War Escalates as Energy Prices Climb

Send a textCivilian casualties continue to climb in the region, especially in Iran and Lebanon, as the US and Israel intensify their assault on Iran. Iran retaliates by using its array of drones and missiles to hit US and Israeli military targets in the region, oil infrastructure, and other civilian targets. Hundreds of ships continue to be unable to transit the Strait of Hormuz, raising global energy prices. Dr. Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft joins the show to discuss these developments.

Send a textMai Shaheen is a Palestinian peace activist and therapist who uses nonviolent communication in her work with victims of trauma.  In a conversation both frank and inspirational, she talks  about how nonviolent dialogue brings Israelis, Palestinians and internationals together for healing, solidarity and nonviolent action.  A founder of the Satyam Homeland Peace Center in the Occupied West Bank, she discusses the growing number of Palestinians and Israelis taking action together even as conditions in the West Bank worsen for Palestinians. 

Send a textIn light of the recent passage of a bill in Missouri codifying the IHRA definition of antisemitism for K-12 schools and college campuses, in addition to similar efforts in several other stage legislatures, we are reposting an interview conducted in April 2025 with Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She discusses the threat to free speech posed by the International Holocaust Rembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism being adopted by many institutions, communities and states in the United States and around the world. The definition associates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. While opposed by a broad range of groups, including human rights organizations, civil liberties groups, Palestinian rights defenders, peace activists, progressive Jewish and Christian groups, and even some strong pro-Israel supporters, the IHRA is increasingly being used as a legal standard. Friedman says the IHRA Working Definition of antisemitism is part of a long-standing effort to chill free speech on Israel and Palestine and to limit what can be said about Israeli policies and practices. 

Send a textPaul Pillar discusses the multiple obstacles facing Phase 2 of the Gaza Peace Plan and prospects for the U.S.-Iran talks now underway even as U.S. forces are poised to attack Iran. A 28-year veteran of the CIA, Pillar is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy institute for Responsible Statecraft and at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies. He’s the author of several books on foreign policy.  His most recent book, published in 2023, is “Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy.”

Send a textOvercoming the Structures of Erasure and the Semantics of Genocidal Management with Aseel AlBajeh"How do we talk about a reality that is being systematically erased in real-time?"On this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine: Beyond the Walls, we examine the epistemology of erasure and how to transcend it through factual reframing. We explore the reality that a genocide is not just committed with bombs, but maintained with words.Host Jeremy Rothe-Kushel is joined by Aseel AlBajeh, the Advocacy Officer at the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD). A legal researcher turned advocacy strategist, Aseel joins us to elucidate the "Communicating Palestine" guide—a vital new strategic manual designed to help advocates move beyond defensive fact-checking and into offensive narrative power.We dive into the guide’s core pillars—"Reframing Narratives" and "Engaging Palestinian Voices"—to understand how to shift the conversation away from the "security" traps set by the occupier and back toward the root causes of history, colonization, and rights.Together, we use the guide to decode the deceptive language of "Peace Plans" and "Day After Scenarios" that currently mask permanent military encampment and starvation logistics in Gaza. We analyze the "Rogue Actor" myth of settler violence in the West Bank to reveal the unitary reality of state annexation.Crucially, we confront the historical architecture of "Sacred Terrorism." Drawing on the definitive work of Livia Rokach, Thomas Suarez, and Naeim Giladi, we trace how the foundations of the Israeli state were built by self-confessed terrorists like David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin—figures who utilized political violence not as a desperate last resort, but as a calculated tool of statecraft. We examine how this history has been inverted, trapping Western diplomacy in a "double bind" where the victims are labeled terrorists to justify their erasure, while the state architects of terror are shielded by the very "Peace Process" they designed to fail.Finally, we address the ultimate weapon of the status quo: Apathy. We discuss how the claim that the situation is "too complex" is often a deliberate tactic to induce paralysis. Aseel shares how the Communicating Palestine guide provides the epistemological confidence and ethical clarity needed to cut through this weaponized complexity, empowering listeners to move from feeling overwhelmed to speaking truth with power.This episode serves as a primer for the upcoming Voices From the Holy Land online film salon and workshop on Sunday, February 15th.Links & ResourcesThe Guest & The Tools:The Strategic Guide: Communicating PalestineA comprehensive resource for reframing the conversation on Palestine, moving away from exceptionalism and towards universal rights and historical context.The Organization: Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD)The Event: Voices From the Holy Land: "Say What??" Workshop (Register for Feb 15th)The Show:Radio Broadcast: Understanding Israel Palestine at KKFI 90.1 FMSubstack: Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Rothe-KushelKeywordsOvercoming Structures of Erasure, Genocidal Manag

Send a textBeyond the Language of the Israel-Palestine 'Conflict' and the Unconscious Grammar of Genocidal Consent with Alex McDonaldOn this episode of Understanding Israel Palestine, a Beyond the Walls edition, we move beyond the kinetic warfare on the ground to examine the cognitive warfare in our own minds. We investigate the "deep structural politics" of language—the specific mechanisms used to manufacture consent and maintain an information blockade here in the West.Our guest suggests that we aren't just "misinformed"; we have been acculturated into a specific foreign policy dialect designed to obscure the structural realities of what we have been taught to call the Israel-Palestine "conflict." Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Alex McDonald, a researcher, co-founder of the Texas Coalition for Human Rights, and an educator working to correct the historical record in U.S. instructional materials. Alex brings the dual perspective of an analyst and a witness, having served on the Steering Committee of Voices From the Holy Land and as a volunteer on the Freedom Flotilla. He is the author of How I Learned to Speak Israel: An American's Guide to a Foreign Policy Language and When They Speak Israel: A Guide to Clarity in Conversations about Israel.This conversation serves as a primer and invitation for a vital upcoming event. On February 15th, Alex will lead the Voices From the Holy Land (VFHL) Online Film Salon, a workshop dedicated to decoding and dismantling this disinformation architecture.Links:Register for the VFHL Salon: Tinyurl.com/VFHL-February2026Alex McDonald’s Work & Books: SpeakIsrael.infoUnderstanding Israel Palestine: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2016486Beyond the Walls: https://beyondthewalls.substack.com/Keywords: Israel-Palestine, Cognitive Warfare, Manufacturing Consent, Alex McDonald, Voices From the Holy Land, Gaza Genocide, Foreign Policy Language, Disinformation, Deep Politics, Freedom Flotilla, Educational Bias, How I Learned to Speak Israel.

Send a textAs the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt prepares to open, we're rebroadcasting a show about the crisis of disability in Palestine and particularly in Gaza. With thousands of amputees struggling to get the care they need in Gaza, their only hope lies in exiting through the severely limited Rafah border crossing.  

Send a textRasha Abouselem has been a humanitarian aid worker since 2014. In December she was in Gaza preparing a field assessment for an aid organization there. She reports on the conditions she found there, the violence Palestinians continue to live with despite the ceasefire, the ongoing shortfall in aid, and the uncertainty and trauma Palestinians are living with. She says the media is not reporting on the reality in Gaza.

Send a textJanuary 2026. We navigate a landscape where advocacy, social media, and surveillance blur into a digital haze. To face the mounting crisis, we must trace the analog patterns that first forged the cage.In July 2021, I spoke over the phone with Jeffrey Blankfort—a Jewish-American journalist whose memory as a veteran Palestinian solidarity activist is a breach in the static. Blankfort deconstructs the Anti-Defamation League—the ADL—looking past the shield of civil rights to find a critical node in a transnational espionage network.We return to his landmark exposure of an illegal surveillance web; a clandestine bridge built between the Israel lobby and apartheid South Africa to monitor the American pulse. In this era of state and non-state convergence, this 2021 archive serves as a sobering lens. To understand the future, we must study the shadow it has already cast.Beyond the walls of the narrative... here is Jeffrey Blankfort.----------------------In beginning to critically deconstruct the key role of the Anti Defamation League in the Israel Lobby, producer Jeremy Rothe-Kushel speaks with Jewish American Journalist & Pro-Palestinian activist Jeffrey Blankfort, about his work to expose the ADL and its collaborators for colluding with apartheid Israel and South Africa on espionage against civil society in the United States.https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/12/adl-spies/https://www.foodnotbombs.net/adl_examiner.htmlhttps://www.wrmea.org/the-israel-lobby-is-it-good-for-the-us-is-it-good-for-israel-the-adl-covert-action-censure-and-courting-law-enforcement.htmlhttps://www.israellobby.org/ADL-CA/https://www.irmep.org/ADLespionage.asp——http://www.palestinechronicle.com/jeffrey-blankfort-breaking-the-silence-on-the-israel-lobby/“Are there Israeli lobby gatekeepers and damage control squads on the left?”  https://www.natsummit.org/transcripts/jeffrey_blankfort.htm“Jeffrey Blankfort: Chomsky Misfires on U.S.-Israel Relations” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T33IdUl1S8—–https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jeffrey_Blankforthttp://www.jeffblankfortphotography.com/contact.htmJeff Blankfort is a radio producer, photographer & journalist of Jewish-American background, who has been a pro-Palestinian human rights activist since 1970. He was formerly the editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. He was also a founding member of the November 29 Coalition on Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Committee. He won a settlement from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in February 2002 for its vast illegal spying against him, as well as hundreds of other progressive social, political, labor and environmental organizations and thousands of individuals (including anti-Apartheid groups/activists).Blankfort‘s articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Dissident Voice & Mondoweiss, among many others.

Send a textJosh Paul joins the show again to discuss A New Policy, the organization that he co-founded with Tareq Habash. A New Policy is an organization dedicated to transforming American foreign policy toward Israel/Palestine to reflect American values and foundational principles of liberty, equality, democracy, and human rights; advancing American interests abroad; and protecting American freedoms at home. Josh will be a panelist on the upcoming Voices from the Holy Land Film Salon on Sunday, January 18 at 3 pm ET entitled International Law and the Israel Exception. Listeners are invited to register for the film salon for free at www.voicesfromtheholyland.org.