Just World Books Podcasts

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

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

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 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

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 failu

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!Support the show

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.Support the show

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 multim

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 multimed

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

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.Support the show

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, alw

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.comSupport the show

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) Support the show

 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/tortoiseshackSupport the show

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/tortoiseshackSupport the show

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.Support the show

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.Support the show

 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 weekImplications of Pres. Macron's visit to BeijingImplications of the new rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, andThe effects of this rapprochement on developments in the Mashreq area of West Asia. Support the show

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.Support the show