The Katie Halper Show Katie Halper

Scholar Assal Rad and Veterans for Peace members Matt Hoh and Barry Riesch react to Iran's retaliatory strike on Israel, Israel's continued genocidal attack on Gaza and predict what's next. Matt and Barry also discuss the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) which will sail in mid April with multiple vessels, carrying 5500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international human rights observers to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Assal Rad is a scholar of Middle East history. She works on research and writing related to U.S. foreign policy issues, the Middle East, and contemporary Iran. Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy and more, and she has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, CNN, and NPR. She completed a PhD in History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018 and is the author of The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Follow Assal on X/Twitter: @AssalRad (https://twitter.com/AssalRad)

Matthew Hoh (https://twitter.com/Matthewphoh) is a disabled Marine combat veteran for peace and a senior fellow with the Center for International Policy. In 2009, he resigned from his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the war. He ran as a Green Party candidate for the US Senate to represent the people of North Carolina in 2022.

Barry Riesch is a retired carpenter and building inspector. He is also a Vietnam veteran, former national president of Veterans For Peace, and has been active in the anti-war movement in the Twin Cities and beyond for over thirty years. Engaging in this work, he has participated in delegations to Vietnam, South Korea, Cuba, and Mexico. As an environmental activist, he focuses on how the military is contributing to climate change. It is a life goal of his to leave the world a better place.

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Katie speaks with Rene Lichtman, born 1937, who is a “hidden child” Holocaust survivor who opposes the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Then Katie is joined by Layla Saliba & Aidan Parisi to get the latest updates on Columbia University’s handling of a recent chemical attack on Pro-Palestinian student activists, censorship on campus, and more.

The son of two Polish Jews who fled to France during the 1930s, Rene Lichtman was hidden at the age of two with a Catholic family outside of Paris after his father was killed during the 1940 Nazi invasion and his mother was forced into hiding. After the war, Rene moved with his mother to Brooklyn, New York. He was politically radicalized in the 1960s and became an active opponent of the Vietnam War. Rene was a founding member of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust. On December 22, 2023, Rene took part in a demonstration outside of the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, against the US-backed Israeli massacres in Gaza.

Aidan Parisi is a queer, non-binary MSW student at Columbia University. A Washington DC native, social justice has always been embedded in their life. They grew up in a household with two strong parents who imbued upon them the principles of challenging the status quo that perpetuates the subversion of marginalized communities. As an activist, Aidan has been involved in a number of social justice causes that include uplifting the rights of those who are queer/trans, immigrants, low-income, and marginally housed. Currently, Aidan is being targeted for their fierce stance against genocide and forced displacement.

Layla Saliba (she/her) is a Palestinian American graduate student at Columbia University. She is studying social work with a concentration in policy practice. She is passionate about disability justice and wants to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for everyone. She truly believes that a better world is possible for everyone and that is what guides her advocacy work. In her free time, you can find her feeding the NYC pigeons, reading, and spending time with friends.

Help Aidan and Layla with these links:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/grieving-cu-community-members-need-your-support?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

https://www.change.org/p/tell-columbia-university-fire-shai-davidai?recruiter=85462137&recruited_by_id=a717f684-f75c-491a-a512-afecba3efc38&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_for_starters_page&utm_medium=copylink

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2023/11/14/columbia-university-apartheid-divest-who-we-are/


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Palestinian novelist, poet and activist Susan Abulhawa reports back from her recent trip to Gaza where she observed the fallout of Israel's genocidal war first hand. After that, journalist Prem Thakker talks about the attacks on Al Shifa and his interactions with the State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller. Then active duty Senior Airman Larry Hebert and Anne Wright join to talk about Larry's hunger strike for Gaza which was inspired by Aaron Bushnell.

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian American writer and human rights activist. She is the author of Mornings in Jenin, which was translated into 32 languages and sold more than a million copies, The Blue Between Sky And Water and Against the Loveless World. She is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine and the executive director of Palestine Writes (https://palestinewrites.org/).

Prem Thakker is a politics reporter at The Intercept, and is a former reporter at The New Republic. His work has also appeared in The American Prospect, Washington Monthly, CNN podcasts, and his newsletter Better World. You can find him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/prem_thakker), Instagram, and TikTok.

Active Duty Air Force Active Duty Air Force
Larry Hebert
Stationed at Naval Station Rota, Spain

Larry Hebert is a 26-year-old active duty senior airman in the United States airforce stationed at Naval Station Rota, Spain. He is on hunger strike calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. His actions were inspired by Aaron Bushnell.

Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."

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Katie speaks to Jeremy Loffredo, an investigative journalist and filmmaker back from Israel where he filmed Israelis admitting to war crimes and calling for genocide. Then Kevin Gosztola joins to give us the latest breaking updates on Julian Assange's case.


Jeremy Loffredo is an investigative journalist and filmmaker based in New York. He has spent the past few months documenting the explosion of settler violence in the West Bank and the increase of political and religious repression against Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem. Most recently, Loffredo spent time within the ranks of the Jewish Israeli nationalists invading Gaza to establish Jewish settlements and blocking humanitarian aid for starving Palestinians at the Gaza border. The Israelis admitted to war crimes and clamored for genocide.

Kevin Gosztola Curates The Dissenter at http://TheDissenter.org, is the author of “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange," and co-host of the Unauthorized Disclosure podcast.

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Katie speaks with Ghadir Shafie and Dean Spade about pink-washing, Israel's weaponization of LGBTQ rights, and more.

Ghadir Shafie is a Palestinian activist and strategist, born and based in
Palestine/Israel. She is a co- founder of Aswat- a Palestinian feminist-queer center for sexual and gender freedoms. She has spent the last decade of her life passionately advocating for the intersectionality of the struggle of Palestinian queer women, fighting multiple forms of oppression. Her interviews and articles appear in various media outlets and academic papers.

Dean Spade is a professor at the Seattle University School of Law. Dean has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He’s the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, and the director of the documentary “Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!.” His latest book is Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next).

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Antizionist Jewish Historian Zack Foster returns to the show to debunk Zionist propaganda being regurgitated in a viral Newsweek piece. Jen Perelman talks about her decision to run against AIPAC cheerleader Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) for Congress. Daniel Maté and Katie go over the hasbara of the week.

Zachary Foster has a Ph.D in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. He is a Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights. He runs a digital archive called Palestine Nexus and writes a newsletter called Palestine, in Your Inbox. He is a Jewish American historian of Palestine who was a zionist until he started studying Palestine.

Jen Perelman is a former zionist running against the very zionist Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). She received more than 21,000 votes (nearly 30 percent of the vote) in the 2020 Democratic Party primary.

Daniel Maté is a musical theater lyricist, the world's only mental chiropractor, and the co-author of "The Myth Of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture" by Gabor Maté.


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