Is Israel About to Go to War with Iran? w/ Rami Khouri

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

“The colonial era never ended in the Middle East. The colonial spirit that drives white, Northern, European, American, military-industrial, racist, apartheid, Christian powers is still with us.”

Palestinian-American journalist Rami Khouri, who is a Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the American University of Beirut and author of the new book Understanding Hamas, has been reporting on conflicts in the Middle east for 55 years. “And the most striking thing to me in that entire period is what we're witnessing today.”

This week the world is watching the potential face-off between an Israeli-American alliance against a new alliance of forces in the Middle East. Will Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran trigger a regional war?

Khouri explains how the tumultuous history in the region brought us to where we are today, and he points a finger at not just nation states and governments, but Western media:

“The mainstream media has played such a central role propagating the various lies and exaggerations and racist stereotypes that have kept this conflict going for so long.”

And they don’t just report on war. They profit off it. “We have to not be drawn into the CNN, New York Times, MSNBC fantasy world of cartoon-like diplomacy, and the projection of the US as the great provider of peaceful life and democracy in the face of these barbaric Muslims and Arabs and Iranians. This is a fantasy world that has been created in the West, and a lot of people made a lot of money out of it.”

So we asked Rami Khouri: will all this lead to a new war in the Middle East?

Subscribe to hear his full answer, plus how Israel has repeatedly rejected peace deals, the difference between Judaism and Zionism, how to properly understand Hamas, and the one way to end this occupation:

“The Israelis have revealed, in all its ugliness, the barbaric, violent spirit that is their Zionist movement in the genocide in Gaza. There has to be an international mechanism to force Israel to do what it has never done.”

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Is Tim Walz antisemitic for not being Josh Shapiro?

Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:

Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.