In their handling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process over the decades, U.S. officials have displayed a “systemic blind spot” by alleviating pressure on the stronger party, Israel, and increasing pressure on the weaker party, the Palestinians, Khaled Elgindy argues in Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, From Balfour to Trump (Brookings Institution ... Show More
Sep 11
Michael E. Neagle, "Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror" (UNC Press, 2025)
While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security has long been a part of US history. Drawing on six case studies, Professor Mich ... Show More
47m 14s
Sep 10
William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe, "Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Political Scientists William Howell and Terry Moe have a new book out that explores how the United States constitutional system has given way to the establishment of a kind of strongman presidency, disconnected in many ways from the constraints designed to keep the American presi ... Show More
53m 20s
Sep 8
Voices from North Korea: Refugees Tell Their Stories
n this podcast, North Korean refugees who visited the University of Bradford share their harrowing experiences of life in North Korea, escape, and the challenges of building new lives in freedom. They are supported by Freedom Speakers International (FSI), a Seoul-based non-profit ... Show More
42m 17s
Mar 2024
Khaled Elgindy on his book: Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump
Khaled Elgindy is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute where he also directs MEI’s Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs. He is the author of the book, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump. In this episode we talk about the intern ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 2025
Can a ‘one-sided, unserious’ US plan deliver peace to Gaza? | The Bottom Line
The US plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza is designed, supervised and administered “primarily by people who are very staunchly pro-Israel,” and has little chance of delivering peace, argues Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University. “We’ve seen this m ... Show More
24m 14s
Oct 2025
America’s Two-State Delusion: A Conversation With Robert Malley
<p>With a cease-fire in place in Gaza after two years of war, Donald Trump has proclaimed the arrival of peace in the Middle East. At the moment, however, it’s not even clear if the cease-fire itself will hold, let alone whether there’s a viable path to a long-term solution to th ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 2020
American entanglement in the Middle East
<p>Philip Gordon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a long-time Washington insider who worked on Middle East policy for the Obama administration and is now an informal adviser to the Biden campaign. In this episode, Gideon Rachman talks to him about the US p ... Show More
24m 51s
Dec 2023
Weekly Roundup: Israel, Palestine, and the US
Brad begins by laying out the current state of conflict in Israel-Palestine: the ceasefire is over; Israel is threatening to displace millions in southern Gaza; 15,000 Palestinians have died; Netanyahu is talking about ending the Palestinian territory . . .
Dan then provides thre ... Show More
1h 8m