Shows / Makdisi Street
Makdisi Street
A podcast co-hosted by Saree Makdisi, Ussama Makdisi, and Karim Makdisi. Follow us on X: @MakdisiStreet Follow us on YouTube: @MakdisiStreet
Episodes
- Makdisi Street
"The Israeli disposition is to maximize what it can get" w/ Daniel Levy
The brothers welcome Daniel Levy, president of the US Middle East Project (USMEP) and former negotiator, to discuss how Israelis employ negotiations to pursue…
- Makdisi Street
"An even worse collaboration than the one before" w/ Abdaljawad Omar
The brothers welcome Palestinian analyst and researcher Abdaljawad Omar (@hhamayel2) to the show to discuss the nature of the Palestinian Authority's…
- Makdisi Street
"We refuse to change our Syrian identity" w/ Wael Tarbieh
The brothers welcome artist and activist Wael Tarbieh from the occupied Golan Heights to discuss the Israeli colonization of the region since 1967, the mixed…
- Makdisi Street
"Palestinians have the right to reject surveillance" w/ Hadeel Assali
The brothers welcome Palestinian anthropologist (and former chemical engineer) Hadeel Assali. They discuss the kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil, the history of…
- Makdisi Street
"Nobody wants to name the traumatizer" w/ Lara Sheehi
The brothers welcome psychoanalytic scholar, professor and licensed clinical psychologist Lara Sheehi to discuss the historic role of psychoanalysis in…
- Makdisi Street
"The West Bank is being annexed" w/ Mariam Barghouti
The brothers welcome Ramallah-based journalist Mariam Barghouti (@MariamBarghouti) to discuss the ongoing de facto annexation of the West Bank, the unchecked…
- Makdisi Street
"Every single one of us has a role to play" w/ Mohammed el-Kurd
The brothers welcome journalist and writer Mohammed el-Kurd to the show to discuss his new book, Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal (2025), his…
- Makdisi Street
"The minimum we owe is solidarity" w/ Asli Bâli
The brothers welcome Aslı Bâli, Professor of Law at Yale Law School and President of the Middle East Studies Association. They discuss the increasingly…
- Makdisi Street
"They still think we are 'savages'" w/ Wadie Said
The brothers welcome their cousin Wadie Said, Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, to reflect on Donald Trump's personalized domestic and Middle…
- Makdisi Street
"You can't hide the smoking gun of this genocide" w/ Sherene Seikaly and Tony Alessandrini
Note: we recorded this before the appalling AHA leadership veto on Jan. 17 of the democratic vote of its membership to condemn Israeli scholasticide The…
- Makdisi Street
"Both the US and Israel are delusional" w/ Jeffrey Sachs
The brothers welcome the world-renowned economics professor and bestselling author, and Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University. They discuss the…
- Makdisi Street
"The lobby is working overtime" w/ John Mearsheimer
The brothers welcome University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer to the show to discuss the power of the Israel lobby in the US, the relationship between…
- Makdisi Street
"No one has a national interest in a unilateral declaration of Syria's future" w/ Omar S. Dahi
The brothers welcome Syrian political economist and Hampshire College professor Omar S. Dahi (@omardahi) to offer personal reflections on the early days of the…
- Makdisi Street
"The problem has always been that Israel is above the law" w/ Nimer Sultany
The brothers welcome Nimer Sultany, a Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London. They discuss the difference between the hypocrisy of the Western…
- Makdisi Street
"Palestine will be liberated in Arabic" w/ Fady Joudah
The brothers welcome National Book Award for Poetry Finalist Fady Joudah (@fadyjoudah) for a searing and intimate discussion of Palestine in English versus…
- Makdisi Street
"The beautiful thing about the truth is that it's easy" w/ Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates joins the brothers for a wide-ranging discussion drawing on his new book, The Message (2024), and covering the parallels and differences…
- Makdisi Street
"The first foothold in a much broader liberation" w/ Tareq Baconi
The brothers welcome analyst Tareq Baconi, author of Hamas Contained (Stanford University Press, 2018) and president of the board of Al-Shabaka. One year into…
- Makdisi Street
"The other guy is more genocidal" w/ Mehdi Hasan
The Brothers welcome journalist and founder of Zeteo, Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) to the pod. They have a spirited discussion about anti-Arab and anti-Muslim…
- Makdisi Street
"Code 31: Arab Americans and the zone of danger" w/ Maya Berry
Maya Berry (@imayaberry), Executive Director of the Arab American Institute, joins the brothers for a wide-ranging conversation covering anti-Arab racism in…
- Makdisi Street
"One of my recurring fears is that people will move on" w/ Laila Al-Arian
The brothers welcome Laila al-Arian, executive producer for the Al Jazeera English documentary series Fault Lines. They discuss the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab…
- Makdisi Street
"The most immoral and unethical army in the world" w/ Elijah Magnier
The brothers welcome the war correspondent Elijah Magnier (@ejmalrai) to the show to discuss the expansion of Israel's war on civilians to Lebanon, as well as…
- Makdisi Street
"President Biden is negotiating with himself" w/ Trita Parsi
The brothers welcome Trita Parsi (@tparsi), co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, to discuss the…
- Makdisi Street
"They want people to routinize the massacre of Palestinians"
The brothers discuss the latest developments from the Gaza genocide, the murder of American citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi followed by the wholesale media silence…
- Makdisi Street
"A society built on the ashes of another will always be violent" w/ Yara Hawari
The brothers welcome Yara Hawari (@yarahawari), Co-director of Al-Shabaka, to discuss how the Oslo Accords transformed Palestinian civic life, the emergence of…
- Makdisi Street
"Many of us can't think about anything but Palestine" w/ Tariq Ali
The brothers welcome distinguished writer, novelist, and intellectual of the New Left Review Tariq Ali to Makdisi Street. They discuss the similarities and…
- Makdisi Street
"Calm before the storm"
The brothers gather in the garden of their family home in the mountains of Lebanon to discuss recent Israeli escalations and the possible consequences from…
- Makdisi Street
"Camp David is a primordial document for the Egyptian political apparatus" w/ Lina Attalah
The brothers welcome journalist Lina Attalah (@linaattalah), the co-founder and chief editor of MadaMasr, an independent online Egyptian newspaper. They…
- Makdisi Street
"Partition was about creating a settler colonial state" w/ Abdel Razzaq Takriti (pt.2)
The second half of the conversation between the brothers and historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti (@abedtakriti). In this part, they do a deep dive into the Oslo…
- Makdisi Street
(Preview) "98% of the UN has been condemning what Israel has done."
[Producer's note: This is a preview of the latest bonus episode of Makdisi Street. You can listen to the entire episode by subscribing to the Patreon for as…
- Makdisi Street
"Partition was about creating a settler colonial state" w/ Abdel Razzaq Takriti (pt.1)
The brothers welcome historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti (@abedtakriti), the author of Monsoon Revolution: Republicans, Sultans, and Empires in Oman 1965-1976…
- Makdisi Street
"Universities are complicit in Palestinian unfreedom" w/ Maya Wind
The brothers welcome Maya Wind, the author of Towers of Ivory and Steel, a searing critique of the Israeli academic establishment's complicity in the regime of…
- Makdisi Street
Debunking Zionist Myths #1
The brothers take on some of the most popular and entirely mendacious Zionist talking points and debunk them. Watch the episode on our YouTube channel Links…
- Makdisi Street
"Israel is becoming a burden to those who support it" w/ Mouin Rabbani
The brothers welcome the political analyst Mouin Rabbani (@MouinRabbani) to the show to discuss the broader implications of Israel's genocidal campaign in…
- Makdisi Street
"A Special Relationship" w/ Stephen Walt
The brothers welcome Professor Stephen Walt to the show to discuss US foreign policy in the Middle East, the role of the Israel lobby in influencing US…
- Makdisi Street
"The Gulf, the Arab metropoles and shifting patterns of power" w/ Elham Fakhro
The brothers welcome Elham Fakhro to the show to discuss the shifting patterns of relations between the states of the Arab Gulf and the established metropoles…
- Makdisi Street
"The process of liberation is irresistible and irreversible" w/ Vijay Prashad
The brothers welcome historian and journalist Vijay Prashad (@vijayprashad) to the show to discuss the emergence of Palestine as the keystone struggle of the…
- Makdisi Street
"Learning how to be colonialists" w/ Rashid Khalidi
The brothers welcome the historian Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University to the show to discuss the history of the Palestinian people's struggle against the…
- Makdisi Street
(Preview) "Distraction and Denial"
[Producer's note: This is a preview of the latest bonus episode of Makdisi Street. You can listen to the entire episode by subscribing to the Patreon for as…
- Makdisi Street
"Famine is never a natural occurrence" w/ Michael Fakhri
The brothers welcome to the show Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and Professor of Law at the University of Oregon, to discuss the…
- Makdisi Street
"Stadiums are completely ungovernable spaces, spaces of liberation" w/ Tony Karon and Sean Jacobs
The brothers welcome Tony Karon (@TonyKaron) and Sean Jacobs (@africasacountry) to the show to discuss their experience of the politics of sport in their…
- Makdisi Street
"Two sides of the same coin"
The brothers discuss, among other things, Zionism and denial; Israel's engineered starvation of Gaza; US-Israeli collaboration. Watch the episode on our…
- Makdisi Street
"A kind of intergenerational civil war" w/ Peter Beinart
The brothers welcome Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) to the show to discuss the role of the Gaza genocide in the generational transformation taking place in the…
- Makdisi Street
In solidarity with Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
The brothers reflect on the suspension of Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian for having committed herself to justice, equality, rights, freedom and love: principles…
- Makdisi Street
"There is so much love in Palestine" w/ Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
The brothers talk with Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (link) about life under occupation in East Jerusalem, the scattering and reconstitution of Palestinian…
- Makdisi Street
"The world has been lied to" w/ Chris Gunness
The brothers interview Chris Gunness (@MyanmarAProject), former chief spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the…
- Makdisi Street
"Every single Palestinian is traumatized" w/ Dr. Hanan Ashrawi
The brothers welcome the Palestinian educator, political intellectual, and activist Dr. Hanan Ashrawi (@DrHananAshrawi) to discuss the political horizons after…
- Makdisi Street
"The purpose of lawfare is to distract us" w/ Dima Khalidi
The brothers welcome Dima Khalidi, founder and director of Palestine Legal (@pal_legal), to the podcast to talk about the institutionalized Zionist assault on…
- Makdisi Street
"They carried a memory in their head" w/ Dr. Salman Abu Sitta
The brothers welcome to the show the preeminent scholar and Nakba survivor Dr. Salman Abu Sitta to discuss his personal journey after 1948, the relative…
- Makdisi Street
"The ground zero of a liberated world is Palestine" w/ Robin DG Kelley
The brothers invite the American historian Robin DG Kelley to the show to discuss the status and visibility of Palestine in Black American political culture…
- Makdisi Street
"The murder of our colleagues has to stop" w/ Jeremy Scahill
The brothers welcome the investigative journalist, Intercept Senior Correspondent and Intercepted podcast host Jeremy Scahill (@jeremyscahill) to discuss the…
- Makdisi Street
"To think about Palestine is to be human"
(Note: We are considering launching a Patreon feed to help defray the costs of producing this show, whereby for a low monthly rate, supporters will get access…
- Makdisi Street
"Legitimacy does, in the end, prevail" w/ Richard Falk
The brothers talk with the distinguished legal scholar Richard Falk about the possible political, legal, and moral consequences of the International Court of…
- Makdisi Street
"I truly hope this is our year" w/ Diana Buttu
The brothers welcome Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu (@dianabuttu) to the show to provide a broader political context for the crisis in Gaza, including the…
- Makdisi Street
Christmas—and Christians—in Palestine w/ Dr. Mitri Raheb
The brothers welcome Dr. Mitri Raheb to the show to talk about the role and visibility of Christians in Palestine's ecumenical culture, so-called Christian…
- Makdisi Street
The day after in Gaza w/ Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah
The brothers welcome this extraordinary Palestinian physician, @GhassanAbuSitt1, to the show, to talk about his recent experience in Gaza in comparison with…
- Makdisi Street
"The beginning of the end of the Zionist project?" w/ Ilan Pappé
In this episode, the brothers interview the historian Ilan Pappé, best known for his 2006 book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, in order to gain some…
- Makdisi Street
"I just look for the day there will be justice" w/ Francesca Albanese
The Makdisi brothers welcome Francesca Albanese (@FranceskAlbs), the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, to the…
- Makdisi Street
"Saying 'pauses' implies there's more harm to come"
In this episode, we discuss the international backdrop to the Gaza ceasefire/truce/pause (and what the distinctions are among all those terms). We also cover…
- Makdisi Street
"An unmitigated human catastrophe"
In this episode, we discuss the coverage and framing of the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza including media narratives, gaps between popular and…