Just World Podcasts: Recent Episodes
Helena Cobban
Just World Podcasts is an innovative podcast series on international affairs. In November 2023, we launched a new series titled "PalCast", which is a collaboration with Tortoise Shack Media in Dublin, Ireland. Our host for this series is Yousef AlJamal, and Helena Cobban is co-host. Tony Groves of Tortoise Shack is also part of these timely conversations.
JWP is run by the publishing house Just World Books and Just World Educational.
On June 5, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with the renowned economist and UN advisor Prof. Jeffrey Sachs to assess the impact of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, and the long-running Israeli genocide in Gaza on global governance and the global economy.
In this convo Sachs was forthright in his denunciation of the stupidity of the Trump-Netanyahu decision to launch the war against Iran. He noted that while the war and the naval blockade that Washington set up around Iran's ports was inflicting mounting economic costs on most of the peoples of the world, a few bodies have been making super-profits off the war's continuation, including big U.S. oil companies and military production entities across the U.S. and Israel.
He also shared several crucial observations about the currently poor state of the UN's effectiveness and the degree to which the body is hobbled by the actions of the U.S. president (as well as by Israel.)
Listen to the whole of this super-informative conversation! It is the latest episode in Just World Ed's continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all the others in this series at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On May 29, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with the strategic analyst Elijah Magnier to assess the impact of the first 13 weeks of the (still somewhat ongoing) U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Early on in this Just World Ed project, Magnier had been both the first and the fourth contributor to this this project, both just before and just after the U.S. and Israel launched their assault on Iran on February 28. In this latest convo, he and Ms. Cobban revisited many of the key judgments he had made on those occasions. Magnier also assessed the likelihood of the "framework agreement" that's currently being discussed between Tehran and Washington leading to a real ceasefire-- as well as the impact this war has had so far at both the West Asian regional level and gobally.
This dialogue was also the latest episode in Just World Ed's continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On May 20, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with Dr. Yingnan ("Chris") Yi, a Research Fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, to discuss the role that China has played and can play in finding a speedy, lasting, and equitable end to the U.S.-Iran war. This conversation came just a few days after the end of Pres. Trump's trip to Beijing where he held a notable series of summit-level meetings with Pres. Xi Jinping.
This conversation took the distinctive form of an interactive dialogue, in which Dr. Yi. and Ms. Cobban each had the chance to pose some questions to the other. It also ranged broadly over a number of key items on the China-U.S. agenda, in addition to matters related more directly to the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Israel's assaults against Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. The two scholars also assessed the broad changes in power dynamics that the world is seeing today.
This dialogue was also the latest episode in Just World Ed's continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On May 12, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with Mahdi Mohabirad, a tehran-based scholar of international law and the Director of the Organization for defending Victims of Violence.
In this convo, Mohebirad and Cobban discussed (among other topics):
- The extent of the impact of the United States' long-running sanctions on Iranian people and society
- The ways in which Iran can have recourse to remedies under international law
- The limitations on the effectiveness of existing international institutions, and
- The responsibility of citizen organizations to work to reform this situation.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On May 9, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with John Ross, who's a Senior Fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. That, at a point midway between the May 6 visit of Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi to Beijing and the upcoming visit there by U.S. President Trump, who'll be holding an important summit there with Pres. Xi Jinping on May 13 or 14.
In this conversation, Ross emphasized the geopolitical and geo-economic impact of the still-simmering U.S. war on Iran. He assessed that from Beijing's viewpoint, this war is centrally about whether the U.S. can be allowed to continue exerting unilateral control over the entire world economy, given that it is the U.S. military that is currently blockading the Hormuz Strait and preventing a peaceful negotiated end to this war.
Listen to John Ross and Helena Cobban discussing this and other issues around China's persistent, though generally quiet, pro-peace diplomacy and the importance of the upcoming summit meeting.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On May 7, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with Maryam Jamshidi, Assistant Professor of Law in the law school at the University of Colorado, and a Non-resident Fellow of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
In this convo, Jamshidi and Cobban discussed (among other topics):
- The many details of what international maritime law has to say about the rights Iran may enjoy over the Strait of Hormuz
- The depth of the remaining differences between the U.S. and Iranian positions on how to end the war
- The sad history of the UN Security Council's engagement in the question of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran
- The utility of international law in the present, lawless era.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On May 1, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with the former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was one of the founders of the antiwar organization Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). During his career in the CIA, McGovern was a very expert analyst of Soviet (and Russian) affairs. In the early 1980s he was responsible for giving the U.S. president his daily intel briefing.
In this convo, McGovern and Cobban discussed (among other topics):
- the likelihood of any imminent U.S. resumption of major military actions against Iran;
- the slowly decreasing influence of Israel in the U.S. Congress;
- the impact of Iranian FM Araghchi's recent visit to Moscow and the potential role that Russia might play in mediating an end to the war;
- the Israeli navy's recent acts of piracy against the Global Sumoud Flotilla heading to Gaza (in the context of the increasing recourse to acts of piracy by the U.S. navy, as well); and
- David Swanson's recent book War Is Still A Racket.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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In this episode of the Iran Crisis series, Helena Cobban sat down with Professor Richard Falk, international law scholar and JWE board member, for a wide-ranging conversation that spanned nearly five decades of history. Recorded on April 29, the discussion moved from a remarkable personal meeting he had with Ayatollah Khomeini in January 1979 to the crisis of international law and the nuclear non-proliferation debate that are both unfolding right now.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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In this special presentation for Just World Educational's Iran Crisis series, Helena Cobban, the president of Just World Ed, delivered a pre-recorded talk for the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center conference in Orinda, California, on April 25th. Unable to attend in person and having to record her remarks more than 24 hours before they would be delivered, she chose to take a long historical view of the crisis by tracing the Strait of Hormuz across 5,000 years of human history.
She traced Hormuz's origins as a key node connecting the formative ancient civilizations in the Indus Valley and Mesopotamian, and as a central artery in the vast Indian Ocean trading zone that once stretched from East Africa to China. She described that pre-European world as a thriving, self-governed commercial network with its own norms and technologies, drawing on the work of historian Janet Abu-Lughod.
She then walked through the entry of five European imperial powers into that world: Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands, and France. She described what she called the "White Supremacist International," a succession of empire-building ventures driven by profit, looting, and the rise of finance capitalism. She traced Portugal's violent seizure of Hormuz in 1507 under Afonso de Albuquerque, followed by the London-based East India Company's takeover of the port in 1622, and drew direct parallels between those colonial methods and what Israel is doing in Palestine and Lebanon today.
Cobban closed by urging viewers to work toward curbing Western military power and ending the war.
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On the evening of April 23, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with Dr. Moeed Pirzada, a prominent Pakistani journalist based in Washington, D.C. and founder-editor of Global Village Space magazine. Together they examined the rapidly shifting situation around the U.S.-Iran conflict, Pakistan's role as a mediator, and the broader geopolitical realignments taking place across West Asia and beyond.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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On the day before the current two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is due to end, the veteran scholar of Iranian and international affairs Trita Parsi sat down with JWE president Helena Cobban to review the prospects for war or peace in West Asia.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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In this April 17 conversation, JWE president Helena Cobban and the veteran Palestinian political analyst Mouin Rabbani discussed the implications, for West Asia and the world, of some of Pres. Trump's crucial recent decisions regarding the ongoing crisis over Iran. Rabbani reviewed, in particular, the decision Trump took mid-week to publicly pressure Israel to accede to a ceasefire in Lebanon, which it had previously refused to do. He also explored what that decision, and Israel's speedy compliance with it, tells us about the nature of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
Cobban and Rabbani also reviewed (among other topics):
- the history of the U.S. relationship since the beginning of the longer crisis sparked by Hamas's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood of October 2023,
- the prospects for the peace negotiations that were tentatively launched April 10-11 in Islamabad, Pakistan,
- the implications of the current U.S.-Iran and Israel-Lebanon ceasefires for the Palestinians of Gaza, and
- the big changes for the situations in West Asia and globally that were spurred by the U.S.-Israeli decision to launch the current War of Choice against Iran.
This summer Rabbani will be publishing his first sole-authored book, Gaza Apocalypse: A Gencoide Diary (OR Books.)
This conversation was the thirteenth in Just World Educational's ongoing series on the Iran Crisis/War. Find all the records of this project here.
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In this April 12 conversation, JWE president Helena Cobban discussed with Prof. Rami Zurayk the impact on Lebanon of the violence that Israel has unleashed against the country for many months now. (Israel escalated that violence very notably on April 8, the day when it looked as if Washington was finally ready to sit down and negotiate a serious ceasefire with Iran.)
Rami Zurayk is a researcher on ecological affairs and a social activist with deep family roots in South Lebanon. In 2011, Just World Books published War Diary: Lebanon 2006, his short, engaging account of what he experienced during the very destructive invasion of Lebanon that Israel undertook in 2006.
This conversation was the twelfth in Just World Educational's ongoing series on the Iran Crisis/War. Find all the records of this project here.
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In a week that started with Pres. Trump's outrageous genocidal threats against Iran, then saw him apparently agree to a ceasefire while Israel unleashed a torrent of violence against Lebanon... JWE president Helena Cobban was happy to be able to assess the broader impact of these events with Sri Lankan analyst Indi Samarajiva.
Indi's main writing platform is indi.ca.
This was latest episode in our continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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In this April 1 conversation with JWE president Helena Cobban, Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr., discussed the impact and relevance of the 5-point peace initiative for the Iran conflict that China and Pakistan jointly announced on March 31.
You can find more background about Amb. Freeman and about this new peace initiative at this post on JWE's Substack.
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In this March 24 convo with Helena Cobban, Vijay Prashad, the director Tricontinental, drew on his extensive experience of the affairs of the Global South to assess the extent and roots of Iran's achievements in resisting the attack that the U.S.-Israeli alliance started on February 28.
Prashad and Cobban also discussed the ties between Iran's achievements in their war against the alliance and the prospects for the movements in Gaza, the rest of Palestine, and Lebanon that are also facing fierce onslaughts from the alliance, and the impacts of this war on the global balance more generally.
This conversation is the ninth in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is a follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. The multimedia records of all the conversations in this series can be found at this portal page on our website.
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org, or with our Substack justworlded.substack.org for other news of this series.
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In this March 20 talk, Just World Ed president Helena Cobban assessed the current state of the Israeli-US War on Iran at Day 21, and lessons that antiwar activists-- particularly those in the United States-- should take from what has happened until now. She focused on:
- the depravity of the rampages Israel has been committing in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon in addition, to those in Iran
- the intense degree to which the U.S. military and government are actively complicit in all of Israel's rampages, including those regarding which Pres. Trump has expressed some mild (or even joking) reservations
- the impotence of the United Nations regarding Palestine, Lebanon, and the globe-wide economic crisis sparked by the war
- the responsibility of U.S. citizens to take concrete actions to end the war and to build a sustainable peace-- including by pulling all U.S. military bases out of the Gulf.
This conversation is the eighth in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is a follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. The multimedia records of all the conversations in this series can be found at this portal page on our website.
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org or our Substack justworlded.substack.com for news of our further programming in this series.
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In this March 5 convo with Helena Cobban, longtime Iran specialist Barbara Slavin noted the survival of Iran's central governance structures even after the early assassination by the Israeli and U.S. war machine of the Supreme Leader and numerous other figures in the country's military and political leadership, and surmised that its government is not likely soon either to crumble or to "capitulate."
Slavin, who is a Distinguished Fellow at Washington DC's Stimson Institute, mocked many of the assertions by Pres. Trump and cabinet members like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth that Tehran was about to cave. She and Cobban also surveyed the still-spreading consequences of the war for the West Asia region, the global economy, and also the U.S. political system.
This conversation is the seventh in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is a follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. The multimedia records of all the conversations in this series can be found at this portal page on our website.
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for news of our further programming in this series.
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In this March 4 convo with Helena Cobban, the veteran U.S. diplomatist Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr. assessed Iran's objectives in the defensive war it is now waging in response to the massive Israeli-U.S. aggression of February 28, and its likelihood of achieving them.
He also assessed a range of other topics including the impact that Iran's actions is having on economies around the world; the policies adopted by various European government; the possible and likely impact of the war on U.S. domestic politics; and the effects the Israeli-U.S. aggression is having on global institutions.
This conversation is the sixth in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is a follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. Tomorrow (March 5) we will round out this week's offerings with a convo with the Iranian-affairs expert Barbara Slavin.
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for updates on other upcoming episodes.
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In this March 3 convo with Helena Cobban, JWE's board member the veteran analyst and thinker Rami G. Khouri discussed the sizeable impact that Iran's response to the U.S.-Israeli war of aggression is already having on Arab Gulf states, the broader region of West Asia-- and the world.
The two agreed that Iran's resilience and its ability to inflict real pain on the aggressors and other actors worldwide are both notable, and started to place these factors in their deep historical context
This conversation is the fifth in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. New episodes are being released at Noon ET on each week-day in both video and audio format. Here is the schedule of guests who are already confirmed for the rest of this week:
- March 4 ~ Amb. Chas Freeman
- March 5 ~ Barbara Slavin
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for updates on other upcoming episodes.
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In this March 2 convo with Helena Cobban, strategic analyst Elijah Magnier assessed the impact that the U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran has been having within the Gulf region, in the rest of West Asia, and worldwide. His main conclusions were that the survival and the demonstrated, continuing competence of Iran's military and other governing structures already constitute a significant achievement and that the U.S.-Israeli aggressors can expect no quick or clean victory.
Magnier explored the significant differences between the goals that Pres. Trump and PM Netanyahu hope to achieve in the war. While both men are using this war for their own electoral purposes, Trump doesn't necessarily seek the destruction. of Iran's central governance capabilities, while for Netanyahu that is a much more central goal.
This conversation is the fourth in JWE's ongoing "Iran Crisis" series, which is follow-on to the "Gaza, and the World" project that we launched in Fall 2025. This new series will be quite fast-paced, with new episodes being released at Noon ET on each week-day in both video and audio format. Here is the schedule of guests who are already confirmed for the rest of this week:
- March 3 ~ Rami G. Khouri
- March 4 ~ Amb. Chas Freeman
- March 5 ~ Barbara Slavin
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for updates on other upcoming episodes.
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In this convo conducted late on February 26, Helena's guest was Ray McGovern, a long-time peace activist, and before that a high-level Soviet-affairs analyst for the CIA.
McGovern shared the reasons why, for some time now, he has thought Pres. Trump is very unlikely to launch the much-touted (and much-feared) aggression against Iran. He also shared his analysis of the role Russian Pres. Putin plays in the background of the Iran crisis, the declining strength of Israeli leverage over Trump, and more.
This conversation was the third in Part 2 of Just World Ed's ongoing "Gaza & the World" project, which is tracking the still-simmering crisis between the United States and Iran. You can learn about the contents of the first two eps, and get the links to their respective video and audio files, here: Elijah Magnier, Bill Quandt.
New eps in this series are being released at 1 pm ET on each of the following days in both video and audio format. Here are the guests who're already confirmed for the coming week:
- March 2 ~ Trita Parsi
- March 4 ~ Amb. Chas Freeman
- March 5 ~ Barbara Slavin
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for information on other upcoming episodes that still await confirmation.
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In this February 26 convo, JWE President Helena Cobban and the veteran Middle East (West Asia) specialist Bill Quandt dissected the perils of Pres. Trump's decisionmaking chaos. They surveyed the possibly catastrophic costs of any eruption of war; explored some possible non-military exits from the crisis; and looked at both the in-region dynamics of the crisis and the possible divergence of U.S. and Israeli preferences regarding it.
This conversation was the second in Part 2 of Just World Ed's ongoing "Gaza & the World" project, which is tracking the still-simmering crisis between the United States and Iran. The first ep was a conversation with Elijah Magnier. Find details and multimedia links to that, here.
New eps in this series are being released at 1 pm ET on each of the following days in both video and audio format. Here are the guests who're already confirmed for the coming week:
- Feb. 27 ~ Ray McGovern
- March 2 ~ Trita Parsi
- March 4 ~ Amb. Chas Freeman
- March 5 ~ Barbara Slavin
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for information on other upcoming episodes that still await confirmation.
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In this February 25 convo, JWE President Helena Cobban and the strategic analyst Elijah Magnier explored issues raised in Magnier's crucial recent article "The Countdown Between Tehran and Washington: Ultimatum, Escalation, and the Brink of War".
This conversation inaugurated Part 2 of Just World Ed's ongoing "Gaza & the World" project, which is tracking developments in the still-simmering crisis between the United States and Iran-- a crisis that is a direct part of (and extension of) the still continuing U.S.-Israeli assault against Gaza.
This very timely Part 2 of the "Gaza & the World" project will be quite fast-paced, with new episodes being released at 1 pm ET each day in both video and audio format. Here is the schedule of guests who are already confirmed for the coming week:
- Feb. 26 ~ Bill Quandt
- Feb. 27 ~ Ray McGovern
- March 2 ~ Trita Parsi
- March 4 ~ Amb. Chas Freeman
Check back at our website www.justworldeducational.org for information on other upcoming episodes that still await confirmation.
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On February 2, 2026 (U.S. Pacific Time), JWE President Helena Cobban conducted this wide-ranging conversation with the European strategic analyst Elijah J. Magnier. They discussed principally the points he'd raised in his Feb. 1 blog post "Why Washington Flaunts Naval Power When the Real War Architecture Lies Elsewhere". Other relevant recent writings of Elijah's are this, from Jan. 30, and this, from Jan. 28.
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Helena Cobban, President of Just World Educational, reads her January 24, 2026 newsletter that examined major political developments affecting Gaza, Iran, and the United Nations. She described Donald Trump’s launch of a new body called the Board of Peace and said it appeared designed to sideline the UN.
She detailed Jared Kushner’s proposed plan for Gaza, which envisioned population concentration zones, a coastal tourism strip, and an industrial zone along the armistice line. However, she questioned who could impose a settlement where Israel had failed.
She also addressed Trump’s renewed pressure on Iran, warnings of a possible US Israeli assault, and the impact of decades of US sanctions. She called those sanctions a form of terrorism. She reflected on European resistance to Trump’s Board of Peace and urged a stronger defense of the UN, especially UNRWA. She closed with updates from Just World Educational and calls to engage with its work.
List of links mentioned in the talk:
- The Globalities writing platform https://globalities.org/
- Israeli authorities demolish UN compound in occupied East Jerusalem (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8...)
- Board of Peace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_o...)
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United...)
- Jared Kushner unveils ‘free market Gaza’ with coastal towers and data centres (https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ja...)
- How Israel and the U.S. are using the ‘shock doctrine’ to impose a new administration in Gaza (https://mondoweiss.net/2026/01/how-is...)
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This episode was the third in our timely 3-part series "Venezuela in Washington’s Crosshairs: Breaking the Information Blockade," which is co-hosted by Just World Ed's Helena Cobban and Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas. The series is presented by these two organizations and co-sponsored by the U.S. Peace Council, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition.
This episode featured:
- Michelle Ellner, of CodePink
- Dan Kovalik, international human-rights lawyer and author
- Ajamu Baraka, of the Black Alliance for Peace.
Ms. Ellner, a Venezuelan American, gave us some vivid descriptions of the effects the U.S. military attack of January 3 and Washington's many other hostile actions have had on her family members and colleagues back home in Venezuela. She spoke of the extreme importance of breaking the "information blockade" regarding Venezuela that nearly all the Western corporate media have engaged in.
Mr. Kovalik described the many ways in which U.S. actions, including the lengthy and debilitating sanctions and the U.S. military's attacks against shipping, have violated fundamental tenets of international law. He explored some of the regional dimensions of the ongoing crisis. He also warned that the violence the trump administration has deployed so widely and so illegally in other countries is also coming home, with the attacks the ICE forces and their allies have been taking against protesters in Minnesota and elsewhere.
Mr. Baraka situated the U.S. actions against Venezuela's sovereignty within both the broader history of Western colonialism and the long history of the United States' push for expansionism.
The speakers and moderators engaged in a broad conversation on these issues and underlined the need for concerted global action to resist and overthrow Western colonial hegemony.
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This episode was the second in our timely 3-part series "Venezuela in Washington’s Crosshairs: Breaking the Information Blockade," which is co-hosted by Just World Ed's Helena Cobban and Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas. The series is presented by these two organizations and co-sponsored by the U.S. Peace Council, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition.
This episode featured:
- Jesús Rodríguez-Espinosa, the Editor of the Orinoco Tribune and a former Venezuelan diplomat;
- Richard Falk, professor of international law and former UN special rapporteur for Palestine (also, a board member of Just World Ed); and
- Corinna Mullin, a leaders in the US Peace Council and the Anti-imperialist Scholars Collective.
Mr. Rodríguez Espinoza spoke with us from Venezuela and described the widespread networks of Bolivárian solidarity that provide resilience for Venezuelan society under the onslaught from U.S. imperialism. He stressed that internal cohesion and international partnerships remained key. He addressed sanctions and framed them as part of a wider strategy to weaken the state and society.
Dr. Mullin focused on sanctions as collective punishment. She linked them to shortages, economic harm, and media narratives that obscure their impact and challenged the legal basis used to justify these measures.
Professor Falk placed Venezuela’s case within international law. He reflected on sovereignty, coercive measures, and the need to hear the perspective of those targeted by power politics. He welcomed analysis rooted in lived experience rather than external narratives.
The speakers and moderators engaged in a broad conversation on these issues before the webinar closed with a call to confront the information blockade and to ground debate in law, facts, and solidarity.
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This episode inaugurated our timely series "Venezuela in Washington’s Crosshairs: Breaking the Information Blockade," which is co-hosted by Just World Ed's Helena Cobban and Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas. The series is presented by these two organizations and co-sponsored by the U.S. Peace Council, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition.
This episode featured: Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist María Paéz Victor, Leonardo Flores of the Venezuela Solidarity Committee, and Prof. Marjorie Cohn, the former president of the National Lawyers' Guild.
The speakers examined how U.S. policy has targeted Venezuela's sovereignty and national independence and has worked to shape public narratives about the country. Their discussion focused on the illegality of Pres. Trump's violent kidnapping of Pres. Nicolás Maduro and other U.S. policies like the debilitating sanctions, attacks on shipping, etc; and on the ongoing regime change efforts, and the role of media silence and distortion.
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In this episode of "Gaza & the World" JWE President Helena Cobban's guest was Prof. John Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and the co-author with Stephen Walt of the groundbreaking 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. This conversation took place less than 24 hours after the November 17 passage by the UN Security Council of Resolution 2803, by which the Security Council threw its full support behind the whole of the (very controversial) 20-point "Peace Plan" for Gaza that Pres. Trump had unveiled September 29.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Ms. Cobban and Prof. Mearsheimer explored the impact that Seceurity Council might have, both on developments in Gaza and the rest of West Asia and on the standing of the UN itself going forward.
The two discussed the details of how the "Israel Lobby" has functioned over the years and the serious impact it currently has on essential aspects of the free-speech situation in the United States.
The conversation ended with more discussion of the changing shape of the global order, which Prof. Mearsheimer describes as having been a multipolar one "since 2017."
See the multimedia records of all the conversation s conducted in the "Gaza & the World" project, here.
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In this episode of our "Gaza & the World" series, Helena Cobban talked with Dr. Ghada Karmi about the intersection of the genocide in Gaza and the shifting global balance of power. Dr. Karmi is a British-Palestinian who had a strong career in London as a physician and a medical historian; then between 2002 and 2023 she published four thoughtful books that explored not only her own personal experiences as a member of the Nakba generation and a justice activist, but also the broader realities faced by Palestinians inside and outside the homeland. Her most recent work of non-fiction was One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel.
Dr. Karmi described the unprecedented groundswell of popular support for Palestinian rights the British public has displayed since October 2023, which she contrasted with the continued pro-Israel stance of the British government and many of the country's elite institutions.
She detailed her role as a juror of conscience at the Gaza People’s Tribunal in Istanbul, where she and others weighed the extremely harrowing testimonies of Israel's atrocities in Gaza.
She was unequivocal: the underlying cause of the Palestinians' suffering is Zionism, which must therefore, she argued, be dismantled— which would not be the same as the physical destruction of Israel or its people. She was deeply skeptical of the wisdom of striving for a two-state solution, seeing it as perpetuating the destructive ideology of Zionism. She called instead for the reconstitution of pre-Zionist Palestine and the establishment of a single democratic state for all.
She also described some of the experiences she had had while working as a consultant for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, back in 2005.
She recognized the significance of the hopeful shifts among younger generations and new political actors in the West but warned that time is running out for Palestinian rights and existence.
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In this episode of our "Gaza & the World" series, Helena Cobban talked with Vijay Prashad about the intersection of the genocide in Gaza and the shifting global balance of power.
Vijay Prashad is a visionary global justice activist, the executive director of the Tri Continental Institute for Social Research, the editor of Left Word Books, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and a senior non-resident fellow at the Chong Yang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. He was speaking with Cobban from Beijing.
In this episode, Prashad argued that while the world's economic center of gravity had shifted away from the United States, the US maintained overwhelming dominance through its military and information power. He discussed the role of China in providing an alternative economic pole, which allowed Global South nations to speak more freely against Western policies, arguing that the genocide in Gaza had exposed the moral bankruptcy of the West to the global majority and evoked historical memories of colonialism. [
He contended that any discussion of post-conflict governance in Gaza was meaningless without the release of all Palestinian political leaders, whose imprisonment by Israel had crippled Palestinian political life. He concluded on a sobering note, saying that a direct confrontation with the US military was not currently feasible for rising powers and that meaningful change required a political transformation within the United States to dismantle its military-first approach to global affairs.
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This is the second episode of "Gaza & the World," a weekly podcast from Just World Educational, hosted by our president, Helena Cobban. This project explores the many interactions between the ongoing, genocidal crisis in Gaza and the world-changing shifts that the global balance of power is currently undergoing.
In this episode, Helena's guest is JWE's valued board member Prof. Richard Falk, a veteran scholar of international law who has also served a crucial term as the UN's Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights. Shortly before joining this conversation Falk had presided over the final, four-day-long session of the globe-girdling Gaza People's Tribunal, which was held in Istanbul Türkiye.
The two discussed the tribunal's conclusion that Israel had committed genocide, and explored the tribunal's findings on the multiple forms that genocide has taken, including domicide and ecocide. They discussed the complicity of Western governments.
Falk also analyzed the failures of the United Nations, especially the Security Council, contrasting it with the more principled stances of the International Court of Justice and UN Special Rapporteurs.
He argued that despite Israel's military dominance, it had lost the "legitimacy war," which he believed would ultimately be the decisive factor, drawing parallels with other anti-colonial struggles in the past.
We're planning to release new episodes weekly, each Wednesday. Be sure to catch them all!
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This is the first episode of "Gaza & the World," a new weekly podcast from Just World Educational, hosted by our president, Helena Cobban. This series explores the crucial role that the two-year genocide & the horrendous ongoing crisis in Gaza-- and also the resilience and resistance of the Palestinian people of Gaza-- are playing in the deep, world-changing shifts that the global balance of power is seeing in our current era.
In this opening episode, Helena and JWE's valued board member Rami G. Khouri discuss the historical and present realities of Palestine, the impact of colonial legacies, the role of global powers, and the growing international movement for justice. Their conversation sheds light on shifting political attitudes, the rise of civil society activism, and the broader fight for Palestinian rights as part of global anti-colonial struggles.
We're planning to release new episodes weekly, each Wednesday. Be sure to catch them!
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On June 13, 2024, JWE President Helena Cobban gave a talk at the Rossmoor community in Walnut Creek, CA, hosted by Rossmoor Voices for Justice in Palestine. The talk was titled "Palestinian resistance from the PLO to Hamas." In it Helena drew on her 50 years of experience of studying, reporting on, interviewing the leaders of, and analyzing all the main Palestinian resistance movements of the modern era. Look on the JWE blog for links to the video of this event, the transcript, and more information about JWE's "Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters" project.
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This was the fifth and final session in a series of Public Conversations that Just World Ed presented in May 2024, on the theme of "Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters." The series as a whole was presented by JWE President Helena Cobban and board member Rami G. Khouri. Our guest in this episode was Dr. Azzam Tamimi, who's the editor-in-chief of the London-based Al Hiwar ("Dialogue") TV channel. He's a specialist on issues related to Islamic political thought, Islamic movements, and Middle Eastern (or West Asian) politics; and a distinguished author of several well-received books on these topics. The book on Hamas that Dr. Azzam published in 2007 came out in the USA with the intriguing title of Hamas: a History from Within.
In this session in our series, Helena and Rami were joined on the "interviewing panel" by three other JWE board members: Zoharah Simmons, Nora Barrows-Friedman, and Zoharah Simmons.
You can learn much more about this project and access the multimedia records of this session and all the others, at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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This was the fourth of a series of Public Conversations that Just World Ed is presenting in May 2024, on the theme of "Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters." The series is presented by JWE President Helena Cobban and board member Rami G. Khouri. Our guest in this episode was Mouin Rabbani, a super-smart Dutch-Palestinian researcher and analyst who specializes in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and contemporary West Asia, the region also known by its Eurocentric monicker, "the Middle East."
Rabbani has previously served as Principal Political Affairs Officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria; as Senior Middle East Analyst and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group: and a Researcher with Al-Haq, the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. He is currently Co-Editor of Jadaliyya and has numerous other important affiliations.
You can see much more information about this project and access the multimedia records of this session and all the others as they occur, at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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This was the third of a series of Public Conversations that Just World Ed is presenting in May 2024, on the theme of "Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters." The series is presented by JWE President Helena Cobban and board member Rami G. Khouri. Our guest was Dr. Jeroen Gunning, a Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and Conflict Studies at King’s College, London. Dr. Gunning is also a Visiting Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, and at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics. He is one of the founders of the field of critical terrorism studies and has taught and advised both policy-makers and civil society organizations.
In 2010, he published a book titled, Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence. You can learn about the broad array of articles and books he has published on different aspects of the work of radical non-state actors in various parts of West Asia, at his page on the KCL website.
You can see much more information about this project and access the multimedia records of this session and all the others as they occur, at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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This was the second of a series of Public Conversations that Just World Ed is presenting in May 2024, on the theme of "Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters." The series is presented by JWE President Helena Cobban and board member Rami G. Khouri. Our guest was Dr. Khaled Hroub, a Professor in residence with the faculty of liberal arts at Northwestern University in Qatar, whose focus is Middle Eastern studies and politics with particular interest on Islam and politics, Arab-Israeli conflict and Arab media studies.
Dr. Hroub’s many works include Hamas, A Beginner’s Guide, 2nd edn, 2010, and a chapter, “Nothing Fails Like Success: Hamas and the Gaza Explosion” in the recently published book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm (OR Books, 2024.)
You can see much more information about this project and access the multimedia records of this session and all the others as they occur, at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
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This was the first of a series of Public Conversations that Just World Ed is presenting in May 2024, on the theme of "Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters." The series is presented by JWE President Helena Cobban and board member Rami G. Khouri. Our first guest was journalist and author Dr. Paola Caridi.
You can see much more information about this project and access the multimedia records of this session and all the others as they occur, at this Online Learning Hub on our website.
Dr. Caridi is a Lecturer at the University of Palermo, is a founding member of the News Agency “Lettera22”, and was their correspondent in Cairo, 2001-03, and in Jerusalem, 2003-12. While she was reporting from Jerusalem she conducted intensive coverage of the crucial series of events that ran from Israel's 2004 assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, through the movement's participation in Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 (and their victory therein)... and then to the series of fierce, always US-supported, attacks that Israel maintained against Hamas and the whole population of Gaza from 2007 on... The second of Dr. Caridi's three published books was Hamas: From Resistance to Government, which first appeared in Italian in 2009, and in English in 2012. (An updated version was released last October 10.)
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In March 2024, the Middle East Committee of Westmoreland Church, which is a very active "UCC" congregation located on the borderline between Maryland and Washington DC, invited Helena to go and speak to their members on the topic "Hamas: A Primer."
The event took place on April 21, 2024, and took the form of a conversation conducted, for the first 35 minutes, by longtime Middle East Committee member Robert Mertz. In the second half of the program, several attendees at the gathering asked questions, both in-person from the church parlor, and online via the event's well-populated Zoom feed.
This episode contains the recording of nearly the whole of the April 21 event. Here is the "resource list" referred to toward the end of the episode:
•Online resource list: bit.ly/Keys-4-H
•Sign up for Helena’s (roughly weekly) newsletter at: eepurl.com/b-5d_9
•Learn about her company’s many books on Gaza, Palestine, etc, at: Justworldbooks.com
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This episode introduces the people behind a brand new series, PalCast, which will be hosted by Palestinian refugee (and friend of the shack) Dr Yousef Aljamal and his longtime collaborator and friend Helena Cobban, herself an activist and author of great renown. PalCast is a collaboration between Just World Educational and Tortoise Shack Media, which produces the series from its base in Dublin, Ireland. This twice weekly series will discuss the ongoing Gaza-Israel crisis, the geopolitics at play, the place of Palestine in the world, and the struggle for Palestinian liberation, as summed up in the mantra 'One World, One Struggle.' One World, One Struggle which is being used with the permission of the Blood Sunday Families. Music is Sabreen (West Bank 1987)
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The second episode of Palcast discusses the shared struggle of the Palestinian and Irish peoples. From Captain Boycott, to Bloody Balfour, to hunger strikes, Dr Yousef Aljamal, Helena Cobban and Tony Groves delve into the shared struggle between the two nations, and indeed the anti-apartheid movements globally. We also look at the mistakes that Ireland has made and what the movement for Palestinian self-determination can learn from them. Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack
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As Israel's genocide in Gaza continues, PalCast's Dr Yousef Aljamal and his co-host Helena Cobban survey the situation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank and the waves of pro-Palestinian sympathy that have swept around the whole world, including throughout the Global South and even at the grassroots level within most Western countries. They note the continued ability of Washington DC to block effective U.N. action for a ceasefire, the declining power of the United States in world affairs, and the need for a deep renewal of the Palestinian political leadership. Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack
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In this episode, Helena Cobban presents a voiced version of the essay she published today on the Globalities website, which is titled, "Untangling Syria's devastating civil war." In the essay, Ms. Cobban, a long-time analyst of Syria's affairs, expresses her cautiously optimistic assessment of the possibility that recent shifts in West Asian politics and diplomacy may now, finally, allow for a winding down of the conflict inside Syria.
If you're interested in what you hear here, head to the essay in the text version, where you will also find all the hyperlinks Ms. Cobban put in there, as well as a map and some other informative graphics.
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In this episode of her Global Shifts series, Just World ed President Helena Cobban looks at the events and developments of the past week that illustrate the big shifts now underway in the global balance. This week, she looks at the continuing fallout from the visit that French Pres. Emmanuel Macron paid recently to Beijing, and also at this week's visit there by Brazilian Pres. Lula Da Silva. Then, she looks at three big ongoing developments in West Asia, concerning Yemen, Syria-- and the current worrying increase in U.S. military deployments in the Persian Gulf region.
Ms. Cobban rounds off the episode by taking a step back to survey the 500-year history of Western colonial involvement in the Asian and Indian Ocean regions and the current signs that that era is starting to come to an end.
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In today's episode Just World Ed's Helena Cobban presents her review of the key shifts in the global balance that we've seen over the past week. This episode covers:
- The ongoing contest between NATO and Russia over Ukraine
- The two big diplomatic events in Beijing this week
- Implications of Pres. Macron's visit to Beijing
- Implications of the new rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and
- The effects of this rapprochement on developments in the Mashreq area of West Asia.
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In mid-January 2023, the veteran analyst of world affairs Helena Cobban published an essay at Globalities.org in which she explored the urgent need for a country-wide ceasefire or armistice for Ukraine, and explored the value of the precedent set by the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953. She also looked at the issue of armistices more broadly and noted several features of the Korean armistice that are particularly relevant to the case of Ukraine today.
In late March 2023 Ms. Cobban voiced this essay as the inaugural episode in this new podcast series from Just World Educational. Globalities is a project of Just World Educational.
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This was the sixth conversation in Just World Educational's project to produce and share multimedia resources to inform, educate, and engage new generations of (especially) Americans on the need to Ban All Nuclear Weapons and dismantle all existing nuclear arsenals, including our own.
In this convo, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Amelle Zeroug talked to William B. Quandt, an American scholar, author and professor emeritus in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. Dr Quandt previously served as senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and as a member on the National Security Council in the Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter administrations.
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This was the fifth conversation in Just World Educational's project to produce and share multimedia resources to inform, educate, and engage new generations of (especially) Americans on the need to Ban All Nuclear Weapons and dismantle all existing nuclear arsenals, including our own.
In this convo, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Amelle Zeroug talked to Joseph Gerson, Executive Director of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security and Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau. Gerson, a veteran anti-nuclear organizer has just been at a key meeting in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on the international coordination of Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones (NWFZs) and who was with us from Vienna where he's attending many ICAN/TPNW-related meetings.
Listen to additional episodes in this series which will be released twice-weekly through the end of June.
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This was the fourth conversation in Just World Educational's project to produce and share multimedia resources to inform, educate, and engage new generations of (especially) Americans on the need to Ban All Nuclear Weapons and dismantle all existing nuclear arsenals, including our own.
In this convo, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Amelle Zeroug talked to Ivana Nikolic Highes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Listen to additional episodes in this series which will be released twice-weekly through the end of June.
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This was the third conversation in Just World Educational's project to produce and share multimedia resources to inform, educate, and engage new generations of (especially) Americans on the need to Ban All Nuclear Weapons and dismantle all existing nuclear arsenals, including our own.
In this convo, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Amelle Zeroug talked to Vicki Elson, co-founder and creative director of NuclearBan.US.
Listen to additional episodes in this series which will be released twice-weekly through the end of June.
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This was the second conversation in Just World Educational's project to produce and share multimedia resources to inform, educate, and engage new generations of (especially) Americans on the need to Ban All Nuclear Weapons and dismantle all existing nuclear arsenals, including our own.
In this convo, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Amelle Zeroug discussed the growth of two massive nuclear arsenals since WW2 (in the USA and Russia) with Ray McGovern, a veteran CIA officer turned political activist whose post-retirement work includes co-founding in 2003 Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and work on the National Advisory Board for Veterans for Peace.
Listen to additional episodes in this series which will be released twice-weekly through the end of June.
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This was the inaugural conversation in Just World Educational's project to produce and share multimedia resources to inform, educate, and engage new generations of (especially) Americans on the need to Ban All Nuclear Weapons and dismantle all existing nuclear arsenals, including our own.
In this convo, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Amelle Zeroug discussed the growth of two massive nuclear arsenals since WW2 (in the USA and Russia) with JWE board member Rick Sterling and Prof. Ted Postol, who's a professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. Postol's expertise is in nuclear weapon systems, including submarine warfare, applications of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defense, and ballistic missiles more generally. Before his gigs of teaching at Stanford and then MIT Postol worked as an analyst at the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and as a science and policy adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations, in the Pentagon.
Listen to additional episodes in this series which will be released twice-weekly through the end of June.
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On May 20, JWE President Helena Cobban spoke at an event on the Ukraine Crisis and the nuclear risks associated with it that was hosted by the Mount Diablo Center for Peace and Justice in Walnut Creek, California.
JWE board member Richard Falk contributed a video message to this event, which took the form of a 20-minute dialogue that Ms. Cobban had conducted with him a couple of days before.
This podcast episode takes the form of a slightly clunky mix of the live audio from the event, the audio from the Falk dialogue, and some words of introduction and framing.
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This virtual conversation between Helena Cobban and Richard Falk was pre-recorded for the Friends of Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center for screening on May 20th, 2022.
For more information or to download Just World Educational’s report “Ukraine: Stop the Carnage, Build the Peace!” please visit www.justworldeducational.org.
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The launch of our report “Ukraine: Stop the Carnage, Build the Peace!” in which Helena Cobban and Richard Falk were joined by Katrina vanden Heuvel, Medea Benjamin, Gar Smith, Ray McGovern, David Swanson, Cynthia Lazaroff, Rick Sterling, and David Barash to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and the policy recommendations included in the report.
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The eighth and final session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Dr. David Barash and Cynthia Lazaroff. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The seventh session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Phyllis Bennis and Indi Samarajiva. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The sixth session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Anatol Lieven and Ray McGovern. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The fifth session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Dr. Radha Kumar and Dr. Mary Kaldor. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The fourth session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Bill Fletcher, Jr., Erik Sperling and Marcus Stanley. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The third session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Medea Benjamin and Marjorie Cohn. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The first session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Amb. Chas Freeman, Jr. and Katrina vanden Heuvel. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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The first session of "#UkraineCrisis: Building a Just and Peaceful World," a biweekly series of online convos hosted by JWE Pres. Helena Cobban and Board Member Richard Falk, joined this week by guests Vijay Prashad and Lyle Goldstein. For full bios and more info, please visit bit.ly/Ukr-Updates
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This week on The World From Palestine, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Yousef Aljamal untangle the ways in which empires erase and appropriate the cultures of indigenous peoples, whose lands they settle and steal.
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In this week's episode, Helena and Yousef take us on a journey from Rwanda to India to understand the classic “divide and rule” tactic that belays many imperial projects and the various strategies indigenous people have used to push back.
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In this episode, Helena and Yousef examine how colonial powers throughout history, including Israel, have used various forms of mass incarceration as a central tool in their project to control the indigenous populations of the areas they are colonizing.
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This episode delves into the the dire environmental impact that West-European settler-colonial projects have always had on the lands and peoples that have been their target.
From Israeli afforestation to the near-extinction of buffalo in the Great Plains of North America, Helena and Yousef break down settler attempts to appropriate resources and destroy indigenous self-sufficiency.
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This week, co-hosts Helena Cobban and Yousef Aljamal break down the myths settler states have used throughout the past six centuries to erase indigenous populations and justify their occupation.
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This is the first episode in our new podcast series “The World From Palestine.” In this series, JWE President Helena Cobban and Palestinian scholar Yousef AlJamal will be jointly exploring the intersections between Palestine’s liberation struggle and other anti-imperialist struggles throughout history, and until today. Today, Helena and Yousef discuss hunger striking and other forms of resistance to imperial efforts to isolate and punish intellectuals and freedom fighters.
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This is the first one-third of a very rich conversation on food sovereignty topics that Just World Educational presented on November 28, as part of our latest webinar series “Beyond Survival: Food Sovereignty Challenges in Palestine and Worldwide.” This session of the series explores commonalities between the food-sovereignty struggles of Palestinians and of Native American and Black communities here in the United States.
We’ll be releasing the next two portions of this conversation in upcoming podcast episodes. You can learn more about this whole project here.
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Just World Educational's President, Helena Cobban, hosts the second session of the groundbreaking “US-China public dialogue” that JWE is holding in collaboration with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing. This dialogue session features two great specialists who discuss some of the currently contested issues in the trade, investment, technology, and other aspects of the two countries' relations.
The featured experts are:
- Dr. Yukon Huang, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dr. Huang was formerly the World Bank’s country director for China and, before that, director for Russia. Dr. Huang is an adviser to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and various governments and corporations. His latest book was Cracking the China Conundrum: Why Conventional Economic Wisdom Is Wrong (Oxford U.P., 2017).
- Mr. He Weiwen, a Senior Fellow with the Chongyang Institute and Vice Chairman of the Global Alliance of SMEs. Mr. He worked as Economic and Commercial Counselor in the Chinese Consulates General in San Francisco and New York, 1997-2003. He is the author of three books and 200 articles on economic and trade affairs.
The full video of this conversation and the full video, audio, and transcript of the earlier dialogue session on security affairs are posted along with many related materials at this page on the Just World Ed website.
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Just World Ed President Helena Cobban hosts the first session of the groundbreaking “US-China public dialogue” that JWE is holding in collaboration with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing. This dialogue session features two wonderful specialists who discuss some of the big-picture topics of contention in the relationship and dive in some detail into the thorny issue of the South China Sea.
- From Beijing (actually, Guangzhou, in southern China) we had Ambassador He Yafei, a Senior Fellow with the Chongyang Institute who has held many high-ranking diplomatic posts including as Counsellor of the Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations, and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- And from Washington DC we had Dr. Michael Swaine, who recently became the first Director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Dr. Swaine is the author of numerous books and articles on strategic issues relating to China and other parts of East Asia. He is co-director of a multi-year crisis prevention project with Chinese partners… And he also advises the U.S. government on Asian security issues.
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At a time when US-China tensions seem to be increasing, Just World Educational is launching a new project on the shifting balance between the two countries, as Phase 2 of its continuing "World After Covid" project. In this phase of the project, JWE will be releasing the materials from each of the sessions held in podcast format as well as video and text. To see all the materials produced during this phase and the previous phase of the project, visit the "Resources" section of our website, www.justworldeducational.org.
In today's episode, Ms. Cobban discusses key aspects of the strategic balance between the United States and China with Dr. Lyle Goldstein, who was the founding diorector of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College in Newport, RI and author of a seminal 2015 book, Meeting China Halfway. Upcoming episodes of the podcast will present the audio from a groundbreaking public dialogue on US-China relations that Just World Edis organizing in collaboration with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Beijing's Renmin University. More details of this dialogue can be found here.
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This episode is an inter-season special: an interview Just World Educational President Helena Cobban conducted with Frank Joyce, a veteran antiwar and workers-rights organizer who was the co-editor, along with Dr. Karin Aguilar-San Juan, of the 2015 anthology The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement.
In July this year, Frank Joyce and four other American antiwar activists went back to Ha Noi again: this time, to celebrate the launching of the Vietnamese edition of The People Make the Peace. You can read more about their latest visit to Vietnam in this blog post on Just World Ed’s website. In reflecting on this latest visit to Vietnam, Joyce argued that in the years after the antiwar activists of the 1960s and 1970s had succeeded in persuading the U.S. government to end the war, many of them started to experience an inferiority complex that led them to radically under-estimate the value of what they had achieved. In this this interview with Joyce, Ms. Cobban explored that proposition with him… and also, got his insights on some of the challenging issues that have faced the US antiwar movement in recent years.
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On this week’s podcast, Just World Educational's president, Helena Cobban, discusses the currently high tensions between the United States and Iran with Amb. Chas W Freeman, Jr., a very distinguished former American diplomatist and the author of a number of very informative books. The most recent of these are collections of his essays on, respectively, US-Chinese relations and US policies in the Middle East.
This week’s podcast is linked to a column Ms. Cobban wrote that ran May 15 on the Mondoweiss website, under the title “Bolton pushing United States to over-reach in Iran”.
In Ms. Cobban's interview with Amb. Freeman, he warns of some of the very dire effects that Pres. Trump's withdrawal from the six-party, 2015 Iran deal has already had on the rule of law internationally and on the continuing erosion of the safeguards the U.S. Constitution always placed on the executive branch's ability to enter willy-nilly into wars of choice. He warns of the dire consequences to be expected if Washington should get into a shooting war with Iran, and he assesses the roles that China, Russia, and the European countries that were also parties to the Iran deal might be able to play in defusing the tentions and de-escalating the conflict.
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This week’s podcast is Number Twelve in our multi-week “Story/Backstory” project, which explores Washington’s current policies in the Middle East, and the Middle East itself, in a broader historical perspective. It is a complement to a column by Just World Ed President Helena Cobbanthat ran May 8th on the Mondoweiss website, “Thinking fast and slow in reporting Israeli-Gaza fighting”, in which she drew on her own long background as a reporter in war and conflict situations. There's a handy "Checklist for anti-Palestinian reporting bias" that's posted on our blog, that goes along with this package, as well.
In this episode, Cobbandelves even deeper into the matter of anti-Palestinian reporting bias in the U.S. corporate media, and starts to explore steps that can be taken to reduce or even (we hope!) eliminate it.
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This timely episode focuses on Saudi Arabia's very destructive and now four-year-long war on Yemen, and the direct participation in it of some units of the U.S. military. In early April, the two houses of Congress enacted legislation to end this participation. Pres. Trump vetoed that legislation. Then yesterday, May 2, the Senate held a vote to try to over-ride the veto, and they failed.
The weekly podcasts in this "Story-Backstory" project are all linked to written opinion columns that get published a couple of days earlier… This week’s column ran May 1 on the Mondoweiss website, under the title “A crucial vote on Yemen, aka ‘Saudi Arabia’s Gaza’”.
In this episode, host Helena Cobban discussed Yemen and the Saudi and US roles in the war there with Dr. Sheila Carapico, a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Richmond who is one of the United States’ foremost experts on Yemen and its relationships with its neighbors. She is also the editor of a 2016 anthology of writings about Yemen and its Arabia-peninsula neighbors titled Arabia Incognita: Dispatches from Yemen and the Gulf, which is available wherever fine books are sold.
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This episode in the "Story-Backstory" series is a complement to the article that Helena Cobban published on Mondoweiss on April 25, exploring a small window that the Mueller Report provided into the world of the influence-buying operations undertaken by the UAE and other rich Arab Gulf states in Washington DC.
In this episode, Ms. Cobban interviews Ben Freeman of the Center for International Policy, to discuss the extensive influence operations undertaken in Washington by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel. At one key point, Freeman notes that the same lobbying and p.r. firms that work for many of those actors also work for major US arms manufacturers!
(Please note that there was no Episode 9 in this series, as we concentrated on producing online materials for last week's topic, instead.)
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Since late February, the large North African country of Algeria has been the site of a massive popular movement that every Friday brings millions of people into the streets demanding deepseated reform. The protests were sparked when the country’s ageing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced that he would be seeking a fifth term in office. Last week, Bouteflika announced that he would not run again, and also that he would immediately resign. The country’s very powerful army chief Gaid Salah also announced the postponement of the planned presidential elections until July.
These steps did not satisfy the demonstrators, who turned out in very large numbers again last Friday—and early reports from today (April 12) say that the demonstrations are once again nationwide and large.
Amin Khan, the guest on today’s episode, is an Algerian poet and thinker who was the author of a key article published April 5 in French that laid out a program for how Algeria might transition successfully from its current situation as a sclerotic quasi-dictatorship into a fully functioning democracy. You can read our English-language translation of Amin Khan's article-- and of another key document relating to the protests-- on the Just World Educational website, here.
Most of the weekly podcasts in this series are linked to written opinion columns that get published a couple of days earlier… This week, because of the groundbreaking nature of Algeria’s popular uprising-- which has been sadly under-reported in the English-language media-- we’re doing things a little differently. For the text portion of this week’s project, there’s an interview that I conducted earlier this week with veteran Algeria specialist William B. Quandt. And for the podcast portion, we have this interview that I conducted in English, on Wednesday April 10, with Amin Khan.
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Just World Educational President Helena Cobban and guest Nora Lester Murad discuss Israel's continuing waves of attack against Palestinian life in Jerusalem, which Ms. Murad describes here as "The front-line of the Palestinians' ongoing Nakba." Ms. Murad is the co-author of the recently published book Rest In My Shade.
This episode is a complement to the column Ms. Cobban published on this topic in Mondoweiss on April 3, 2019.
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Just World Educational president Helena Cobban and guest Amb. Peter Ford look at the implications of Pres. Trump's March 25 decision to break with decades of US policy and provide official US support for Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan. This episode is a complement to the column Ms. Cobban published on this topic in Mondoweiss, March 26.
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This episode of the "Story/Backstory" series is related to the column "Beating Israel's 'But Khamas!' ploy" that was released on the Mondoweiss website on March 20. In this episode, JWE president Helena Cobban tries something a little new. Instead of starting off by reading the text of the column, she briefly summarizes it, and then dives right into the deeper backstory, providing her take on what's needed to prevent this commonly used Israeli ploy from succeeding.
In the second half of this episode, she introduces some excerpts from the audio of a fascinating presentation that Ahmed Abu Artema, the Gaza-Palestinian poet who was the originator of the whole idea of the Great March of Return, gave on March 18 at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC.
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Just World Ed president Helena Cobban reads the column she had on this topic on Mondoweiss on March 13, which asked whether the Great March of Return movement that has swept the Gaza Strip for the past 50 weeks, may be the third great political movement to be born in Gaza. In the second half of this episode she discusses the Great March of Return with British-Palestinian author and activist Dr. Azzam Tamimi.
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Just World Ed president Helena Cobban first of all reads the column she published March 6 on Mondoweiss, "The two-state solution is dead. Let's plan for the one state." Then, she discusses the issue of one-state vs. two-state with special guest William B. Quandt, former Middle East advisor to Pres. Jimmy Carter...
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In this episode in our "Story/Backstory" miniseries, JWE president Helena Cobban first reads, then reflects on her most recent 1,300-word op-ed on U.S. policies in the Middle East. For more details on this project, visit the blog on our website.
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This is the first episode in our new "Story/Backstory" miniseries, which combines both the reading by JWE president Helena Cobban of her most recent 1,300-word op-ed on U.S. policies in the Middle East, with a slightly longer segment in which she reflects on some of the issues raised by the op-ed. For more details, visit the blog on our website.
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In this episode you’ll hear a conversation I held recently with Laila El-Haddad, a political analyst, author, and rights activist who is from a family deeply rooted in Gaza, Palestine, though she currently lives near Baltimore, Maryland.
Laila is the author or co-author of three Gaza-themed books, including the famed "ethnographic" cookbook, The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey.
In this episode, Laila talks about how it was to be a Gaza Palestinian living outside Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, while knowing that her parents and many other loved ones were trapped inside the city. She and Helena discuss U.S. policy during and after Cast Lead, the best ways for international civil-society people to support Gaza today, and the new emergence of the Palestinian "Cultural Pride" movement.
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This episode features a conversation Just World Ed President Helena Cobban held with Alice Rothchild, who’s a member of our Board of Directors and a veteran activist in the field of health and human rights. Alice is a recently retired OB/GYN who has authored three books on the health and rights situation in the areas currently under Israel’s control. The latest was Condition Critical: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine, which was published by Just World Books in Fall 2016.
Dr Rothchild has spent significant amounts of time in Gaza on three occasions, in 2005, 2015, and 2017 and currently serves on the board of the Gaza Community Mental Health Foundation.
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In this episode, you’ll hear a conversation that Helena Cobban held recently with Joe Catron, Just World Educational's Director of Outreach, about the legacies of Cast Lead. Joe is a veteran social-justice activist who spent three-plus years in Gaza, from March 2011 through Fall 2014.
This is the fifth episode in a special mini-series we’re releasing as part of our “Cast Lead Plus Ten” project, which started on December 27th will run till at least January 17th. This project marks the anniversary of the “Operation Cast Lead” assault that Israel waged against Gaza during these same 22 days, exactly ten years ago. More details are on our website, here.
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In this episode you’ll hear the second half of a conversation I recently held about Cast Lead and its legacies, with Dr. Basem Naim. At the time of Cast Lead, Dr. Naim was the Minister of Health in the Palestinian government in Gaza. Today, he heads the Gaza-based Center for International Relations.
This is the fourth episode in a special mini-series we’re releasing as part of our “Cast Lead Plus Ten” project, which started on December 27 and is running for 22 days. This project marks the anniversary of the “Operation Cast Lead” assault that Israel waged against Gaza during these same 22 days, ten years ago.
In this episode, Dr. Naim discusses many of the painful after- effects of Cast Lead-- and of the tight siege that Israel has maintained around Gaza continuously since the Spring of 2006. He also discusses the notable nonviolent, civilian mass action called the Great March of Return, that citizen activists and political groups launched in March last year… and that continues to this day… an action that, Dr. Naim says, has put the issues of Gaza and Palestine firmly back on the international agenda.
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This episode of our podcast is the third in a special mini-series we’re releasing as part of our “Cast Lead Plus Ten” project, which started last December 27 and is running for 22 days. The project marks the anniversary of the “Operation Cast Lead” assault that Israel waged against Gaza during these same 22 days, ten years ago.
In this episode you’ll hear the first half of a conversation I had about Cast Lead recently, with Dr. Basem Naim. At the time of Cast Lead, Dr. Naim was the Minister of Health in the Palestinian government in Gaza. Currently, he heads the Gaza-based Center for International Relations.
In this episode, Dr. Naim re-lives some of the most painful moments he experienced during Operation Cast Lead —both as the Minister of Health and in his personal life -- from the first moments of the massive air assault on Gaza City that Israel launched in the late morning of December 27, 2008, when Dr. Naim was in Gaza largest medical facility, Shifa Hospital… until when the ceasefire was reached 21 days later.
He also talks about the very painful legacies that Cast Lead left in Gaza and the failure of all efforts to hold Israel accountable.
(The automatically generated transcript that follows has not yet been cleaned up and should not be disseminated elsewhere until it has been.)
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This episode of our podcast is the second in a special mini-series we’re releasing as part of our “Cast Lead Plus Ten” project. In this episode of our mini-series you can hear the second half of the conversation Helena Cobban had about Cast Lead, with the distinguished international jurist Richard Falk. In the previous episode, Cobban and Falk had discussed mainly what happened during the Cast Lead assault, ending with the ceasefire that Israel and Hamas reached on January 17, 2009. In this episode, they discuss the broader strategic impact and lasting legacy of “Operation Cast Lead”, including the whole saga of the UN Fact-finding Commission which was headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, and the role Cast Lead and the fate of the Goldstone Commission both had in galvanizing new generations and new forms of activism in the worldwide Palestinian-rights movement.
Stay tuned for the next episode in this mini-series, to be released January 3!
(The automatically generated transcript that follows has not yet been cleaned up and should not be disseminated elsewhere until it has been.)
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This episode of our podcast is part of a special mini-series we’re releasing as part of our “Cast Lead Plus Ten” project, which will run for 22 days, December 27, 2018 through January 17, 2019, to mark the tenth anniversary of Israel’s brutal “Operation Cast Lead” assault against Gaza, which ran for precisely those same 22 days, ten years ago.
In the first episode in this mini-series you can hear the first half of a conversation I had about Cast Lead with the distinguished international jurist Richard Falk. In this episode, we covered the period from when Falk was named the UN Human Rights Council’s Special rapporteur on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, earlier in 2008, through the main aspects of the 22-day assault, concluding with the ceasefire reached on January 17, 2009.
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We are pleased to present an interview that JWE President Helena Cobban conducted July 24th with Peter Ford, who was Britain’s ambassador to Syria, 2003 through 2006, and who has remained an informed and close observer of Syrian affairs ever since. He was also, for several years after he left the British diplomatic service, the representative of the UN agency UNRWA to the Arab world, based in Amman.
In this half-hour interview Ambassador Ford discussed aspects of the situations of both Syrians and Palestinians. A digest of the conversation will be posted shortly on our blog at www.justworldeducational.org, where you can also find links to the interviews Ms. Cobban conducted with Professor Falk and a wealth of informational resources about Palestine, Syria, and other issues of war and peace in the Middle East. Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In this second half of Helena Cobban's recent conversation about Turkish politics with Prof. Richard Falk, they discuss the implications for Turkey's regional and to some extent global policies.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
The distinguished international jurist Richard Falk, who's a member of Just World Educational's Board of Directors, has had a long association with Turkey, where he spends most of his summers. Recently, there was an election in Turkey for both the 600-person legislature and the presidency in its new, enhanced "executive president" form.
On July 10, JWE President Helena Cobban recorded a wide-ranging conversation she held with Prof. Falk, who was speaking from his family's summer home in southern Turkey. This podcast contains the first half of that conversation, dealing mainly with the domestic implications in Turkey of these recent developments-- as well as with some of the misapprehensions Prof. Falk has identified, that seem to affect how Turkish politics gets covered by the Western corporate media.
Prof. Falk earlier published this reflection on the elections in Turkey.
Be aware that some renovations were underway in the home right above Prof. Falk's, so you will hear a little (quite unavoidable) construction noise! We'll publish the second half of the interview within the coming days.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Helena Cobban introduces "Understanding Gaza and Hamas", the factsheet she produced for Just World Educational, which demolishes seven key myths the Israelis have fostered regarding these crucial topics.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Ian Williams joins Just World Educational on #UNDay to discuss the United Nations, the U.S., and the world. See www.justworldeducational.org for updates on Ian's speaking events. Book information and purchasing at justworldbooks.com/books/untold/Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
An interview recorded in early August 2017 with Karín Aguilar-San Juan. The interview covers the book she coedited with Frank Joyce called "The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement" (Just World Books 2015) on U.S. antiwar activists and combat veterans against the Vietnam War and their efforts at citizen diplomacy through travel to Vietnam. The interview touches upon the new Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War and what Aguilar-San Juan calls America's "Forrest Gump-ified" memory of the Vietnam War.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Super-skilled peace activist Doug Hostetter talks about his groundbreaking work on the "Peoples Peace Treaty" that students from the United States, South Vietnam, and North Vietnam concluded in early 1971... about how his peace activism has evolved over the years and why he's long been a big supporter for the rights of Palestinians... and why he supports Just World educationalSupport the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In this episode of the Just World podcast, Helena Cobban talks to Dr. Sarah Ahmed, another very inspiring young Iraqi who’s been working to provide direct relief to the news waves of refugees and internally displaced people inside Iraq. Dr. Sarah is the Director of Operations for a UK-based charity called the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. She talks with passion and conviction not only about the work she’s been doing with some of the deeply traumatized survivors of ISIS’s torments, but also about her opposition to the idea that bombing or any other military operations can improve the situation of the many Iraqis whose plight she knows only too well. As all the talk continues in the western countries and elsewhere about using military violence to try to “defeat” ISIS, Dr. Sarah’s voice and analysis both definitely need to be heard.
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From 2007 through 2012, American peace activists Gabe Huck and Theresa Kubasak ran an innovative project in Damascus, Syria, to provide mentoring to some of the many young Iraqis who had then found refuge in Syria from the terrible conflicts then raging inside US-occupied Iraq... to prepare them to win entry to-- and succeed at-- four-year colleges around the U.S. In May 2016, many of the 60-plus graduates of this mentoring program gathered in Chicago for a reunion. Helena Cobban, the President of Just World Educational, was lucky enough to invited along. This is the first of two interviews she conducted there with graduates of the program.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
This a Just World Educational podcast, in which JWE President Helena Cobban talks on the phone with Rabbi Brant Rosen about his recent experience taking part in an action organized by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence-- and also, about he's found it being both a Jewish leader in his hometown, Chicago, and also a senior manager for the leading Quaker service organization there.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
On June 21, Just World Books CEO Helena Cobban had a fascinating 40-minute discussion with Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr., author of the recently published book America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East. In the conversation, Freeman discussed the recently-reported letter that 51 currently serving junior and mid-level diplomats signed onto, in which they called for tougher action against Syria's President Assad; Russia's role in Syria; the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights-- and much more.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Since March 2015, a Saudi-led military coalition has pursued a very destructive military action inside the populous Arabian Peninsula country of Yemen. In late April 2016, Dr. Sheila Carapico, the editor of the new book Arabia Incognita: Dispatches from Yemen and the Gulf, discussed the Yemen situation in Washington DC with fellow-expert Dr. Michael Hudson. In this 95-minute podcast, you can learn more about the book and hear their discussion.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
A fascinating, 50-minute discussion held at the 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair among the authors of 'The Gaza Kitchen', Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt, and Claudia Roden, the doyenne of Mediterranean cuisine documentation.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
This is the recording of the great discussion that Richard Falk, author of "Chaos and Counterrevolution: After the Arab Spring" had with Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, to mark the book's June 9th launch. A thoughtful seminar with two renowned experts.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian-Universalist hosted a lively discussion with Gareth Porter in early April, about his new book 'Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.' The evening was co-sponsored by BFUU's Social Justice Committee and Project Censored. The discussion was moderated by Project Censored head Mickey Huff.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Matt Zeller, author of the fine memoir 'Watches Without Time: An American Soldier in Afghanistan', has been waging a big campaign to save the life of his interpreter, Janis Shinwari. Hear about his campaign-- and also hear an excerpt from his book telling of his parting from Shinwari in Kabul, in december 2008.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
To mark the publication of the abridged edition of Laila El-Haddad's classic 'Gaza Mom' book, we present a short reading from the book that focuses on the terrible problems Laila, like all Gaza's people, has in trying to get in and out of her home territory.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Rami Zurayk is a Lebanese agronomist and social activist. In this podcast, Just World Books owner Helena Cobban reads an excerpt from his 2011 book 'Food, Farming, and Freedom'. The excerpt is a charming account of a short visit he and his family made to Aleppo, Syria, in July 2009.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Laila El-Haddad, co-author of our much-acclaimed recent cookbook 'The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey' was recently back in Gaza. Though her time there was hectic, we caught up with her soon after her return to the United States, and talked with her about the reactions Gaza's people had to the cookbook-- and also about how the recent moves by the Egyptian military to close down the one remaining crossing point between Gaza and the rest of the world have affected people in the Strip. As a bonus, at the end, Just World Books owner Helena Cobban reads an excerpt from 'The Gaza Kitchen'.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Just back from ten days in China, Chas Freeman, the author of 'Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige' describes and assesses how the many high-level Chinese officials he talked to there propose to calm the tensions currently wracking East Asia, regarding North Korea and other issues.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Dr. William Quandt, veteran Middle East analyst and editor of 'Troubled Triangle: The United States, Turkey, and Israel in the New Middle East,' discusses the latest breakthrough in Turkish-Israeli relations with Dr. Sebnem Gumuscu from Sabanci University and Dr. Soli Özel from Kadir Has University during his recent trip to Turkey.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Matt Zeller, author of 'Watches Without Time: An American Soldier in Afghanistan,' discusses the highlights from his recent college speaking tour and his key lessons learned from Afghanistan—some of which come from surprising places. Matt also reflects on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, what the war in Afghanistan would have looked like if we had never invaded Iraq, and how these wars have reignited the issue of veterans’ mental health.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In this podcast, Rabbi Brant Rosen, author of 'Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity,' shared his reflections on his book and how it has impacted his understanding of “what to do” with his beliefs and convictions as well as provided his insights about the effects of Operation Cast Lead, the Gaza flotilla incident, and other Israeli actions on both the views of young American Jews and the Arab Spring. He also offers his opinion on what President Obama should do in his second term about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Miko Peled, author of 'The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine' discussed his fascinating recent travels in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan with Just World Books owner Helena Cobban. In this conversation, Miko also looked back at some of the main things he's learned doing book events around 'The General's Son' over the past ten months. Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Thirty years ago this month, fighters from Lebanon's Christian-extremist Phalangist militia, working in close coordination with the Israeli military, committed massacres against unarmed Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila that shocked the world. JWB author Jonathan Randal was in Beirut at the time. In this podcast, which is linked to the recent publication of his book "The Tragedy of Lebanon: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers, and American Bunglers", Randal discussed the lasting legacy of the Sabra and Shatila massacres with Just World Books owner Helena Cobban.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Yaprak Gursoy, a contributor to Troubled Triangle: The United States, Turkey, and Israel in the New Middle East and a professor at Istanbul's Bilgi University, discussed Turkey's role in the Syrian crisis and other regional arenas in a mid-August interview with JWB's Dalia Mortada.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In this 26-minute podcast, Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr. discusses the risk of heightened U.S. confrontation with Iran during the current election year. He says he expects little U.S. activism in Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking-- and that U.S. influence in the region is anyway declining. Also, that there is now little prospect of a two-state outcome emerging. He also gives a smart assessment of the effects of the Arab Spring at its first anniversary.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
The U.S. occupation of Iraq is scheduled to draw to a final end on December 31 of this year. Just World Books author Reidar Visser has closely tracked Washington's efforts to try to build a democratic, accountable government in Iraq and now, as the nearly nine years of occupation draws to an end he tells Helena Cobban that the political situation there is bleak. Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
On Friday, November 4, a small flotilla crewed by western and Palestinian peace activists was stopped and boarded by the Israeli Navy as its members tried to break Israel's blockade of Gaza by sailing into Gaza with medical supplies and letters from pen-pals. That same day, Just World Books owner Helena Cobban spoke by Skype with Laila El-Haddad, author of the acclaimed book 'Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between.'Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Just World Books author Joshua Foust discussed mid-year trends in how U.S. policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been doing, with Dalia Mortada. In this lively discussion, Foust challenged much of what Gen. David Petraeus, until recently the commander of all U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, has said about violence in the country having been reduced. Listen to this experienced analyst's take on the situation-- and buy his book!Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
On May 19, Just World Books will be publishing a fine new book by Lebanese agronomy specialist and social-justice activist Rami Zurayk. The book is called 'Food, Farming, and Freedom: Sowing the Arab Spring'. In this podcast episode, JWB owner Helena Cobban talks with Zurayk about a big civil-society action he participated in alongside other activists, centered around expressing supporting for the rights of the Palestinians. Sadly, the Israeli forces opened fire into Lebanon on some of the unarmed youths taking part, and killed ten of them. Zurayk talks about some of the background to the action there.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Visser talks from Norway about what led the U.S. democratization project in Iraq to fail, and how Iraq is NOT a model for activists in the current pro-democracy movements in the Middle East.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Laila El-Haddad reads an excerpt from her book, Gaza Mom, during an event at Westmont College. Full video of the event can be seen at http://bit.ly/dPjK7D Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Excerpt from a discussion between Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr. and Steve Clemons at a New America Foundation event. Freeman discusses what the rise of China as an economic and military power means for the US. Full video available at http://bit.ly/dIat5e Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In a discussion with the New America Foundation's Steve Clemons, Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr. argues that the US is no longer a qualified broker of peace between Israel and the Palestinians and that the process must be outsourced to other parties. A full video of the event can be seen at http://bit.ly/dIat5e Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In a discussion at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, Reidar Visser speaks about the 2010 national elections and criticizes the US approach to Iraqi governance and the risk of sectarian imbalance in a power sharing model. A full podcast of the event is available at http://bit.ly/eURXOJ Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Remarks by Chas W. Freeman Jr. to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations on October 21, 2010. Transcript: http://bit.ly/8ZVVrPSupport the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
JWB author and Registan.net blogger Josh Foust discusses the Obama Administration's leadership of the war in Afghanistan, the resignation of National Security Advisor General Jim Jones and the impact of Pakistan on the fledgling war effort. Foust notes that the infighting of the Afghan government stands in strong contrast to the messaging that is broadcast from NATO's ISAF. Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Just World Books author Laila El-Haddad describes why people in Gaza feel left out of the current round of U.S. peace diplomacy amidst continued Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as Israel continues to construct illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. www.justworldbooks.comSupport the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
In the first half, Amb. Freeman talks about the current round of peace talks, which he describes as a "fraud". In the second half, he talks about his upcoming book, "America's Misadventures in the Middle East", coming out from Just World Books in early October.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
As electric generators buzz in the background, Just World Books author Laila El-Haddad shares her experience overcoming everyday obstacles in Gaza with JWB founder Helena Cobban. From frequent power failures to a dearth of fresh produce, she explains how she is coping after her recent return to her family there and talks about her first book, "Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between," to be published on October 14, 2010.Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)
Just World Books founder and veteran journalist Helena Cobban talks about what led her to establish this new and innovative company and the bold lineup and foreign policy thinkers who will share their thoughts and analysis in Just World Book titles this fall. Support the show (http://justworldeducational.org/donate/)