Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael J.G.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Rutgers University's Director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights, Sahar Aziz, returns to the program to discuss the recent House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearings on antisemitism and why they resemble something more akin to the McCarthyite witch hunts of the House on American Activities during the Cold War than an honest effort to combat antisemitism. These hearings, she argues, are more about shutting down political criticism of Israel than fighting antisemitism. We'll also delve into some of the key points covered in Sahar's book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom and discuss the Islamophobia-industrial complex that's especially been prevalent in America since 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Moreover, Prof. Aziz will offer her thoughts on the Anti-Defamation League, which has received harsh criticism in recent years with Jonathan Greenblatt at its head, and its activities against pro-Palestinian and Arab American political activists. Most importantly, however we focus on how the House Commitee on Education and the Workforce investigations into antisemitism, which involves figures like Rep. Elise Stefanik and Rep. Virginia Fox, have attacked the Center for Security, Race, and Right as well as academics like Noura Erakat and Juan Cole. Sahar will address some of the allegations made by the House Commitee against CSRR and delve into how this is connected to broader Republican Party efforts to tamper down academic freedom and discourse (ie: how it connects to GOP attacks on DEI and CRT, right-wing promotion of book-banning, etc.).

On this edition of Parallax Views, Israeli investigative reporter Meron Rappaport joins the show to discuss a MAJOR story he helped break last week with 972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian: Israel's Covert War Against the ICC. According to the bombshell reporting Meron and others have done, Israel has engaged in a nearly long surveillance program against the International Criminal Court. Surveillance was aimed at both current chief prosecutor and his predecessor Fatou Bensouda. Additionally, Palestinian human rights groups like Al-Haq, Addameer, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) were targets of surveillance and there are connections to the controversial and scandal-besieged Israeli private cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group's Pegasus spyware to this story. This story includes allegations of illegal activity, intimidation, and blackmail.
Read the story HERE: Surveillance and interference: Israel’s covert war on the ICC exposed
We'll  discuss a numbe of issues-related to this story including how figures at the highest-levels of Israel's government, specifically Benjamin Netanyahu, figure into the surveillance program as well as the military (ie: IDF) and intelligence services (ie: Shin Bet) tie into it as well. Moreover, we'll look at how Israeli officials were initially enthused about Karim Khan taking over as chief prosecutor at the ICC until "everything changed" with the October 7th Hamas attack and the Gaza War. At the beginning of the conversation Meron will give his thoughts on the state of the Israeli free press in light of the recent attack on Haaretz's Tel Aviv headquarters where the main doors of the HQ's entrance were smashed.
In the final portion of the conversation Meron discusses the Land for All movement that he helped cofound which offers a Confederation approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many argue that the Confederation approach amounts to a push for a de facto one-state solution, but figures like Dahlia Scheindlin as well as Meron argue that it is actually a two-state solution for the 21st century that addresses the failures and missteps of the Oslo generation. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views.

On this edition of Parallax Views, longtime California-based progressive activist Mirvette Judeh tells the story of her only political journey and how she and a group of activists scored a victory for the the #CeasefireNow movement that is seeking to make calling for a ceasefire in Gaza a priority in California Democratic Party politics. Mirvette recently penned a piece that appeared in Antiwar.Com entitled "Our Fight To Get the Democratic Party To Call for a Ceasefire in Gaza" in which she chronicles how the fight to get proper recognition of the Palestinian plight in a call for ceasefire resolution. We'll also discuss Mirvette's experiences as a Palestinian, her family's experiences under the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, what "Free Palestine" means for her and what she wants for the Palestinian people, her experiences at the UCLA encampment and what she witnessed there, the "Progressives Except for Palestine" problem, antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, the brutal nature of Israel's assault on Gaza and the cultural destruction it has wrought on Palestinian society, the importance of speaking to Palestinian voices, settler violence in the West Bank and pogroms against Palestinians in the West Bank, feelings of being portrayed by fellow Democrats who she's worked with over the years when it comes to the past 8 months of Israel's assault on Gaza, why she doesn't refer to what's happening as the "Gaza War", land theft and resource access in Israel/Palestine, Rashida Tlaib and other politicians standing up for Palestinians at this moment, problematic language in the original ceasefire language that Mirvette and other activists fought to change, and much, much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, are major US officials like National Security Spokesman John Kirby, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and Sen. Ted Cruz throwing US military veterans under the bus in an attempt to excuse Israel's conduct in Gaza? This became a question for some after John Kirby said "We did it to" in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to a question about Israel's conduct in Gaza. In the first segment of the show, The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft's Kelley Vlahos returns to the program to discuss her piece in The American Conservative entitled "‘We Did It Too’: The Ugliest Excuse for Israel ". Kelley interviewed military veterans like Ret. Col. Douglas MacGregor and Ret. Lt. Col. Daniel Davis to get an idea of what men who served in the armed forces may be thinking of the statements being made by Kirby, Milley, and others about Israeli military conduct and comparing it to US military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. We'll also discuss the $320 million dollar boondogle that was the Gaza pier project and how that's ended on a rather sour note.
In the second segment of the program, James R. Webb, son of Sen. Jim Webb and a former combat veteran in the Iraq War and Marine service infantryman from 2005-2010, returns to offer his own commentary on Kirby's comments, the Gaza war, reports of Israeli soldier's taking lewd pictures of themselves posing with stolen Palestinian Gazan women's underwear, the nature of atrocities and how they happen in warfare, lack of discpline as a driving factor in atrocities, the slogan that "Israel is the most moral military in the world" above and beyond the US military, Benjamin Netanyahu's lack of strategy in the current war, how atrocities and mass civilian casualties can create future security threats/terrorist threats, the IDF, Jim's experiences in Ramadi, a rather funny anecdote about Jim's father's reaction to the Rambo movie sequels, misperceptions about American military veterans, Fallujah and use of excessive force/brutality in war, and much, much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, a MASSIVE, wide-ranging conversation with Hussein Ibish, a Senior Resident Scholar at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and a contributor to publications like The Atlantic and the UAE's The National, that delves into the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict and where it is headed. We go through the diplomatic failures, the formation of Israeli and Palestinian national identities, the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush era efforts to bring about a political solution, the 2000 Camp David Summit and its controversies, the ongoing Occupation by Israel of Palestinian territories since 1967, the BDS movement and why Hussein considers "Divestment" to be where activists should focus their energies as opposed to "Boycott" and "Sanctions", the two-state solution vs. the one-state solution, riparian rights (ie: issues related to water) concerns related to a two-state solution, the rise and fall of the American Task Force on Palestine, Condoleezza Rice's forgotten approach to Israel/Palestine in the Bush years, Elliot Abrams and how pushes for a two-state solution have been diminished by shifting focuses of administrations over the years, Israeli and Palestinian competing narratives over 1948 (for one it meant independence; for another it meant destruction and the "Nakba" or "Catastrophe"), Hamas and the psychology of rage in Gaza, the Israeli operation in Rafah, cycles of violence, Israeli obstinance and the one-state reality, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party, the Gaza War, terrorism and how Israel's current approach is creating a recruitment boom for Hamas, the power asymmetry in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the potentially for explosive violence in the West Bank to lead to an ethnic cleansing campaign, Hussein's close friend the late Christopher Hitchens and Hitchen's stance on Palestine, and much, much more.
A note that this was recorded on 5/29/24.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Osgoode Hall Law School of York international law scholar Prof. Heidi Matthews joins us in the first segment to discuss the ICC (International Criminal Court) and its announcement that it will seek arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders like Yahya Sinwar in relation to the Gaza War. We get into the nitty gritty of what this means for Israel/Palestine and discuss issues such as genocide, war crimes, the breaking news that Israeli intelligence has been engaged in a nearly decade long covert war against the ICC, the massacre in Rafah, international humanitarian law and international criminal law, and much, much more.
In the second segment of the show, Quincy Institue for Responsible Statecraft intern Brett Heinz joins the show to discuss his Responsible Statecraft piece "Foreign bribery in Congress: 'The way business is done'?"as well as the Quincy brief he co-wrote with Ben Freeman entitled "Subsidizing the Military-Industrial Complex: A Review of the Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows (SDEF) Program". Recently, two Congressmen, Rep. Henry Cuellar and Sen. Bob Menendez, were indicted on charges of foreign bribery. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, argues Brett Heinz. We look at foreign bribery scandals from Koreagate to Abscam up to the present day and Heinz offers insight into what is needed to combat this problem in the halls of Congress and the political system in America more broadly.