Makdisi Street

The brothers welcome Dima Khalidi, founder and director of Palestine Legal (@pal_legal), to the podcast to talk about the institutionalized Zionist assault on academic freedom and free speech in the United States as well as the convergence between the Zionist suppression of Palestinian rights advocacy on the one hand and right-wing reaction against the diversification of the university system in the US. Watch this episode on YouTube Date of recording: Feb 15, 2024 Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on Insta: @Makdisist Music by Hadiiiiii *Announcement: You can now support Makdisi Street on Patreon! Sign up at Patreon.com/MakdisiStreet to get access to future bonus content, including the first Q&A!*  

The brothers welcome to the show the preeminent scholar and Nakba survivor Dr. Salman Abu Sitta to discuss his personal journey after 1948, the relative simplicity of implementing UN resolution 194 for Palestinians to return to their lands, and his high hopes for younger generations. Read his article, "I could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7"  https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/i-could-have-been-one-of-those-who-broke-through-the-siege-on-october-7/ Check out the Palestine Land Society https://www.plands.org/en/home  Watch this episode on YouTube Date of recording: Feb 5, 2024 Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on Insta: @Makdisist Music by Hadiiiiii

The brothers invite the American historian Robin DG Kelley to the show to discuss the status and visibility of Palestine in Black American political culture from the 1940s through MLK and Malcolm X to Black Lives Matter and the present--and the ways in which Palestine remains one of the keys to a liberated world. Date of recording: Jan 29, 2024. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on Insta: @Makdisist Music by Hadiiiiii

The brothers welcome the investigative journalist, Intercept Senior Correspondent and Intercepted podcast host Jeremy Scahill (@jeremyscahill) to discuss the parameters of the media coverage of the genocide in Gaza and to reflect on the patterns, structures and limitations of Western corporate media as well as the growing alternatives to it. Date of recording: Jan 23, 2024. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii

(Note: We are considering launching a Patreon feed to help defray the costs of producing this show, whereby for a low monthly rate, supporters will get access to different kinds of bonus content: a monthly Q&A, reposting of episodes hosts do with other podcasts, episodes featuring a single host interviewing guests, etc.  We would love your feedback about this.  Please get in touch with the show either through Twitter or email with any ideas for potential bonus content)  The brothers provide an assessment of where things stand after 100 days of Israel’s war on Gaza, the horror being suffered by the people in Gaza, as well as the forms that resistance takes and the paths toward an outline of liberation. Date of recording: Jan 16, 2024. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii  

The brothers talk with the distinguished legal scholar Richard Falk about the possible political, legal, and moral consequences of the International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa against Israel on the charge of genocide. Date of recording: January 9, 2024. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii

The brothers welcome Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu (@dianabuttu) to the show to provide a broader political context for the crisis in Gaza, including the growing contradictions within Israeli politics, the struggle for hegemony within Palestinian politics, the legacy and possible future role of the PLO, and the legal and political consequences of the war in (and on) Gaza.  The conversation also offers perspective on the so-called peace process of the late 1990s and early 2000s, in which Diana was involved, and the parameters in which we can start to imagine possible resolutions of this conflict. Date of recording: January 2, 2024. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii  

The brothers welcome Dr. Mitri Raheb to the show to talk about the role and visibility of Christians in Palestine’s ecumenical culture, so-called Christian Zionism, and how the Bible can be read either as a text authorizing empire and genocide (as with Netanyahu citing the extirpation of the Amalek) or as a text calling for liberation, equality, justice and resistance to empire.   Check out his books, Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible (2023) and I Am a Palestinian Christian God and Politics in the Holy Land: A Personal Testimony (1995) Date of recording: December 22, 2023. Watch this episode on YouTube Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii

The brothers welcome this extraordinary Palestinian physician, @GhassanAbuSitt1, to the show, to talk about his recent experience in Gaza in comparison with other Israeli attacks on Gaza (2014, 2008-9).  “One of the aims of catastrophization, the creation of a self-sustaining catastrophe in Gaza,” Abu Sittah warns, “is that, once there is a ceasefire, the catastrophe is able to continue, with the help of the siege. And so, my biggest worry about the day after is that the Israelis will be allowed to achieve, in the siege, in the ceasefire, what they failed to achieve in the war.” Date of recording: December 20, 2023. Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii

In this episode, the brothers interview the historian Ilan Pappé, best known for his 2006 book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, in order to gain some historical perspective on the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza as well as what the current situation tells us about shifting global and local attitudes and even how one can start to anticipate the terminal stage of the Zionist project in Palestine—and what that means for the future. Date of recording: December 12, 2023. Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet Music by Hadiiiiii