The Israel Lobby Con EXTRA! Podcast

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IsraelLobbyCon Extra! is an online initiative created in 2020. It advances the IsraelLobbyCon.org mission and provides key expertise, analysis and global outreach opportunities between our annual National Press Club conferences.

  1. 03/05/2025

    Kathy Drinkard: How the VCHR is Preventing Israel Affinity Organizations from Politicizing K-12 Textbooks.

    Kathy Drinkard is a retired teacher and elementary school counselor. She has long been concerned about the suffering in the Palestinian territories and has been involved with her church on the issue for more than a decade. She has traveled to the region four times, most recently in the fall of 2018, a trip she helped plan. During her second trip, she spent 10 days in Nablus visiting an Anglican congregation that is in partnership with her church. Her third trip was to participate in a seminar, “Faith in the Face of Empire,” sponsored by the Reverend Dr. Mitri Raheb and Bright Stars of Bethlehem. She currently is chair of the Ministry for Middle East Peace and Justice at Grace Presbyterian Church in Springfield, VA.

    16 min

  2. 02/26/2025

    James Metz: Why VCHR is Taking on the Virginia Israel Advisory Board.

    James Metz retired after a career in information technology—working in both the public and private sectors. In 2013, inspired by a community discussion of Sandy Tolan’s book, The Lemon Tree, Metz and his wife Suzanne Hallberg joined with another couple to co-found Richmonders for Peace in Israel-Palestine (RPIP). In 2016, RPIP joined forces with Freedom2Boycott-Virginia—now known as the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR)—to lobby against and defeat anti-BDS legislation that was introduced in the Virginia General Assembly. Metz and Hallberg live in Richmond, VA.

    17 min

  3. 02/19/2025

    Paul Noursi: What is the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights?

    Paul Noursi has been active with the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) since its founding in 2016.  He is also active with several other organizations working for peace and justice in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, the New Dominion PAC, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Arab American Democratic Caucus of Virginia.  He was also a Barack Obama Delegate to the Virginia State Convention in 2008, a Bernie Sanders Delegate to the Virginia State Convention in 2016, and he has served on various Get-Out-the Vote and Democratic campaigns.   Noursi has lived and traveled extensively in the Middle East, including Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon.  He has a BS in Civil Engineering, an MS in Engineering Management, and is a licensed and practicing civil engineer with wide-ranging experience in land development and public works in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.

    14 min

  4. 02/12/2025

    Brad Parker: What Lessons can Activists Take Away from the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act?

    Brad Parker, Esq. is Senior Adviser, Policy and Advocacy at Defense for Children International. Parker specializes in issues of juvenile justice and grave violations against children during armed conflict, and leads DCIP’s legal advocacy efforts on Palestinian children’s rights. Parker regularly writes and speaks about the situation of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Before joining DCIP, Parker worked as a legal advocacy coordinator and staff attorney at MADRE, a New York-based international women’s rights nonprofit organization. He was the 2010-2012 Human Rights Clinical Fellow at the International Women’s Human Rights (IWHR) Clinic at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, where he conducted fact-finding investigations, implemented advocacy projects and authored reports on a range of issues affecting women in Guatemala and post-earthquake Haiti. Parker is a graduate of the University of Vermont and earned his J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law.

    26 min

  5. 02/05/2025

    Saqib Ali: Why I’m Suing Maryland to Protect my Constitutional Right to Boycott Israel.

    Saqib Ali served as a Democratic Party member of the Maryland House of Delegates. He represented District 39 from January 10, 2007 to January 12, 2011.   Since leaving the legislature, he cofounded Freedom2Boycott in Maryland, an organization of Palestinian Solidarity activists dedicated to preserving their constitutional right to boycott Israel and Israel's settlements.   Ali is a professional software engineer. In January 2019, Ali sued Maryland's Governor Larry Hogan and Attorney General Brian Frosh over the state’s anti-boycott executive order. The anti-boycott measure, which denies government contracts to businesses that boycott Israel, was issued in 2017 after similar legislation repeatedly failed to pass through the state legislature.

    19 min

  6. 01/29/2025

    Martin F. McMahon: The Legal Battle for Justice Against Israeli Settlers and their American Financiers.

    Martin McMahon is a graduate of Fordham Law School, and an experienced litigator who has tried cases all over America. He has spent a number of years with the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, where he oversaw significant litigation matters in the Southern District of New York and in the Second Circuit. He has had private practice experience, having been with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn. He set up his own law firm many years ago and is one of a handful of attorneys who has secured three punitive damages awards. He is dedicated to advancing the interests of the proverbial underdog – in this case, Palestinians, who the world has largely forgotten about and deem irrelevant.

    20 min

  7. 01/22/2025

    James North: How The New York Times Rigs News on Israel Palestine.

    James North is an independent writer, based in New York City, who has been reporting from Africa, Latin America and Asia for 44 years.   He is also a contributing editor at Mondoweiss, the website that covers “News & Opinion About Palestine, Israel and the United States.”   Over the years, North has written for The Nation, In These Times, and many other publications. He is also the author of Freedom Rising, a first-hand look at apartheid in southern Africa. You can follow James on X @jamesnorth7

    34 min

  8. 01/15/2025

    Grant F. Smith: U.S. Foreign Aid and the Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program.

    Grant Smith is the director of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). He is the author of the 2016 book Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America and Divert! Numec, Zalman Shapiro and the Diversion of U.S. Weapons-Grade Uranium Into the Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program (2012).   Smith has also written two histories of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department's Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: AIPAC from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. Smith’s reports about the Israel lobby and Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to reveal official U.S. policy on Israel’s nuclear program appear frequently in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Antiwar.com news website.

    27 min
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IsraelLobbyCon Extra! is an online initiative created in 2020. It advances the IsraelLobbyCon.org mission and provides key expertise, analysis and global outreach opportunities between our annual National Press Club conferences.

Information