Arab Talk With Jess & Jamal

Dr. Anise Germany describes the rigging of pagers and other electronics that killed at least 37 as barbaric and an act of state terrorism. Among the dead were children, and the attacks wounded over 3,000 people in Lebanon. The explosions went off in crowded supermarkets, on busy roads, and in homes, schools, and hospitals.

Ayed Abu Eqtaish, the Accountability Program Director at Defense for Children International in Palestine, discusses the findings in a newly released report entitled, "Targeting Childhood: Palestinian Children Killed By Israeli Forces and Settlers in the Occupied West Bank." On average, Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian child in the occupied West bank, including East Jerusalem, every two days since October 7, 2023. In Gaza, Israel has killed more than 16,000 children to date.

Human rights attorney and political activist Stanley Cohen discusses why Israel is consistently allowed to be the exception to U.S. law and ethical norms in the United States Government, even when its soldiers and settlers kill American citizens.

Jess & Jamal explain why time is running out for Kamala Harris to distance herself from U.S. policies that enable Israel to continue with mass murder and Genocide in Gaza. During her recent CNN interview, Harris remained in lockstep with President Biden’s unconditional arming of Israel, angering uncommitted voters and shrinking her chances of defeating Donald Trump. Huge U.S. shipments of weapons and bombs to Israel keep allowing it to massacre and starve civilians of all ages while violating federal statutes as well as international law.

Canadian author and activist Yves Engler explains that the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) revoked the tax-exempt status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Ne’eman Foundation because these organizations used donations to build military infrastructure for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), thereby violating Canadian tax rules.

Jess & Jamal discuss the impact of "uncommitted voters" in swing states in the US presidential election. Uncommitted delegates representing more than 800,000 Americans across the country who cast protest votes against then-candidate President Joe Biden for his military support of Israel are looking to VP Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention to articulate her Israel and Gaza policy and commit herself to preventing major loss of Palestinian life with US-funded weapons.

Israeli BDS activist Tali Shapiro discusses the torture and rape Palestinian prisoners suffer from Israeli soldiers in detention centers, particularly the notorious Sde Teiman military and torture facility. Israel has refused to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian prisoners held at Sde Teiman, which is described by human rights activists as "the Israeli Guantanamo."

Our reporter Phil Pasquini covered the "day of rage" demonstration, as approximately 400,000 pro-Palestinian protesters descended on Washington, DC to protest Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in the US Congress. Demonstrators carried placards calling for his immediate arrest, referring to him as a "War Criminal." Netanyahu, who could soon face arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over war crimes in Gaza, presented Congress with a slew of claims for which he failed to provide evidence, according to several fact-checkers.

Laila Al-Arian, Executive Producer of Al Jazeera's Fault Lines and co-producer of the riveting documentary "The Night Won't End: Biden's War on Gaza," discusses the stories of three Palestinian families in Gaza. She highlights the devastation and anguish the ongoing genocide has brought on these families and their struggle to survive.

Sociologist and author David Miller discusses Meta’s policies and practices to silence voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook. Miller recently prevailed in an employment claim against the University of Bristol for unfair termination due to his criticism of Zionism.

Veteran journalist Rami Khouri discusses the US Presidential Debate, Israel's threats to Lebanon, and how the narrative on Israel is shifting on US college campuses. Rami Khouri is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Arab Center Washington and Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut.

Legal recourse as an alternative to end Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has brought an unprecedented number of filings in international tribunals -- three by South Africa and other signatories at the International Court of Justice, and another referred by the State of Palestine at the International Criminal Court. Dr. Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years, where he was professor emeritus. In his recent article in the “Middle East Eye”, "Civil ICC case against Ursula von der Leyen raises stakes on genocide complicity," Dr. Falk discusses the recent initiative by the Geneva International Peace Research Institute calling on the ICC to investigate the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for alleged complicity in war crimes and genocide committed by Israel.

Joe Biden's support for Israel during its eight-month war in Gaza has spurred at least eight U.S. administration officials to quit, accusing the U.S. president of turning a blind eye to Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian enclave. Lily Greenberg Call was the first Jewish political appointee to resign on May 15, having served as a Special Assistant to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior Chief of Staff. “I can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Greenberg Call wrote in her letter of resignation.

Israeli anti-Apartheid activist Dr. Stavit Sinai calls for an end to arms shipments to Israel which fuel its genocide in Gaza and occupation. She talks about Germany's role in suppressing any display of support for Palestinians. Jess and Jamal discuss whether the US provided support to Israeli forces in the rescue of four hostages in Gaza.

Jonathan Purcell, Senior Public Affairs Officer for the International Centre of Justice for Palestine (ICJP), discusses the ICJP's role in submitting evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza to the ICC. Evidence submitted was collected from first-hand eyewitnesses, many of them medical professionals who had been in Gaza since October.

Arwa Damon, former CNN Senior International Correspondent and founder of INARA (International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance), talks about the scale of the humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza. She says that there are no humanitarian safe zones in Gaza.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations and sit-ins are spreading at universities across the United States and to campuses around the world. From the US to Australia, students are calling for their universities to divest and sever ties with Israel. Will this affect President Joe Biden's re-election prospects? Our reporter in Washington, DC, Phil Pasquini, interviewed students from George Washington & Georgetown Universities.

Dr. Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley, discusses Israel's ongoing Genocide in Gaza and the growing global anti-Israel movement led by students demanding an immediate ceasefire. In the United States, students have initiated several demonstrations and sit-ins on college campuses that are reminiscent of the anti-war outcry during the Vietnam era. The most recent is at Columbia University in New York.

Ahmed Benchemsi, Advocacy and Communications Director for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) division, discusses HRW's recently released report entitled "Gaza: Israel’s Imposed Starvation Deadly for Children." The report gives a grim assessment of an ongoing famine in Gaza. Since January, humanitarian organizations have been warning that famine in Gaza is imminent. Famine is now a reality, and Palestinians in Gaza are dying from starvation, with the overwhelming majority being children. Eighty percent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide now are Palestinians living in Gaza.

Jess & Jamal discuss Israel's military killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in Gaza. WCK has called for an independent investigation, saying that the Israeli military “cannot credibly investigate its own failure”. Several aid agencies described the attack as emblematic of the Israeli military’s systematic disregard for the safety of civilians, including aid workers, during six months of war. The killing of the WCK staff – six of whom were internationals – has drawn strong rebuke, including from Israel’s main allies, the UK and the US.