Podcast
Understanding Israel Palestine
Hosted by KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio · EN
This show is inspired by Citizens for Justice in the Middle East, a local group that has advocated for 20 years for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. Our program offers interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to offer multiple perspectives, and to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by headline news.
19episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Naomi Shihab Nye on Peace, Poetry and Palestine
6d ago00:28:30Tap to summarizeAcclaimed poet and writer Naomi Shihab Nye discusses her life and work in this conversation that originally aired on Understanding Israel Palestine in March of 2023. The daughter of a Palestinian refugee and an American mother, Nye was a teenager living with her family near Jerusalem when the Six-Day War broke out in 1967, causing the family to return to the United States. She reads from her poetry and talks about how her experiences in Palestine affected her and her poetry, giving her a perspective that shapes her to this day.
Transcribe →Bills Before Congress Deepen U.S.-Israeli Military and Intelligence Ties
3w ago00:28:30Tap to summarizeBen Freeman discusses a provision in the fy 2027 National Defence Authorization Act that would deepen U.S.-Israeli military ties to an unparalleled degree, making them difficult to unravel and removing Congressional oversight and accountability. An equally alarming provision in the Intelligence Autorization Act would force the U.S to share almost all intelligence about the Middle East with Israel. Both Section 224 of the NDAA and Section 622 pose risks to U.S. sovereignty and national security. An expert on defence spending and foreign influence operations, Freeman heads the Democratizing Foreign Police program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Transcribe →The Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction
4w ago00:28:29Tap to summarizeThe Premeditated Clampdown: Alison Weir on the Calculated Campaign to Protect Israeli State-Sponsored Destruction In this archival dive from September 2021, Alison Weir, executive director of If Americans Knew, exposes the calculated rollout of weaponized antisemitism laws. Five years later, the true design behind that campaign is undeniable. Host Jeremy Rothe-Kushel breaks out the tape to reveal how this premeditated legal framework was built specifically for this moment: to preemptively criminalize dissent and provide an impenetrable shield for state violence. We are watching the trap spring shut as these laws are actively deployed to protect the Gaza genocide, push the U.S. into an engineered war with Iran, and mask the NDAA's unprecedented fusion of U.S. and Israeli military, cyber, and data infrastructure. From local speech codes locking down states like Kansas and Missouri, to Jeremy’s own 2016 Kansas City Library arrest exposing the DHS-Israel intelligence nexus, the machinery to erase our national interests and silence the public was installed right before our noses. When laws are designed to protect atrocities, the truth becomes our only defense. ------- Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. https://israelpalestinenews.org/iak-investigation-international-campaign-is-criminalizing-criticism-of-israel-as-antisemitism/ https://israelpalestinenews.org/iak-investigation-international-campaign-is-criminalizing-criticism-of-israel-as-antisemitism/#timeline https://ifamericansknew.org/download/antisemitismbooklet.pdf Understanding Israel Palestine archives: kkfi.org/program/understanding-israel-palestine/ Beyond the Walls newsletter: beyondthewalls.substack.com https://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/security-arrests-questioner/
Transcribe →First Gaza, Now Lebanon
Jun 600:28:30Tap to summarizeIn this rebroadcast of the program of April 17, Sonia Meyerson-Knox provides historical context for Israel's war in Lebanon, its seventh since the founding of Israel in 1948. She discusses Israel's decades-long ambition to expand into Lebanon and why she believes Israel is intent not just on destroying Hezbollah but the fabric of Lebanese society and Lebanon's territorial integrity. Now communications director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Sonia Meyerson-Knox spent 16 years in Beirut where she worked for international relief and development agencies and as a journalist.
Transcribe →Part II of 'From Oslo to Gaza': Mideast Peace Negotiator Robert Malley on the Errors of the Past
May 3000:28:30Tap to summarizeMideast peace negotiator Robert Malley continues his conversation with Margot Patterson about the road to Oct. 7th. Part I of the interview aired May 15. In Part II, he speaks about the differing strategies pursued by Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, U.S. misconceptions of Palestinian politics, the lack of accountability for failed U.S. policies in the Middle East, the worsening of the Occupation due to the Oslo Accords and the dangers posed by the unresolved conflicts in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and the West Bank. Malley held senior positions under three Democratic presidents. He was at the Camp David summit in 2000, served as special assistant to President Obama and lead negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and was appointed special envoy to Iran by President Biden. He is the author, with Hussein Agha, of the new book Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine.
Transcribe →The Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War
May 2200:28:29Tap to summarizeThe Architecture of Empire: Walter L. Hixson on the Israel Lobby and the Machinery of Endless War Part Two: The Nakba’s Blast Radius and the Capture of U.S. Foreign Policy Episode Description Seventy-eight years ago, the Nakba dismantled Palestinian society. Today, we are living inside its blast radius. What began in 1948 with the violent mass displacement of over 700,000 people has metastasized into a sprawling, multi-front geopolitical fire. We are now watching the Middle East get swallowed by a disastrous and widely rejected regional war with Iran—a conflict fueled by corrupt demagogues desperate to trade human lives for their own political survival. How does a republic repeatedly bankrupt its moral standing and its treasury to underwrite conflicts its citizens actively despise? It doesn't happen by accident. It is engineered. In Part Two of our historical deep-dive into the U.S.-Israel Special Relationship, host Jeremy Rothe-Kushel reaches back to a profoundly relevant late-2021 conversation with diplomatic and cultural historian Walter L. Hixson. Stripping away the polite fictions of Washington double-speak, Hixson exposes the actual plumbing of imperial power. We break down the modern Israel lobby in plain daylight: the massive flow of capital, the ruthless political coercion, and the organized infrastructure of silence that captures U.S. foreign policy and locks the American public into a perpetual cycle of militarism and repression. If we are ever going to extinguish the fire, we must first understand exactly who built the furnace. Step beyond the walls with us. Guest Bio: Walter L. Hixson is a diplomatic and cultural historian, a contributing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and the author of numerous vital books, including Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy and Imperialism and War: The History Americans Need to Own. Listen & Explore Further: Walter Hixson’s Bio & Work: University of Akron Explore the Show Archives: Listen to past episodes, including Part 1 with Grant Smith, at the KKFI Understanding Israel Palestine archive: kkfi.org/program/understanding-israel-palestine/ Beyond the Walls Substack: beyondthewalls.substack.com Tags: US Foreign Policy, Israel Lobby, AIPAC, Nakba 78, Gaza, Iran War, Middle East Geopolitics, Walter Hixson, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, Beyond the Walls, KKFI 90.1 FM, Kansas City Radio, Community Radio, Syndicated Radio, Anti-War, Political History, Washington DC, Empire, Imperialism
Transcribe →From Oslo to Gaza: Mideast Peace Negotiator Rob Malley on the Revenge of History
May 1500:28:30Tap to summarizeLongtime Mideast peace negotiator Robert Malley talks about his and Hussein Agha's recently published book, Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. Malley discusses how diplomatic illusions, blunders and deceptions undermined the Oslo Accords signed in 1993, created an endless, unproductive peace process and led to the atrocities of Oct. 7 and Israel's calamitous war on Gaza. The book's title refers to the authors' contention that Oct. 7th and Israel's subsequent onslaught on Gaza represented not a rupture with the past but a re-enactment of it. Malley served as a senior advisor to Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and president of the International Crisis Group. He is now at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs.
Transcribe →Arts and Culture in a Palestinian Refugee Camp
May 800:28:30Tap to summarizeAbdelfattah Abusrour, founder and director of Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society in Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, Palestine, joined the show this week to discuss his life's work. We discussed how he came to found Alrowwad and the many inspirational students and works of art that have come of it.
Transcribe →The Structural Origins of AIPAC & The History of Israeli Espionage in the U.S. (with Grant Smith)
May 100:28:30Tap to summarizeUnderstanding Israel Palestine: A Beyond the Walls Edition Episode: The Structural Origins of AIPAC & The History of Israeli Espionage in the U.S. Guest: Grant Smith, Research Director at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) Host: Jeremy Rothe-Kushel Episode Overview In this deep political analysis of US-Israel relations, we examine the foundational architecture and historical continuity of the modern Israel lobby within the United States. Grant Smith, a leading investigative researcher and author of America's Defense Line, Foreign Agents, and Divert, joins the program to unpack the counterintelligence history and covert networks that have shaped American foreign policy in the Middle East. This conversation moves beyond standard political discourse to conduct a forensic examination of the structural immunity surrounding historical espionage and unregistered foreign lobbying in America. From suitcases of campaign cash on presidential whistle-stop tours to the covert smuggling of highly enriched uranium and nuclear triggers, Smith details the intricate, multi-decade efforts to subvert U.S. regulatory and defense frameworks. Key Historical & Structural Topics Explored The Origins of AIPAC & FARA Subversion: How Isaiah Kenen and the American Zionist Council (AZC) navigated the Justice Department's efforts to force them to register as foreign agents under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), ultimately restructuring into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to bypass compliance. Truman & Whistle-Stop Campaign Financing: The pivotal role of Abraham Feinberg in securing a $2 million suitcase of cash to save Harry S. Truman's floundering 1948 presidential campaign, effectively cementing early executive support for the Israeli state. NUMEC & Nuclear Espionage in the U.S.: The diversion of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium from the NUMEC facility in Apollo, Pennsylvania, under Zalman Shapiro, which was covertly funneled to the early Israeli nuclear weapons program. Project Pinto & The MILCO Smuggling Ring: The covert procurement network that successfully smuggled 810 nuclear-triggering krytrons out of the United States, utilizing operatives like Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and involving current political figures like Benjamin Netanyahu. Political Immunity & Quashed DOJ Investigations: The systemic political pressure that successfully shut down Department of Justice and FBI investigations into these smuggling networks, resulting in a distinct lack of prosecutions and quiet pardons for the few operatives who were caught. Resources & Links Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep): irmep.org The Israel Lobby Archive: israellobby.org KKFI Show Page (archives): Understanding Israel Palestine Beyond the Walls (full length audio): https://beyondthewalls.substack.com/
Transcribe →Deja Vu: Israel Wages Another War on Lebanon
Apr 1600:28:30Tap to summarizeSonya Meyerson-Knox spent 16 years in Beirut, Lebanon working as a journalist and for U.N. agencies before becoming communications director of Jewish Voice for Peace. She discusses the new war in Lebanon that began after the United States and Israel attacked Iran February 28, 2026, describing it within the context of previous Israeli wars in Lebanon. She views the current war as not just an attack on Hezbollah but on Lebanon's pluralistic social fabric and says Israel has long coveted Lebanon's land and resources.
Transcribe →