Episode Details

The Outgoing National Security Advisor’s Orwellian Interview at the 92nd Street Y

Our Zoom call this week, for paid subscribers, will be on Friday, January 17, at 1 PM Eastern, our regular time.

Our guest will be Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program and a former senior attorney at Adalah, which defends the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel. We’ll talk about the Trump administration’s coming crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech and activism.

I’ve also recorded another Zoom video, without a live audience, with the longtime Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy. I have long wanted to ask Gideon what it’s like to be one of Israel’s most hated men. And how he lives in a society that he regularly accuses of committing grave crimes. I was struck by the openness and intimacy of his answers. He told me, among many other things, that every morning when he goes for a jog in the park, he sees the same woman jogging alongside him. And that every morning she greets him with the same phrase: “traitor.”

This video is for paid subscribers too.

My New Book

On January 28, Knopf will publish my new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. I hope the book will contribute, in some small way, to changing the conversation among Jews about what is being done in our name. But I’m keenly aware of two things: First, Jewish voices like mine usually get more attention in the US than do Palestinian ones. Second, while I’m publishing my book, Palestinians in Gaza— and beyond— are suffering in unspeakable ways.

So, while I hope you consider buying my book, I hope you also consider buying a book by a Palestinian author. I’m grateful to readers for offering their favorites. One reader suggested In Search of Fatima, by the British-Palestinian writer Ghada Karmi, which The New Statesman has called “one of the finest, most eloquent and painfully honest memoirs of the Palestinian exile and displacement.”

Readers have also suggested additional charities working in Gaza. One is Donkey Saddle, which “has been providing ongoing support for over 15 extended families” in Gaza.

Sources Cited in this Video

Jake Sullivan’s interview at the 92nd St Y.

The new Lancet study on the number of dead in Gaza.

Oxfam’s comparison of deaths in Gaza to those in Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere.

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.)

In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Maya Rosen chronicles the movement to establish Jewish settlements in southern Lebanon.

Former Representative Cori Bush

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