions that Mahmoud describes have only intensified since his interview in June 2024. On March 2, Israel resumed its blockade of humanitarian supplies and on March 18 the ceasefire collapsed after Israel bombed Gaza, killing 400 people in one day. On April 3, Mahmoud published an article for 972 Mag entitled “In Gaza’s devastated hospitals, treatable patients face ‘slow, quiet death.’ In the piece, he describes the well-documented massacre of Red Crescent paramedics on March 23 and the almost complete collapse of Gaza’s medical system.

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In a talk given on Thursday, April 10 at the First Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Issa Amro reflects on the challenges he and Palestinians have faced in nonviolently resisting Israel's ethnic cleansing in and around Hebron following Oct. 7. Issa Amro is a Palestinian human rights activist who has dedicated his life to peaceful resistance against Israeli occupation in the West Bank city of Hebron. Together with the activist group he founded, Youth Against Settlements (YAS), he has become a leading voice in the non-violent movement, striving to create a future where Palestinians live freely and with dignity. 

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Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, discusses the threat to free speech posed by the International Holocaust Rembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism now being adopted by many schools, institutions, communities and states. The definition associates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. While opposed by a broad range of human rights organizations, civil liberties groups, Palestinian rights supporters and religious groups, the IHRA is increasingly being used as a legal standard. Friedman says the IHRA is part of a long-standing effort to limit what can be said about Israeli policies and practices and to suppress free speech on Israel and Palestine.

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On Oct. 7, 2024 the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. Since the Trump administration took office, this document has served as the basis for the escalating crackdown on Palestine solidarity in the United States, under the guise of combating antisemitism. To unpack this document, we spoke with Dr. Yoav Litvin, author a recent article entitled Project Esther: A Trumpian blueprint to crush anticolonial resistance. We discussed the document's fascist, McCarthyist overtones and how the initiative can be resisted.  

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Margot Patterson talks to Dr. James Zogby about the Trump administration's effort to deport foreign students and scholars who have protested Israel's war on Gaza. The attempt to stifle dissent over U.S. support for Israel is part of a larger attack on free speech and academic freedom at universities that the Trump administration is waging. Pollster, Middle East scholar and the founder and president of the Arab-American Institute, the political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community, Dr. Zogby says what's being dismantled is an architecture of human rights that will not easily be rebuilt.