The +972 Podcast
The +972 podcast is your direct line to the journalists, thinkers, and activists struggling for justice in Israel-Palestine. +972 Magazine is the only English-language media outlet run by Palestinian and Israeli journalists, delivering fifteen years of fearless reporting and analysis between the river and the sea.
Episodes
‘We threw ourselves out of Gaza, but never really left’
For the first six months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Palestinian journalist Mohammed Mhawish reported from the ground for +972 Magazine and other outlets. In April 2024, he and his family fled Gaza, but he continued documenting what was happening to his home from afar. In this episode of The +972 podcast, exactly three years after the Hamas-led Oct 7 attack on southern Israel and the beginning
The making of Israel's Palestinian mafias
An epidemic of criminal violence is devastating Palestinian communities inside Israel, with this year’s death toll reaching 168 at the time of recording. But the numbers tell only part of the story: Mafia networks have penetrated almost every aspect of life — from local governance to education, welfare, banking, and waste collection. On this episode of The +972 Podcast, anthropologist Eilat Maoz e
How Israel wields international law as a license to kill
In the wake of Israel’s obliteration of Gaza, it is easy to conclude that international law has failed. But Israeli scholar Neve Gordon argues that the problem runs deeper: states can wield the language and principles of international law not only to evade accountability, but to justify mass violence itself. On this episode of The +972 Podcast, Gordon traces how Israel has used legal concepts to c
What happens to Palestinians in Israeli prisons?
Israel’s abuse of Palestinian prisoners and detainees has reached new heights since October 7, particularly for those arrested in Gaza. But what does this incarceration regime actually look like? Human rights lawyer Sahar Francis knows it better than most. She has spent decades advocating for Palestinian prisoners, and she tells +972 that the past three years are the worst she’s ever seen — even t
Israel’s genocidal government is dissolving. Its legacy is here to stay
As Israel prepares for elections on Oct. 27, the past four years demand a reckoning: what has prolonged far-right rule changed in law, policy, and political culture? And what does it reveal about the ability of Israeli institutions and civil society to protect rights during a time of acute crisis? Noa Sattath, Executive Director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) — one of the cou
Inside Meta’s war on Palestinian content
In 2011, social media helped topple dictators. Today, platforms deprioritize political content across the board. But for Palestinians, the problem goes deeper than algorithms — it's systematic. A new report from 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, documents more than 3,000 cases of Meta restricting Palestinian content over five years. 7amleh's executive director Nadim N
Israel stole Rashid Khalidi’s land. The U.S. is building an embassy on it
On July 1, Israel and the United States signed an agreement to build a permanent U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on confiscated Palestinian property. Among the descendants of the Palestinian families who own the site is historian Rashid Khalidi. He details his family’s nearly 30 year legal battle against the planned embassy — and reflects on whether the hundred-year war on Palestine may finally be enter
Why ‘ungrounding’ is the defining feature of Israel’s genocide
Since October 2023, much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble. But architect and Forensic Architecture founder Eyal Weizman argues that destruction alone does not capture what is taking place. Drawing on his new book, “Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide,” he describes a process that goes beyond erasure: the “rubbing out of any trace of existence” aimed at expelling the Palestinian population
The cost of a failed Palestinian leadership
The global movement for Palestinian justice has achieved real gains — in international courts, in diplomatic shifts, in a transformation of public opinion. Yet the official Palestinian leadership remains deeply fractured, ill-equipped to meet the moment. Omar Rahman, fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, makes the case that the Palestinian leadership crisis is a national emergency:
How Israeli classrooms indoctrinate Jewish supremacy
For generations, Jewish-Israeli children have been brought up in an education system where Palestinians rarely appear as Palestinians. Instead, they are "Arabs," “enemies,” and a "demographic threat" — or, in the words of scholar Nurit Peled-Elhanan, "a problem to be solved." A professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Peled-Elhanan ha
Remembering the Nakba of urban Palestine
Jaffa was once a cosmopolitan port city deeply connected to the Arab world. Then, within a few years after 1948, it was transformed: most of its Palestinian population was expelled, its institutions seized and repurposed, and the few residents who remained were confined to a ghetto, often in houses that were not their own, under laws designed to make that dispossession permanent. Abed Abou Shhadeh
The disappeared of Gaza
In April 2024, a sixteen-year-old boy named Hassan Al-Qatta rode his bicycle out of his neighborhood in Gaza and never came back. He is not confirmed dead. He is not confirmed alive. He has simply disappeared. Hassan is one of an estimated 9,000 to 15,000 people missing in Gaza. Journalist Mahmoud Mushtaha spent eight months reporting on what that number actually means.This investigation was produ
How Israel sells militarism at home and abroad
How has Israeli society become so deeply militarized, and what does that mean for how “security” is defined? Sahar Vardi, a veteran anti-militarist activist and researcher, traces how militarization shapes everyday life, drives policy, and exports arms and doctrines of control far beyond Israel's borders — and asks who profits, who pays, and why we accept this as inevitable.Additional reading
Israel's Iran paradox
Israel spent 30 years depicting the Iranian regime as an existential threat, and now it is trying to eliminate it. But if the regime falls, which enemy will it choose next? Meron Rapoport joins us under Tel Aviv sirens to talk about the war's real goals, what it means for Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, and why “victory” may only set the stage for an even bigger challenge.The full t
Where is the PA as Israel annexes the West Bank?
For more than half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was framed as temporary, even as realities on the ground told a different story. Now, legal experts say recent government measures have pushed Israel into de facto annexation. In the face of these moves, and in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority has never looked so weak. Longtime Palestinian affairs journ
Documenting the settler takeover of the West Bank
Across the occupied West Bank, Palestinian communities are being expelled at an alarming pace. Violent settler attacks are increasingly routine—and often ignored by authorities and much of the Israeli media. For the past two decades, Oren Ziv has documented these communities’ struggles to stay on their land when much of the Israeli press would not. In this episode, he shares how the constant threa
'Israel is using organized crime to control Palestinian citizens'
As violent organized crime and police violence reshape everyday life in Palestinian communities in Israel, and as another election approaches, MK Aida Touma-Suleiman reflects on a decade inside the Knesset –– and on the moment she decided she could no longer stay. In a conversation about feminist leadership, political exhaustion, and the limits of trying to fight from within the Israeli system bu
Marwan Barghouti's long walk to Palestine's freedom
Over 9,000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons and military detention centers. While the majority of their names will be unfamiliar to most, the name of one Palestinian prisoner stands out above all others: Marwan Barghouti. Decades behind bars haven’t dimmed his influence—thanks, in part, to his family’s tireless advocacy. His son Arab Barghouti shares how Marwan’s life embod
Who's afraid of Palestinian Christianity?
This time of year, Palestinian Christians are often invoked in media and political discourse as emblems of faith, coexistence, and hope, while the political conditions shaping their lives — including military occupation, genocide, and forced displacement — are ignored. Palestinian theologian and lecturer John Munayer sheds light on the Palestinian Christian experience, from Israeli efforts to sepa
Uncovering the inner workings of an AI genocide
Investigative journalist Yuval Abraham takes us inside his reporting on the systems driving Israel’s mass killing in Gaza over the past two years. He discusses the core challenges and ethical dilemmas of uncovering state-backed atrocities, and why the stories revealed so far are just the tip of the iceberg. Abraham highlights the need to hold powerful institutions, like Israel’s military accountab
Israel emptied half of Gaza. What’s next?
Over a month into the ceasefire, Gaza’s future remains in the hands of Western powers — with Palestinians largely excluded. Gazan political analyst Muhammad Shehada provides an in-depth look at the diplomatic and geopolitical strategies at play, the ongoing realities of displacement and deprivation inside the Strip, and what this moment might mean for Palestinians’ political horizons.Additional Re
What happened to the Palestinian popular struggle?
In the occupied West Bank today, life looks completely different than it did just two years ago — with unprecedented levels of state-backed settler violence, arbitrary arrests, new road closures, and mounting economic pressure. But resistance, too, is changing. Veteran activist Munther Amira connects this moment to earlier chapters of the Palestinian struggle and reflects on what it means to keep
Reckoning or reverting? Israeli society after the ceasefire
Two years after October 7, Israeli public opinion remains shaped by fear, grief, and a siege mentality. But could the fragile ceasefire mark a turning point — or will Israel slip back into an “October 6 way of thinking,” ignoring the root causes of the violence and paving the way for future wars? Political analyst, public opinion researcher, and A Land For All member Dahlia Scheindlin joins us to
Rethinking Palestinian public opinion
How do Palestinians conceive of liberation and hope today, after decades of disillusion, and beyond the narrow language of statehood? In this bleak moment, what forms of governance, sovereignty, or resistance still feel possible?Zayne Abudaka argues that understanding Palestinian public opinion requires a new approach to polling — one that doesn’t flatten or distort Palestinian perspectives. A co-
The only eyes on the ground
More journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 than in any other conflict since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data in 1992. According to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Israel’s onslaught has killed 250 media workers to date. Yet despite facing conditions without parallel in the history of modern warfare, journalists in Gaza continue to bear witness.
Israel's eternal war, from Gaza to Tehran
It’s been nearly two years, and Israel’s genocide in Gaza shows no signs of abating. At the same time, Israel has further entrenched its control over Palestinians in the West Bank, and accelerated its persecution over Palestinian citizens of Israel, while expanding the war to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. Inside Israel, protests against the war among Jewish and Palestinian citizens are continui
What happened to the Green Line?
Last month, a controversy erupted in Israel when the Tel Aviv municipality, in time for the new school year, distributed maps to classrooms that showed the Green Line. Although the 1949 armistice lines that formed Israel's unofficial borders at the cessation of the 1948 war are internationally recognized, in Israel the Green Line is a contentious point, seen as incorrectly demarcating between
The Jewish Comedian Calling Out Apartheid in Arabic
Noam Shuster-Eliassi, an Israeli comedian based in south Tel Aviv, spent her childhood and early adulthood invested in a traditional model of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Growing up in Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam, a mixed community in central Israel where Jews and Palestinains live together by choice, Shuster-Eliassi took to peace activism as a young adult, becoming part of dialog
Excavating Israel's underground settlements
Archeology is presumed to be a neutral endeavor, a practice of excavation that merely uncovers clues about the past. But according to Israeli archeologist Yonathan Mizrahi, it's easy to frame archeological discoveries in a way that privileges one narrative or one history over another. That's very much what is happening in Israel-Palestine, and a lot of that is concentrated in East Jerusa
The Role of Fiction in Palestinian Liberation
When Sahar Mustafah, a Palestinian-American author and teacher, heard about the 2015 murder of three Muslim students in North Carolina by their white neighbor, she turned to writing to process the attack and its ramifications."It was the kind of event that just rattled me to my core," says Mustafah, who is based in Chicago. "What compels someone that you know, a neighbor, to bring a
Resisting Apartheid Behind Israel’s Prison Walls
Perhaps the most enthralling story in Israel-Palestine last month was the startling escape of six Palestinians from the notorious Gilboa prison, using simple tools like spoons to dig a tunnel out of their cells and on to freedom. Although the prisoners were re-captured several days later, their feat dominated Israeli news headlines and captured the Palestinian popular imagination.To unpack the sto
A Little Ice Cream Goes a Long Way
Earlier this month, American ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s announced that will stop selling their products in Israeli settlements located in the occupied West Bank.The company’s decision has sparked an uproar by Israeli politicians, from the far-right to the Zionist left. Along with cries of “antisemitism” and “economic terrorism,” the Israeli government has called on U.S. states to sanction
The Israeli Researchers Unearthing Their Country's Dark Past
It was in the early days of the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research that one of the researchers stumbled upon a document that had disappeared since first being published in the mid-1980s. Dubbed the Immigration Document, the 18-page memo authored by an Israeli intelligence officer in 1948 lists the Palestinian villages and towns that had been depopulated by Israeli forces, a
An Uprising for Palestinian Unity
In late May, Israeli police launched the largest nationwide crackdown against Palestinian citizens of Israel in decades. The campaign, known as Operation Law and Order, has led to the arrest of hundreds of Palestinians who participated in last month’s wave of protests, sparked by the imminent expulsion of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, the police raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the war on Gaza
A Night of Jewish Supremacist Violence in Jerusalem
In this episode, we interview +972 contributor Orly Noy about the shocking display of racism and brutality in Jerusalem last week, when hundreds of Israeli Jews, many of them young men, marched through the streets of the city chanting "Death to Arabs.” The march was organized by Lehava, a notorious extreme right wing organization, after several videos posted on TikTok showed Palestinians hara
Will This Palestinian Matriarch Get to Keep Her Jerusalem Home?
As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world this past year, home has become an especially important source of shelter and safety. While some governments have responded to pressure from activists and paused evictions, Palestinians in East Jerusalem still face uncertainty.That's the case with the Sumarin family, who live just outside Jerusalem's Old City in the Palestinian village
Six Shots in Two Seconds: Investigating the Fatal Shooting of Ahmad Erekat
On June 23, 2020, Ahmad Erakat crashed into the Container checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. Border Police officers shot him six times in two seconds, claiming he had attempted a car-ramming attack. But a new forensic investigation undermines the authorities’ version of events.At the request of the Erakat family, Forensic Architecture, a research agency that relies on spatial and media tools to
Why is Netanyahu Suddenly Courting Palestinian Voters?
Israel is heading into its fourth election in less than two years, and with the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing rather uncharted territory. Like previous rounds, these elections are in many ways a referendum on Netanyahu. But there are bigger factors that could determine if the fourth contest will be different from the last.+972 Magazine Editor-in-Chief Edo Konrad and Editor Amjad Iraqi sat down to t
How Palestine Advocates Are Gearing Up for the Post-Trump Era
There was palpable relief, and even joy, throughout the progressive movement when the U.S. presidential race was finally called for Joe Biden at the beginning of November. Four years of an administration that relentlessly attacked every minority group imaginable would finally be coming to an end, and with it, perhaps, a move away from constant firefighting.Yet Biden's election was by no means
How the Palestinian Authority Undermines Resistance to Annexation
Significant historic threats have befallen the Palestinian people this year, including the Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century” and Israel’s current push to formally annex parts of the occupied territories. But it is still unclear how Palestinians plan to confront these events, both on the leadership and grassroots levels.For example, why have there been no mass protests akin to the intifa
The Jewish Israelis Helping Make Palestinian Return a Reality
This is the third and final episode in our series on the right of return for Palestinian refugees.In the first, we got a glimpse of what return might feel like with Tarek Bakri’s visual documentation project. Then, BADIL’s Lubnah Shomali discussed the practical ways in which return can be made possible. In this episode, we explore what Jewish Israelis think about return. According to Tom Pessah, t
How Can the Return of Palestinian Refugees Become Feasible?
Palestinian refugees are the longest-standing displaced population in modern history. There are currently more than 8 million displaced Palestinians, including internally displaced persons inside Israel.In the second episode of a three-part series on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Lubnah Shomali from BADIL, a Palestinian center that advocates for the rights of refugees, discusses th
The Project Bringing Palestinian Refugees Back Home
Almost 10 years ago, Tarek Bakri accidentally started a project called Kunna ou Ma Zilna, Arabic for “we were and are still here,” as a way of visually documenting Palestine in the social media era.Using old photos and oral history, he helps Palestinians find their original homes and villages, many of which are now depopulated, destroyed, or occupied by Jewish Israelis.The right of return for Pale
Deciding the Fate of Palestinians — Without Palestinians
A month after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his Middle East plan, Israelis went to the polls for a third time in a year. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to declare victory, not much has shifted the deadlock from the previous two rounds, and no party is able to form a government yet.For Diana Buttu, Palestinian human rights lawyer, analyst, and former advisor to the Palesti
Does this Far Right Group Expose What Israel Tries to Hide?
When Meir Kahane, an extremist rabbi who advocated for Jewish supremacy through the use of violence, ran in Israel’s 1988 elections, the state’s Central Elections Committee barred his party, claiming it incited racism and threatened the democratic nature of the state. Similar to the fascist movements of 1930s Europe, Kahane envisioned a Jewish society that is ethnically and religiously “pure.”Deca
The Palestinian Musician Shattering Taboos
Singer-songwriter Maysa Daw always knew she wanted to become a musician. At 27, the Haifa native has a debut album out and is a member of two bands: famed Palestinian hip hop group DAM and new, all-women ensemble Kallemi. In this episode, Maysa talks about the importance of shattering social taboos and airing out the dirty laundry, about her journey toward radical self-acceptance, about writing mu
Who Will Israel Deport Next?
The deportation of Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, put a spotlight on Israel's attempts to suppress dissent and criticism of its policies in the occupied territories.For Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, one of the lawyers representing Shakir in his lengthy battle to stay in the country, the deportation “has huge potential ramifications” not only for foreign nati
What Does Israeli Liberalism Look Like?
Almost two weeks after Israeli voters cast their ballots for a second time this year, it is still unclear which candidate will lead the country. To make sense of all this, The +972 Podcast turns to leading public opinion analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who says not much has changed since the April elections. What’s different this time, however, is the growing debate over the separation of religion and
Will Netanyahu's Attempt to Suppress the Palestinian Vote Backfire?
Whereas in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu tried to appeal to his voter base by warning of Arabs going to vote “in droves,” now he is openly accusing Palestinian citizens of voter fraud and of “stealing” the elections.Sawsan Zaher of Adalah, the legal center for Palestinian rights in Israel, talks to The +972 Podcast about how this voter intimidation campaign is affecting Palestinians in Israel, what Ara
Has International Law Failed Palestinians?
By understanding Zionism as a white supremacist project, the division between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians becomes reductionist, says Noura Erakat, Palestinian human rights activist and author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.Thinking of racism merely as a distinction between Jews and non-Jews pits Palestinians against the very groups who also suffer from Israel’s aspirat
Could Mizrahim Find Their Most Natural Allies in Palestinians?
It is no secret that for decades, the Zionist left discriminated against Mizrahim, or Jews with roots in Arab and Muslim countries, treating them as second-class citizens and pushing them to the economic, political, and cultural margins of Israeli society. Mizrahim took matters into their own hands, forming political movements and parties of their own. Their resentment against the left pushed man
How BDS Became Such A Big Deal in American Politics
The United States’ approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dramatically transformed since Trump took office, but a lot of those changes — from legislation to defund the Palestinian Authority to an attempt to criminalize boycotting Israel — actually came from Congress.It’s BDS and the idea of boycotting Israel to pressure into changing its policies, however, that has turned into a major we
Exposing Israel's Arms Sales to Oppressive Regimes
Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack is working to uncover both Israel’s historic ties to brutal military regimes, such as Pinochet’s Chile, as well as its current arms exports to countries carrying out gross violations of human rights, like South Sudan and Myanmar.Israel's ticket to becoming an arms exporter — with deals dating as far back as the 1950s, when the global arms industry was al
Israel Wants to Deport this Human Rights Defender
For more than a year now, Israel has been trying to deport the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir. The ongoing litigation began in May 2018, when Israel decided to revoke Shakir’s work authorization in Israel.This was the first time the Israeli government had used a 2017 amendment to its Law of Entry, which denies entry to those who publicly support a boycott of Israe
The Other Two-State Solution: Confederation
Is the two-state solution really dead? Who knows if it ever will be. But an equitable one-state solution isn’t a given, and there are other models out there for creating a Palestinian state.Confederation keeps the basic idea of two states but without separation between them. Borders are open and meant to facilitate movement instead of hinder it. Palestinians and Israelis alike can live anywhere be
Being Palestinian During Israeli Pride Week
Every year, thousands of tourists travel to Tel Aviv in mid-June to take part in the annual Pride Week festivities.For LGBTQ Palestinians living in Israel, however, the celebrations are far more complicated. Israel likes to celebrate how liberal and pluralistic it is while covering up — or “pinkwashing” — its human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, says our guest on this e
The Other Palestinian March of Return
Every year for over two decades, thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel have marked Nakba Day by marching to the site of a different village that was depopulated and destroyed during the Nakba.While the story of Palestinian refugees — 700,000 of whom were driven out or fled in 1948 — is relatively well known, we rarely speak of those who were internally displaced during the war. They remained
Watching a Revolution in Exile
In early April, Sudanese armed forces deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity after nearly three decades of rule.The Sudanese refugee community in Israel celebrated al-Bashir’s fall, which came after months of protests across Sudan. Along with the excitement of regime change, however, there’s concern that those who deposed al-Bashir are
What Just Happened? — A Post-Election Debrief
A week after Netanyahu easily won another election, things don’t look all that different in Israel-Palestine. But one thing has changed: Everyone who told themselves Israel was seeking a two-state solution all this time now has some difficult and painful questions to face.Our guest this week, +972 Magazine co-founder and contributing editor Lisa Goldman, doesn’t think most people have the courage
Why Voting to Maintain the Occupation is Rational for Israelis
Israeli elections are right around the corner. But for a country that controls millions of non-citizens, the concept of democracy becomes muddled.In this episode, +972 Magazine writer Noam Sheizaf explains why, as opposed to the one- or two-state paradigm most of the world thinks in, Israelis consistently vote for a third option: maintaining the occupation just as it is."Netanyahu and the rig
'Accidental' Rockets from Gaza?
Two rockets fired toward Tel Aviv from Gaza were described, by both Israel and Hamas, as "mistakes" in recent weeks. Tareq Baconi, of the International Crisis Group, joins The +972 Podcast to talk about why that's probably not the whole truth (14:00), how the Great March of Return (8:40) and Israeli elections come into play (15:30), and the consequences we're starting to see fr
Do Ethiopian-Israelis Have Anyone to Vote For?
Decades after the first Ethiopian immigrants arrived in Israel, the community still suffers from high poverty, discrimination, and recent police shootings have brought on mass protests. Mazal Bisawer, a prominent activist, says Israelis can't seem to admit that anti-black racism exists in their society.Later in the episode, editor-in-chief Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man discusses the Supreme Cour
Should Palestinians Vote in Israel?
Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli rule don't get to vote in the upcoming Israeli elections — but some other Palestinians can. Rejecting calls to boycott the elections, Palestinian Member of Knesset Aida Touma-Sliman says that when things get hard you're supposed to fight harder, not run away.In the first episode of The +972 Podcast, we speak with MK Touma-Sliman about the Pal
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