January 21, 2022
Just World podcast “The World From Palestine”!

Dear Friends–

Happy Martin Luther King Day! I hope it finds you well.

This week, on Friday, Just World Ed will be launching our new podcast series, “The World From Palestine”. In each episode of this ten-week series the Palestinian scholar Yousef Aljamal and I will explore different aspects of the intersection between Palestine’s liberation struggle and other anti-imperialist struggles — throughout history, and until today.

The new podcast series will be available globally on Just World Podcasts and will also be available for streaming or download on Apple, Spotify, and all other major audio-streaming platforms.

I am particularly excited to work on this podcast with Yousef, given his wide experience of settler colonialisms in many parts of the world including Hawai’i, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Ireland, Algeria, in Palestine (of course!)… and here on Turtle Island.

In 2014 and 2019, he undertook speaking tours of the United States, speaking to super audiences and connecting with Palestinian-rights leaders and activists nationwide. In 2019, he also held good meetings with key members of the U.S. Congress and numerous congressional staffers.

Learn a little more about our new podcast project below…

In the meantime, I also want to tell you about another cutting-edge project that Code Pink is organizing and that Just World Ed is co-sponsoring. This is a webinar, “A Closer Look at China in Africa”, that will be held tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1pm ET.

It will feature two intriguing speakers:

  • Mikaela “Mika” Nhondo Erskog,an educator and researcher working at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, a member of the organizing committee at No Cold War, and a member of the media and research collective Dongsheng News.
  • Kambale Musavuli, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is a human rights advocate, the Student Coordinator and National Spokesperson for the Friends of the Congo, and an analyst with the Center for Research on the Congo/Kinshasa.

Register for this webinar that we’re co-sponsoring here.

Give to Just World Ed now!

So now, back to our podcast series… I want to tell you that I’ve really found that my decades-long, in-depth study of the Palestine Question has given me powerful tools for the exploration I’ve been engaged in over the past year, into how it was that a handful of tiny countries perched on the Atlantic coast of Europe came, over the centuries, to exercise a dominant role over the entirety of humankind.

In a sense, the Western settler-colonial project in Palestine– which is ongoing, as we speak– can serve as a microcosm for that whole earlier period of Western empire building.

By having our public conversations on “The World From Palestine” podcast, Yousef and I hope to cast useful new light both on the Palestinian struggle and on the history of settler colonialism itself… And of course, we hope to strengthen the ties of solidarity between Palestinians and anti-imperialist strugglers all around the world!

I’ll let you know the moment the first episode gets released, this Friday!

You might also be interested to see what I’ve been writing thus far this month? In my ongoing “Project 500 Years”, I’ve been exploring the role that successive generations of Quakers played in initiating and pushing forward the English settler-colonial project here in Turtle Island. (The top four articles there all deal with that topic. You can also read them here.)

Did you know that there were Quakers in the Chesapeake a quarter century before the English monarch “gave” William Penn a huge chunk of land along the Delaware River? Read all about that here.

(The map at the right shows who was living along the Delaware before Penn took over and started putting “White” settlers there in their place…)

So now, we are moving into an era in which– I hope!– there will be considerably more equality between all the world’s peoples

Over the next ten weeks, Yousef Aljamal and I will be exploring some aspects of the quest to make this happen. Please support Just World Educational in our podcast project and the other projects we’ll be undertaking this year. If you’re able to make a donation to support our work, that would be great.

Here’s to building a much more equitable, safer, and better world, going forward!

My warmest good wishes–

Helena.

Give to Just World Ed now!

“We don’t have another place to go”

Dispossession, Settler Violence, & Resistance in Masafer Yatta

Occupied Thoughts, Foundation for Middle East Peace, 1/12/2022

"We don't have another place to go:" Dispossession, Settler Violence, & Resistance in Masafer YattaIn this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with activist and author Ali Awad about the threats of dispossession and state-backed settler violence facing Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills.

Ali's most recent article, co-authored with Awdah Hathaleen, describes extreme violence against a village elder in a non-violent protest in Masafer Yatta: "Israeli police shattered this Palestinian elder’s bones — and drove away."

Bios

  • Ali Awad is an activist from the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills.
  • Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, is FMEP’s Director of Programs & Partnerships.
  • Original music by Jalal Yaquoub

Break Radio’s Unwritten Rules

Handmade. One of a Kind. Diverse. Quirky. Weird. WORT.

WORT volunteers bring you 160 hours of music, news, and talk every week that you won’t find anywhere else and your generosity makes it possible. Thank you!

Your donation means we can break radio’s unwritten rules. We don’t stick to one genre of music. We place no restrictions on what our hosts cover or who they interview. Our award-winning news reporters show up in places where other reporters don’t venture.

Donate to WORT

Occupation vacation: Palestine, settlements, and Airbnb

Diala Shamas and Ziad Alwan, The Activist Files, Episode 16

Did you know that in Palestine, Israeli settlers and companies profit off of stolen land? That’s what our Advocacy Director Nadia Ben-Youssef discusses with Staff Attorney Diala Shamas and client Ziad Alwan in the 16th episode of “The Activist Files,” where we speak about  our intervention into a case filed by Israeli settlers against Airbnb.

Diala discusses the responsibility of corporations like Airbnb to respect human rights principles and international law, as well as the status of the case now that Airbnb has decided not to de-list properties in settlements. Ziad recounts his family’s history on and personal connection to the land and explains why he decided to intervene on behalf of other Palestinian landowners in the West Bank.

LISTEN TO THE ACTIVIST FILES


Just World Podcasts on Palestine

Story/Backstory, episode 1:
The longer arc of U.S.-Palestine relations

Helena Cobban, February 22, 2019

This is the first episode in our new “Story/Backstory” miniseries, which combines both the reading by JWE president Helena Cobban of her most recent 1,300-word op-ed on U.S. policies in the Middle East, with a slightly longer segment in which she reflects on some of the issues raised by the op-ed. For more details, visit the blog on our website.

All Episodes

Updates on Gaza’s Water Crisis

A Public Affair, November 15, 2018

On today’s episode, we take a look at the water crisis in Gaza and its effects on the inhabitants there, particularly the children. The discussion also highlights people-to-people grassroots efforts happening here in the U.S. to respond to the disaster, along with local ecumenical projects for peace in the Middle East.

Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch is executive director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), a non-profit humanitarian aid organization based on Berkeley, California that supports children and families in Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon. He is a Palestinian refugee from Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the West Bank and is co-founder of the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh. He was co-producer and production manager of the documentary film Promises, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002.

Jeff Spritzer-Resnick is a Madison-based civil rights attorney. He is the president of Madison’s Shaarei Shamayim congregation and chair of the Madison chapter of J Street, a non-profit advocacy group working for a peaceful resolution between Israel and Palestine.

Cover photo by Oxfam International on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Islam Maraqa of ISM on WORT

Gil Halstead with Islam Maraqa on Access

Shahir Hunaina, YouTube, November 16, 2016

My Blood is Palestinian (Dammi Falastini), translation by Sara Ba

Keeping my oath, following my religion
You will find me on my land
I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them
My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian
My blood is Palestinian

We stood for you, our homeland
With our pride and Arabisim
Al-Quds land called us
(As) The sound of my mother calling me
Palestinian, Palestinian
My blood is Palestinian

Keeping my oath, following my religion
You will find me on my land
I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them
My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian
My blood is Palestinian

O mother don’t worry
Your homeland is a fortified castle
Which I sacrifice my soul for
And my blood, and my veins

Keeping my oath, following my religion
You will find me on my land
I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them
My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian
My blood is Palestinian

I’m Palestinian, a son of a free family
I’m brave and my head is always up
I’m keeping my oath to you my homeland
And I have never bowed to anyone
Palestinian, Palestinian
My blood is Palestinian

Keeping my oath, following my religion
You will find me on my land
I belong to my people, I sacrifice my soul for them
My blood is Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian
My blood is Palestinian
 

A History of Boycotts: Israel, South Africa and California

Pacifica Radio Letters and Politics, 02.14.18

Listen  Download  Open in iTunes

Today, Mitch Jeserich is in conversation with Sunaina Maira, Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis, and author of the book Boycott!: The Academy and Justice for Palestine. She explains the whys and the wherefores of the boycott movement against Israel, and other historic boycotts as the one against South Africa and the one against grape growers in California during the 1970s.

 

 

Madison’s Sister Cities

A PUBLIC AFFAIR, WORT 89.9FM, OCTOBER 24, 2017
Today we’re talking about Madison’s Sister Cities. Host Bert Zipperer speaks with Madison businessman, activist, and former City Council member Ricardo Gonzalez. You might know him as the owner of the much-beloved The Cardinal Bar, or from his work with the Madison-Camaguey Sister City Association. Later in the hour [at 33:50], we also speak with Barb Olson of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project.

October 20, 2016
Novelist Ben Ehrenreich on WORT


Thursday, October 20
“A Public Affair”
12:00 – 1:00 pm

Allen Ruff’s Thursday guest will be freelance journalist and novelist Ben Ehrenreich, author of “The Way to the Spring – Life and Death in Palestine,” which describes life in the Palestinian village of Nabi Salih and the villagers’ struggles against settler encroachments and state harassment and violence.

Call in at 256-2001. Listen online, live or archived at WORT 89.9 FM.

Ehrenreich will also appear at the Wisconsin Book Festival on October 22.

Wisconsin Book Festival’s Leila Abdelrazaq And “Baddawi” on WORT 89.9FM

October 23, 2015 by

Today Esty Dinur talks to Leila Abdelrazaq, author of the newly released “Baddawi.” Her new book tells the story of a young boy raised in a refugee camp, trying to find his way in the world after fleeing his homeland after the war in 1948 established the state of Israel.

Leila Abdelrazaq is a Palestinian author, artist, and organizer. She graduated from DePaul University in 2015 with a BFA in Theatre Arts and a BA in Arabic Studies. She has been involved in both national and local community organizing around the issue of Palestine since 2011. Leila was a participant in the 2015 Palestine Festival of Literature and is a contributor to The Electronic Intifada.

WORT 89.9FM: “Uncivil Rites” With Steven Salaita

Pledge Edition: Karma Chavez talks with Steven Salaita about his new book, “Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom.” His new book addresses his controversial termination from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and important issues that affect both higher education and social justice activism.