The Israel Lobby Con EXTRA! Podcast

Best of Hanan Ashrawi: The Israel Lobby and the "Peace Process" from a Palestinian Perspective

Hanan Ashrawi addressed the Israel lobby and the “Peace Process” at the 2017 "Israel Lobby & American Policy" conference at the National Press Club

Hanan Ashrawi was the first woman to be elected member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2009. She served as the Official Spokesperson of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace process from 1991-1993 and participated in the 1991-1992 Madrid peace conference as a member of the Palestinian Leadership Committee delegation. In 1993 Dr. Ashrawi founded the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights (PICCR) to investigate Israeli and Palestinian human rights violations. She chronicled her involvement in her book This Side of Peace: A Personal Account (1995). In 1996, Ashrawi was elected and subsequently reelected many times to the Palestinian Legislative Council. In 1996 she also accepted the post of Minister of Higher Education and Research. In 1998 Ashrawi founded and continues to serve in MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy. 

Transcript: https://2017.israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org/Transcripts/Hanan_Ashrawi.html

Video: https://youtu.be/Ojr4hDw-IYQ

 

Best of Wajahat Ali: Pro-Israel Organizations, Donors And Islamophobia: Findings From "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America"

This speech, Pro-Israel Organizations, Donors And Islamophobia: Findings From "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America" is from the 2017 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club.

Wajahat Ali is a journalist, writer, lawyer, an award-winning playwright, a TV host, consultant, and Creative Director of Affinis Labs. He was a National Correspondent, Political Reporter, and Social Media Expert for Al Jazeera America. In 2012, Ali worked with the U.S. Department of State to design and implement the “Generation Change” leadership program to empower young social entrepreneurs.

Ali was the lead author and researcher of “Fear Inc., Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” the seminal report from the Center for American Progress.

Transcript: https://2017.israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org/Transcripts/Wajahat_Ali.html

Video: https://youtu.be/GzuG_dmyDCAhttps://youtu.be/UYvb8YAvHL8

Best of: Susan Abulhawa "Israel: More than Apartheid."

This keynote, "Israel more than Apartheid" is from the 2019 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club.

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian novelist, poet and essayist. Her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury, 2010), became an instant international bestseller and was translated into 28 languages. Her second novel, The Blue Between Sky and Water (Bloomsbury, 2015), has likewise been translated into 26 languages. Abulhawa’s first poetry collection, My Voice Sought The Wind (Just World Books), was published in 2013, and she has contributed to several anthologies. Her third novel will be published first in German and then in Swedish, in the Spring of 2019. The English version will follow soon after.

In 2001, she founded Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children. Before her writing career, Abulhawa had a successful career as a researcher in biomedical science. She is the daughter of refugees from the 1967 Six Day War, when her family's land was seized and Israel captured what remained of Palestine, including Jerusalem. She was born in Kuwait, raised between there and Jerusalem, then in the Carolinas, where she completed high school, university and graduate school. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her daughter, their dogs and cats.

Transcript: https://www.wrmea.org/2019-may/keynote-israel-more-than-apartheid.html

Video: https://youtu.be/UYvb8YAvHL8

Best of: Maria LaHood “Concerted attempts to silence criticism of Israel in the U.S.”

This talk is from the 2016 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club.

Maria LaHood is a Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, with expertise in constitutional rights and international human rights. She works to defend the constitutional rights of Palestinian human rights advocates in the United States in cases such as Davis v. Cox, defending Olympia Food Co-op board members for boycotting Israeli goods; Salaita v. Kennedy,representing Steven Salaita, who was terminated from a tenured position for tweets critical of Israel; and CCR v. DOD, seeking U.S. government records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding Israel’s 2010 attack on the flotilla to Gaza. She works closely with Palestine Legal to support students and others whose speech is being suppressed for their Palestine advocacy around the country. She also works on the Right to Heal initiative with Iraqi civil society and Iraq Veterans seeking accountability for the lasting health effects of the Iraq war.

Her past work at CCR includes cases against United States officials, Arar v. Ashcroft, Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, and Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta; against foreign government officials, Matar v. Dichter and Belhas v. Ya’alon; and against corporations, Wiwa v. Royal Dutch/Shell and Corrie v. Caterpillar. Prior to coming to the Center for Constitutional Rights she advocated on behalf of affordable housing and civil rights in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she graduated from the University of Michigan Law School. She was named a 2010 Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year Finalist.  From the Center for Constitutional Rights

Transcript: https://www.israelsinfluence.org/transcripts/maria_lahood.html
Video: https://youtu.be/W5jRoLbYVzw

Best of: Andrew Kadi "The Palestinian BDS Campaign: What It Is, How It Is Growing, and Why the Efforts to Stop It Will Fail."

This talk is from the 2018 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club.

Andrew Kadi is an organizer and Steering Committee member of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Kadi is a blogger at the Electronic Intifada, a member of Al-Shabaka: the Palestinian Policy Network, and has written for or appeared in The Guardian, USA Today, The Forward, TRT, CityLab, Mondoweiss, the New York Daily News, and the BBC.

He has been active for the past 16 years in support of Palestinian rights, mobilizing at the grassroots level and organizing digital campaigns, challenging mainstream media coverage, and harnessing popular education approaches to raise awareness and advocate change.

Transcript: https://www.wrmea.org/018-may/the-palestinian-bds-campaign-what-it-is-how-it-is-growing-and-why-the-efforts-to-stop-it-will-fail.html

Sides: https://2018.israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org/transcripts/IsraelLobbyCon2018_Andrew_Kadi_slides.pdf

Video: https://youtu.be/Fi_62ZcBKU8

"Israel Propaganda in the News Media" - UMass Professor Emeritus Sut Jhally

University of Massachusetts Professor Emeritus Sut Jhally presented key findings from, and comments on, select clips shown from his 2016 documentary, "The Occupation of the American Mind," which analyzes pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S. Featuring leading observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. media, the film explores how the pro-Israel lobby shapes American media coverage of the conflict in Israel's favor. From the U.S.-based public relations campaigns that emerged in the 1980s to today, the film provides a sweeping analysis of Israel’s decades-long battle for the hearts, minds, and tax dollars of the American people in the face of widening international condemnation of Israel's human rights violations and military occupation. Jhally also analyzed whether the news media have been getting better—or worse—since the documentary was produced, and whether election-season news coverage is likely to cover—or cover up—growing challenges to standard pro-Israel narratives and politics.

Video at: https://youtu.be/ym7M_FMvdQI

IsraelLobbyCon EXTRA! Series at: https://www.israellobbycon.org/home

Best of: Dr. Roger Mattson “Did Israel steal U.S. weapons-grade uranium, and did it have help from U.S. citizens?”

Roger J. Mattson is the author of the recently published book Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel.

Dr. Mattson has experience in engineering and management with Sandia National Laboratory, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Environmental Protection Agency and several nuclear safety and security consultancies.

He was an adviser to the NRC commissioners on policy issues such as safety goals, risk assessment, nuclear safeguards, and Three Mile Island reforms. After leaving government service in 1984, he led two private companies that provided safety and security services for U.S. nuclear power plants, the Energy Department's nuclear facilities, and several foreign users of nuclear power. Following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, he helped develop IAEA's guidance on safety principles for the world's nuclear power plants. He oversaw nuclear safety consultancies in five foreign countries. He also served on the offsite safety committees for several nuclear power plants and several DOE nuclear facilities. In 2012, he was part of a team formed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to forge a new safety construct for nuclear power after the tragedy at Fukushima. He has participated in safety analysis and field reviews of nearly 150 nuclear facilities in the US, Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Far East, including the startup of the latest U.S. nuclear power plant in 2015.

This talk is from the 2016 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club
Transcript: https://www.israelsinfluence.org/transcripts/roger_mattson.html
Slides: https://www.israelsinfluence.org/video/Roger%20Mattson%20-%20Did%20Israel%20steal%20U.S.%20weapons-grade%20uranium.pdf
Video at: https://youtu.be/9LX4LigFtPk

Best of: Dr. Virginia Tilley "Does the U.S. Support an Apartheid State?"

Dr. Virginia Tilley, a professor of political science at Southern Illinois University, is co-author of the report, “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” commissioned by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) of the United Nations. The report, co-authored by Prof. Richard Falk, finds that Israel is imposing an “apartheid regime” on Palestinians.

Professor Tilley holds an MA and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MA from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown. She specializes in the comparative and international politics of ethnic and racial conflict, and has research experience in Central America, Israel-Palestine, post-apartheid South Africa and Oceania (Fiji and the small island states of the south Pacific). Her research examines how the social construction of ethnic, racial and national identities has been used by political actors to gain power, build nations and shape conflict. In addition to numerous articles and policy papers, she is author of The One State Solution, (U of Wisconsin Press, 2005), a pragmatic analysis of the two-state solution in Israel-Palestine; and editor of Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Pluto Press, 2012). At SIU she teaches courses on racial ideology and conflict, international relations, nation-building, and global comparative studies, with special attention to Middle East studies focusing on current events.

This talk is from the 2018 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club
Transcript: https://www.wrmea.org/018-may/does-the-u.s.-support-an-apartheid-state.html
Slides: https://2018.israellobbyandamericanpolicy.org/transcripts/IsraelLobbyCon2018_Virginia_Tilley_slides.pdf
Video at: https://youtu.be/9LX4LigFtPk

Best of: Ian Williams "The Israel Lobby and the U.N."

Ian Williams, U.N. correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, is the author of the book UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War. Mr. Williams is a senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, he was a columnist for The Nation, the Guardian-American online and an editor for the World Policy Journal. Williams has won many awards for his exposés of U.N. malfeasance, as well as supporting and defending the U.N. He has personally known four secretaries general, and innumerable diplomats and officials worldwide.

Williams has covered the United Nations since 1989 and twice served as president of the U.N. Correspondents’ Association. In 1995, for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, while he was president of the U.N. Correspondents’ Association, Williams wrote U.N. for Beginners.

An associate professor at Bard Center for Globalization and International Affairs, he lectures on the U.N. and the Responsibility to Protect.

Born in Liverpool, UK, Williams played in the rubble of bomb sites left over from the war that inspired the founding of the United Nations. He graduated from Liverpool University after being suspended for several years because of his protest against the university’s investments in South Africa.

This talk is from the 2018 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club

Transcript: https://www.wrmea.org/018-may/the-israel-lobby-and-the-u.n.html

Video at: https://youtu.be/VhuNNEc9r38

"American Jews and Israel: A Faltering Relationship" with Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and Allan Brownfeld

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, described Jewish Zionism as a failing ideology for many younger American Jews who reject Israel’s oppressive occupation policies and bellicose actions toward Iran, as well as the relationship between U.S. and Israeli militarism. But how will this impact their future as activists in electoral politics? Will they remain mostly captive to the Democratic Party, voicing opposition while accepting candidates captured and mentored by AIPAC?

Allan C. Brownfeld, American Council for Judaism, discussed the growing disillusionment of American Jews, and some Israelis, with the Jewish state and Zionism. Young American Jews who champion civil rights at home, including the right to vote, freedom of movement, due process and equality, realize that Israel is denying those same basic rights to Palestinians. Peter Beinart, Seth Rogen, Marc Maron and other Jewish Americans who are urging Israel to dismantle its apartheid policies face bitter attacks from the Israel lobby and Jewish Establishment organizations, charging they’ve “crossed a line.” Brownfeld offered some suggestions about how progressive Jewish voters can influence both the Democratic and Republican parties.

This conversation is from the 9/10/2020 IsraelLobbyCon EXTRA! webinar series.

Video at https://youtu.be/yZiRppZfAHk