Arab Talk with Jess & Jamal

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.

Lara Kiswani, Executive Director of the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), discusses why some Arab and Muslim-American organizations and individuals living in the San Francisco Bay Area boycotted the San Francisco City Hall Iftar, stating that Mayor London Breed and several city officials have made racist, harmful, and dangerous comments about Palestinians, Muslim and Arab-American communities during the ongoing Israeli Genocide in Gaza where more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and while Israel is deliberately starving 2.2 million Palestinians by denying the entry of food and other essential supplies into Gaza.

Why does the Israel lobby wield such power on American politics? Author Walter Hixson deconstructs AIPAC’s influence on U.S. politics. His book entitled "Architects of Repression: How Israel and its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy" is a comprehensive history of the crucial role of the Israel lobby.

Francesca Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. She talks about the continuing aggression and killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s imposed famine on Gaza, and the imperative of the signers of the Genocide Convention to act. She has stated that "Arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel are the only way to stop the genocide in Gaza."

Dr. Rola El-Farra, a medical doctor from Houston, Texas, whose family originates from Gaza, has had more than 150 members of her extended family murdered during Israel’s ongoing onslaught and withholding of food and medical care. Dr. El-Farra speaks to the victims’ humanity with poignant accounts and pictures. She demands an immediate, permanent ceasefire, stating that every minute signifies the loss of a life, the starvation of a child.

Three U.S. C-130 cargo planes dropped 38,000 Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) — in locations near the seashore in Gaza. President Biden announced the U.S. would begin air dropping food to starving Gazans after at least 115 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded, when Israeli tanks and soldiers opened fire on them, as they lined up to receive flour. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, while the Biden administration continues to supply Israel with bombs.

In his recent article in +972 Magazine "Rugs, Cosmetics, Motorbikes: Israeli soldiers Are Looting Gaza Homes En Masse," Israeli journalist Oren Ziv reports that soldiers say not only is the practice ubiquitous but that senior commanders are pillaging as well.

Jess & Jamal warn of a major slaughter of civilians if Benjamin Netanyahu implements his plan to invade Rafah. "Whoever tells us not to operate in Rafah, is telling us to lose the war." Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to invade, despite warnings from several countries that such a move would have a devastating impact on displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

Democratic and Republican parties offer Arab and Muslim Americans no viable choice in the 2024 Presidential election. The majority of them voted for Biden in 2020 as a protest against Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric. Green Party Presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, explains how her party serves the interests of the majority of Americans and how young voters from 18-35 are turning away from establishment candidates.

Biden's former field organizer in 2020 Adam Abusalah discusses why Arab & Muslim Americans in Dearborn, Michigan will not be voting for Biden in 2024. With Biden's approval rating at almost the lowest of his presidency, a win in swing states is more critical than ever in the 2024 presidential election. Michigan is a crucial swing state that the President carried in 2020.

Jess & Jamal discuss Nancy Pelosi's attack on ceasefire supporters, by smearing them as connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate that,” Pelosi added without providing any evidence.

Human rights attorney and activist Stanley Cohen discusses South Africa's Genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He adds that the significance of the fact that the country bringing the case is South Africa – an icon of the ravages of colonialism, settlement and apartheid – cannot be lost on anyone.

South Africa has filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of crimes of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza after nearly three months of relentless Israeli bombardment has killed more than 22,000 people and caused widespread destruction in the besieged enclave. The application describes Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”

Dr. Hatem Bazian talks about the Israeli Foreign Ministry's four-point plan, coordinating with the ADL and AIPAC, to muzzle and dismantle pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses in the United States. Major targets are Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapters across the US.

Award-winning journalist Daoud Kuttab discusses Israel's intent on purging independent eyewitnesses of the ongoing Genocide and atrocities it is perpetrating in Gaza. Close to 70 days into Israel's assault on Gaza, more than 63 journalists have been killed due to Israeli bombardment and targeted killings. Several journalists had their entire families wiped out by Israel.

Yara Jamal worked as a production assistant and web writer before she was terminated with “no warning” by the Canada TV Atlantic bureau in Halifax. She is one of the latest victims of a new international McCarthyism against criticism of Israel.

Montréal-based activist and author Yves Engler discusses how HESEG Foundation For Lone Soldiers, a registered Canadian Charity, supports and encourages Canadians and non-Israelis to join Israel's military. Yves Engler notes that HESEG may violate Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act.