"Nobody wants to name the traumatizer" w/ Lara Sheehi
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome psychoanalytic scholar, professor and licensed clinical psychologist to discuss the historic role of psychoanalysis in national liberation struggles, the connection between the revolutionary work of Franz Fanon and the Palestinian resistance, and how liberal educational institutions are facilitating fascist attacks on oppositional voices. Watch the on our YouTube channel Date of recording: March 3, 2025. Follow us on our socials: X: YouTube: Insta: TikTok: *Sign up at to access all the bonus content, *
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"The West Bank is being annexed" w/ Mariam Barghouti
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome Ramallah-based journalist Mariam Barghouti ) to discuss the ongoing de facto annexation of the West Bank, the unchecked growth of colonial outposts, the role of the mainstream Western media in whitewashing and censoring this violence, and the position of the Palestinian Authority as a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. Watch the on our YouTube channel Date of recording: Feb 11, 2025. Follow us on our socials: X: YouTube: Insta: TikTok: *Sign up at to access all the bonus content, including* ...
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"Every single one of us has a role to play" w/ Mohammed el-Kurd
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome journalist and writer Mohammed el-Kurd to the show to discuss his new book, , his family's surreal experiences with Jewish Israeli settlers in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the role of resistance in the broader meaning of the term, and why Palestinians can never surrender to the "politics of appeal." Watch the on our YouTube channel Date of recording: Feb 3, 2025. Follow us on our socials: X: YouTube: Insta: TikTok: *Sign up at to access all the bonus content, including*
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"The minimum we owe is solidarity” w/ Asli Bâli
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome Aslı Bâli, Professor of Law at Yale Law School and President of the Middle East Studies Association. They discuss the increasingly repressive academic climate in the United States over the question of Palestine led by private sector as well as the current Trump Administration, how anti-Palestinian racism is used as a wedge issue in contemporary culture wars, how Zionist and rightwing organizations seek to criminalize dissent by claiming that it is discriminatory, and then how this politics is connected to the increasingly repressive Pax Americana in the Middle East...
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"They still think we are 'savages'” w/ Wadie Said
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome their cousin Wadie Said, Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, to reflect on Donald Trump’s personalized domestic and Middle East agenda, the Gaza ceasefire deal and the demise of international legal order. The conversation then focuses on insidious concepts of “terrorism” in the US, and its legal implications for those accused on trumped up charges as well its weaponization against college students. Watch the on our YouTube channel Date of recording: January 21, 2025. Follow us on our socials: X: YouTube: Insta: TikTok: ...
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“You can’t hide the smoking gun of this genocide” w/ Sherene Seikaly and Tony Alessandrini
Makdisi Street
Note: we recorded this before the appalling of the democratic vote of its membership to condemn Israeli scholasticide The brothers welcome Professor Sherene Seikaly, historian at University of California at Santa Barbara and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and Anthony Alessandrini, Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College and of Middle Eastern Studies at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, to discuss the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) engagement with the question of Palestine. We discuss the historic...
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“Both the US and Israel are delusional” w/ Jeffrey Sachs
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome the world-renowned economics professor and bestselling author, and Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University. They discuss the nature of U.S. global hegemony, idealism vs. realism, the possibility of de-dollarization, BRICS, the delusional notions of perpetual US and Israel hegemony, and why their killing lots of civilians does not translate into political victory, the influence of the Israel lobby in pushing for wars in the Middle East that goes against US interests, money in American politics, Arab state inaction given their leverage, what a “two state”...
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“The lobby is working overtime" w/ John Mearsheimer
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer to the show to discuss the power of the Israel lobby in the US, the relationship between the US and the Israeli state (and whether the dog wags the tail or the other way around), the possibility of change in US policy on Palestine and the Arab world, recent developments in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, and, finally, how transformations taking place in the United States may eventually overwhelm the lobby and its ability to manipulate decision-making from US college campuses to the White House. Watch the on our...
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“No one has a national interest in a unilateral declaration of Syria's future” w/ Omar S. Dahi
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome Syrian political economist and Hampshire College professor Omar S. Dahi to offer personal reflections on the early days of the post-Assad era in Syria, who exactly Ahmad Shara/ Al Jolani is, Syrian policy choices and national interests in the context of external interventions and Turkish influence, and the implications of Israeli expansionism and destruction of Syria’s military infrastructure. Watch the on our YouTube channel Date of recording: December 16, 2024. Follow us on our socials: X: YouTube: Insta: TikTok: *Sign up...
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“The problem has always been that Israel is above the law" w/ Nimer Sultany
Makdisi Street
The brothers welcome , a Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London. They discuss the difference between the hypocrisy of the Western liberal legal order versus the Western liberal abandonment of its own international order to protect Israel, the imperatives of justice in Syria at a time of injustice in Palestine, the ICC and ICJ cases, the fact that South Africa stopped appealing to the ICJ earlier this year, the idea of law as a site of struggle, the need to prevent instead of simply documenting genocide after the fact, and Western and liberal genocide denial. Check out his recent...
info_outlineThe brothers welcome Aslı Bâli, Professor of Law at Yale Law School and President of the Middle East Studies Association. They discuss the increasingly repressive academic climate in the United States over the question of Palestine led by private sector as well as the current Trump Administration, how anti-Palestinian racism is used as a wedge issue in contemporary culture wars, how Zionist and rightwing organizations seek to criminalize dissent by claiming that it is discriminatory, and then how this politics is connected to the increasingly repressive Pax Americana in the Middle East itself. Finally, they discuss the stakes of fighting for international law and human rights, and the minimum duty of solidarity with Palestinians incumbent upon ethical scholars committed to justice.
Watch the episode on our YouTube channel
Date of recording: January 28, 2025.
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Music by Hadiiiiii
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