The +972 Podcast

Almost 10 years ago, Tarek Bakri accidentally started a project called Kunna ou Ma Zilna, Arabic for “we were and are still here,” as a way of visually documenting Palestine in the social media era.Using old photos and oral history, he helps Palestinians find their original homes and villages, many of which are now depopulated, destroyed, or occupied by Jewish Israelis.The right of return for Palestinian refugees is often sidelined in discussions on Palestine-Israel. To shift back the focus on this issue, we at +972 Magazine set out to explore what return means — 72 years since the Nakba, the catastrophe that culminated in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, and which continues to impact millions more to this day. Is return merely a symbolic demand? Is it at all feasible?This episode is the first in a three-part series on the right of return for Palestinian refugees. We will be releasing a new episode every Friday over the next few weeks, starting with Tarek. With his help, we will travel from Safad, to Akka, to Jaffa, to Beit Nabala, and get a sense of what return might look like.Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.Support the show

A month after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his Middle East plan, Israelis went to the polls for a third time in a year. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to declare victory, not much has shifted the deadlock from the previous two rounds, and no party is able to form a government yet.For Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights lawyer, analyst, and former advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the contents of the “Trump-Netanyahu plan,” as she calls it, are cause for alarm. The arrogance that characterizes the deal, which deliberately excludes Palestinians from the conversation, reflects an Israeli “fantasy” that “somehow Palestinians are going to agree to their own subjugation,” says Buttu. That exclusion is compounded by the Palestinian Authority’s failure to effectively respond to the plan, she explains.The Trump plan has also “showed Netanyahu’s true face,” says Buttu. “It says to Palestinians who are living in the occupied territories, ‘We don’t want you.’ But the plan is also saying to Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, ‘You also don’t belong in the State of Israel, and so we have the right to get rid of you.’For Buttu, this was one of the reasons Palestinians in Israel voted in even greater numbers this time around. That fact that Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party, supports the Trump deal and echoes many of Likud’s policies shows “just how far to the right Israeli society is.”Despite — or perhaps because of — mounting racist attacks, the Palestinian-led Joint List won a record 15 seats, making it the third-largest party once again. But now, its members must decide how to use this political capital.Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa and Unheard Music Concepts.Support the show

Meir Kahane, an extremist rabbi, famously advocated for Jewish supremacy through violence and founded a party barred from Israeli elections. Joined by Natasha Roth-Rowland, a doctoral student on the Jewish far right, they discuss Kahanism's eerie parallels with 1930s fascism. The conversation highlights how extremist ideologies have subtly infiltrated Israeli political discourse over decades. They also emphasize funding from American philanthropies supporting these movements and the growing normalization of once-radical views in mainstream politics.

Singer-songwriter Maysa Daw always knew she wanted to become a musician. At 27, the Haifa native has a debut album out and is a member of two bands: famed Palestinian hip hop group DAM and new, all-women ensemble Kallemi. In this episode, Maysa talks about the importance of shattering social taboos and airing out the dirty laundry, about her journey toward radical self-acceptance, about writing music in Arabic without access to the Arab world, and about the struggle to remain authentic while going mainstream.Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa and DAM.Support the show

The deportation of Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, put a spotlight on Israel's attempts to suppress dissent and criticism of its policies in the occupied territories.For Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, one of the lawyers representing Shakir in his lengthy battle to stay in the country, the deportation “has huge potential ramifications” not only for foreign nationals trying to enter the country to work, study, or visit family, but also Israeli citizens and particularly Palestinians living under occupation.“The minute that Israel decides that it’s its right to vet who gets to come in and work for human rights organizations is the minute that we see crystal clear that Israel’s democracy is eroding," Schaeffer Omer-Man told The +972 Podcast.While Israel has always had laws that allow it to conduct security screenings and background checks on people living in and entering the country — as other countries also do — she says that Shakir's case shows Israel's turn toward policing speech and political opinions.Advocates around the world have condemned Israel’s decision to kick Shakir out, warning of a chilling effect against other human rights workers in the country. Those effects, says Schaeffer Omer-Man, can already be felt: visitors, citizens, and activists alike are now silencing themselves in fear of retaliation.“That obviously harms any movement to progress forward with Palestinian human rights and Palestinian freedom," she says. "It also denies Palestinians access to those who would otherwise support them, stand in solidarity with them and speak out on their behalf and alongside them. And it means that the Israeli human rights community starts to feel smaller and smaller."Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Help support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa and Chad Crouch. The news clip is courtesy of Activestills.Support the show

Almost two weeks after Israeli voters cast their ballots for a second time this year, it is still unclear which candidate will lead the country. To make sense of all this, The +972 Podcast turns to leading public opinion analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who says not much has changed since the April elections. What’s different this time, however, is the growing debate over the separation of religion and state in Israel. This internal conflict “is not new, but it became a new arena of political competition in these elections,” explains Scheindlin. She posits that this extremely narrow view of liberalism could potentially grow into something bigger. “Ultimately, that will open people’s eyes to all the other related values of a liberal society,” she says. That shift could inspire a deeper discussion on civil and individual rights in Israel, and perhaps push many Israelis to rethink the consequences of endless occupation.Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Help support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa.Support the show

Whereas in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu tried to appeal to his voter base by warning of Arabs going to vote “in droves,” now he is openly accusing Palestinian citizens of voter fraud and of “stealing” the elections.Sawsan Zaher of Adalah, the legal center for Palestinian rights in Israel, talks to The +972 Podcast about how this voter intimidation campaign is affecting Palestinians in Israel, what Arab voters care about, and why some are deciding to vote for Zionist parties.Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Help support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa.Support the show

By understanding Zionism as a white supremacist project, the division between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians becomes reductionist, says Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights activist and author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.Thinking of racism merely as a distinction between Jews and non-Jews pits Palestinians against the very groups who also suffer from Israel’s aspiration to whiteness, like Arab Jews and African immigrants and asylum seekers.Reconstructing the racial dimensions of the Palestinian struggle can therefore offer new alliances and ways of thinking about the future. It can “create a place where we can all have dignity,” and where justice can be achieved for all, argues Erakat.Visit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Help support +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa.Support the show

It is no secret that for decades, the Zionist left discriminated against Mizrahim, or Jews with roots in Arab and Muslim countries, treating them as second-class citizens and pushing them to the economic, political, and cultural margins of Israeli society.  Mizrahim took matters into their own hands, forming political movements and parties of their own. Their resentment against the left pushed many of them into the arms of the right-wing Likud party. And yet, says +972 writer and veteran Mizrahi activist Orly Noy, more than 70 years after Israel’s founding, Mizrahim are still fighting for crumbs from the Ashkenazi elite, whether on the left or the right.Mizrahim now have an opportunity to move beyond the politics that have kept them marginalized, Noy says, by standing alongside Palestinian citizens of Israel. How to make a donation: https://972mag.com/donateVisit +972 Magazine and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.The music in this episode is by Ketsa.Support the show

The United States’ approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dramatically transformed since Trump took office, but a lot of those changes — from legislation to defund the Palestinian Authority to an attempt to criminalize boycotting Israel — actually came from Congress.It’s BDS and the idea of boycotting Israel to pressure into changing its policies, however, that has turned into a major wedge issues in American politics. Republicans are pushing radical legislation that would criminalize boycotting Israel, a move opposed by the ACLU and others as unconstitutional, and Democrats are falling into their trap."There's got to be a point when you say, whether or not I adopt this tactic, this is a legitimate nonviolent tactic that we will defend," says Lara Friedman, an expert on everything Israel-Palestine on the Hill, and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.Democrats need to decide not to throw those in their party who do support boycotts under the bus "in order to make the right, which will never ever be satisfied with our position, feel better about us. We're never going to be in that tent — we don't want to be in that tent," she says.Follow Lara Friedman on Twitter: @LaraFriedmanDCSupport +972 Magazine: 972mag.com/donateThe music in this episode is by Ketsa.Support the show