Episode Details

Our Zoom call this week will be at a special time: Friday at 11 AM EDT.

Our guest will be Vali Nasr, Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, author of The Shia Revival, former official in the Obama administration and one of America’s leading experts on Iranian foreign policy. We’ll talk about the dangers of a full-scale war between Israel and Iran and what the Biden administration can do to avoid it. 

Paid subscribers will get the link this Tuesday and the video the following week. They’ll also gain access to our library of past Zoom interviews with guests like Rashid Khalidi, Thomas Friedman, Ilhan Omar, Benny Morris, Noam Chomsky, and Bret Stephens.

Sources Cited in this Video

Mouin Rabbani: “We are where we are because it never occurred to Biden to say ‘don't’ to Israel.”

How Israel grew more reckless in its attacks on Iran after October 7.

The UN Secretary General condemns Israel’s April 1 strike on Iran’s embassy complex in Damascus as a violation of international law.

The US, Britain, and France prevent a UN Security Council condemnation of Israel’s April 1 attack.

Israel’s April 1 attack employed US-made F-35s.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin complained that Israel had not warned the US of its April 1 attack, which put US troops at greater risk.

The Director of National Intelligence warns that Israel’s response to October 7 increases the risk of terrorism against the US.

Iran’s cautious behavior after October 7.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)

For the Jewish Currents (subscribe!) Podcast, I spoke with Arielle Angel, Mari Cohen, and Daniel May about antisemitism on campus.

Every few days, I get a Go Fund Me request from a relative of someone trapped in Gaza. Although the analogy is inexact, I always think the same thing: What if this was my family in Europe in the 1930s or 1940s? So I give, although I know it’s never enough. Here are several requests I hope you’ll consider. Abir Elzowidi is trying to evacuate the family of her brother, Tamer, whose entire building and neighborhood were destroyed by Israeli bombs. (Here’s a

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