Category: Podcasts

An interview with scholar and author Joshua Muravchik on this book Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel.

Unless you visit a college campus regularly, chances are that this may be the first time you’ve heard of the so-called boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to be pressure Israel to change its policies toward Palestinians. In this episode Elan Journo interviews Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, a scholar who tracks and writes about the BDS movement. He is a historian and analyst of the Middle East, and it just so happens that he is also an expert on one of the thornier issues within the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that the BDS crowd protest over: the issue of Palestinian refugees. In 2013, he co-authored the book, Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief (Palgrave Macmillan). Finally, he also serves as executive director of an organization called Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Matti Friedman, who worked for the AP as a reporter and editor in Jerusalem, witnessed from the inside how journalists approach the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. In two illuminating articles — published in The Atlantic and Tablet Magazine — he explores different facets of the problem. In this episode of the podcast, Elan Journo interviews Matti about his experience.

Is there a climate of self-censorship regarding Islam? Has fear led artists and writers to avoid discussion and criticism of Islam? What was the “cartoons crisis” actually about? (Recorded December, 2014.)

An interview with scholar Matthew Levitt on his book Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God.

An interview with scholar Efraim Karsh about his book Palestine Betrayed.