Dilemma Podcast

From Evangelical Zionism to Anti-Colonial Solidarity w/ Melani McAlister

In this episode I speak with Melani McAlister, professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University and author of the remarkable new book Promises Then the Storm — a journal she began on October 5th, 2023.This conversation moves through her life story: • growing up an evangelical Christian in North Carolina • discovering Amnesty International, human rights work, and the Middle East in 1982 • learning Arabic in Cairo • joining Mobilization for Survival in the late 1980s • working with queer and feminist organizers • being listed by the ADL as a “hate group” simply for recognizing the PLO • teaching the U.S. as an empire to a changing generation of students• Palestinian Poetry as ResistanceWe discuss Christian Zionism, the shifting landscape on American campuses, the rise of the alt-right, the weaponization of antisemitism, and why Palestine now resonates with Black, South Asian, Latino, and other marginalized communities.Melani argues that the human rights era has collapsed, that Gaza revealed the hypocrisy at the center of the old world order, and that what comes next must be a planetary consciousness rooted in ecology, sustainability, and the dignity of all people.At the end, Melani reads from one of the most powerful entries in her book — a passage I’ve set to original music from a close friend. Please stay for that.Melani’s book: Promises Then the Storm https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Then-...Music: https://michigan25yearsago.bandcamp.com/00:00 Coming Up…01:08 Palestine Exhaustion and McAlister’s Book06:55 Growing Up Evangelical to 1982 Israel Invasion of Lebanon10:45 The Christian Zionism Puzzle Piece13:40 McAlister Drops Messianic Christianity14:53 On Being a “Good Girl” and Religiosity17:57 Obiedence of Suicide Bombers19:02 Media Sources as American Zionist “Doctrine”21:52 The Next Wave of Protests23:53 McAlister’s Activist Path through Amnesty, MOBE, Academia31:59 Addressing Antisemitism, Living in Berlin, the Collapse of the Right36:04 The Legacy of the Jewish Left39:05 Judaism from Zionism and Israel40:35 A Journal Passage on Antisemitism44:04 Forgetting about Antisemitism and Weaponizing Antisemitism47:22 Palestinian Poetry, Darwish, and Anger50:03 “Identity Card”50:38 How Students Have Changed After Gaza57:00 Self Determination Beyond the Nation-State1:02:17 Oppressor-Oppressed Narratives1:06:05 Palestine is the Symbolic Center of the Decolonizing Struggle1:16:38 The End of the United Nations?1:20:25 We Should All Write Diaries1:22:30 October 14th. Free Palestine.

The ‘Crazy Uncle’ Was Right: Epstein, Israel, Africa & the Oligarchy

Imagine it’s Thanksgiving ten years ago. Your slightly unhinged Uncle Bob starts talking about a mysterious financier with a private island, underage trafficking, a bizarre “temple,” secret deals in Africa, ties to intelligence services, oligarch donors, and elite universities. You’d probably roll your eyes and wonder if he needed a psychiatric evaluation.Fast-forward a decade: victim testimony, court filings, FOIA dumps, leaked emails, and relentless reporting have confirmed that most of that “crazy” rant was… real. Not the Reddit fan-fic version — the documented, boring-legal-paperwork version. So what does that say about the world we actually live in?In this conversation, I sit down with Dropsite News investigative journalist Murtaza Hussain to talk about the system around Jeffrey Epstein: the money pipelines, the intelligence overlaps, the arms deals in places like Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Mongolia and beyond, and what the upcoming release of new Epstein documents might reveal.We talk about how to cover a story like this without feeding antisemitic conspiracies or Nick-Fuentes-style fantasies — while still being honest about the role of Israel’s covert networks, Western power, and the moral rot of a global oligarchy that likes to pretend it’s defending “democracy.”This is not a video about one “lone monster.” It’s about the empire that produced him.00:00 Coming Up…01:09 Crazy Uncle Bob Tells You About Epstein07:10 What Do We Do When The Crazy Uncle Is Right?14:35 Murtaza Hussain’s From Occupy To Epstein17:01 The Ethical Considerations of Explosive Reporting20:59 What is The Epstein Story… Really?25:36 The Smoking Gun Has Been Fired, Selling out Africa, and More to Come35:07 What About Blackmail?41:14 What is Coming Next From the Epstein Releases48:28 Oligarchy Destroys Democracy55:40 Simple Sex and Money At The End of the EmpireBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

How Zohran Mamdani's Exposes The True Bigotry of Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Western "Culture Talk"

Zohran Mamdani’s victory didn’t just shake New York politics — it cracked open a deeper fear that’s defined Western liberal discourse for decades. Figures like Sam Harris and Bill Maher built careers on the fantasy of the “Good Muslim” — the secular, assimilated, apolitical figure who makes the West feel safe. But Zohran’s unapologetic politics, rooted in solidarity with Palestine and working-class liberation, expose the hollowness of that narrative. In this episode, we revisit Mahmood Mamdani’s landmark thesis in Good Muslim, Bad Muslim to understand why Zohran’s success provokes such hysteria — and what it reveals about how the West still divides the Muslim world into those it can use and those it must fear. From Sadiq Khan’s media approval to the wild panic surrounding Zohran’s rise, this essay is about power, empire, and the myths that keep them intact.0:00 Intro - A Perfect Science Experiment1:05 "We Want Those People Here In Our Society" - Sam Harris5:05 "They have to Say Aloud Our Western Values" - Bill Maher7:12 Bill Maher Brings Up Zohran's Ugandan Citizenship10:05 Sam Harris responding to "Stealth Islamists"17:27 Sadiq Khan vs Zohran Mamdani - What is the Dangerous Idea?18:20 Mamood Mamdani's Good Muslim, Bad Muslim29:04 The Colonial Fear of Zohran and Palestine Support32:04 What's Changed in the Last 10 Years?Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Sept 2002 by Mamood Mamdani https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/sj6/mamdanigo... BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM    / @jayshapirodilemmapodcast  For more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

The Rashomon Effect and a Death In Palestine

The Rashomon Effect - Multiple people witnessing the same event remember it in contradictory ways, often colored by their own self-interest, trauma, or worldview.Applied to the killing of Rafaat Alareer and a Tweet by Bari Weiss00:00 The Rashomon Effect02:58 The Killing of Rafaat Alareer04:24 Perspective One - Bari Weiss, The Zionist Journalist12:42 Perspective Two - Rafaat, The Poet18:03 Perspective Three - IDF, The Killer20:20 Perspective Four - Me, The Onlooker25:01 The Exhausting Rashomon Problem, The Philosophical Problems, and "If I Must Die"Sources: https://electronicintifada.net/content/my-final-moments-refaat-alareer/50193https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2024-01/remembering-dr-refaat-alareer/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/8/palestinian-people-mourn-the-death-of-refaat-alareerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refaat_AlareerBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

The International Malcolm X: Gaza, Violence, and the Fight Against Colonialism w/ Michael Sawyer

Malcolm X was more than an activist or organizer. In this conversation, Michael Sawyer, author of Black Minded and the forthcoming The Door of No Return, takes Malcolm seriously as a philosopher who linked Black freedom in the United States to anti-colonial struggle in Palestine. We talk Malcolm’s trip to Gaza, his push to move the fight to the global commons and the United Nations, and why he believed moral clarity must come before politics.This episode wrestles with the hardest question, the tension between violence and liberation. King’s nonviolence, the Panthers’ self-defense, Malcolm in the middle, what actually changes unjust systems, what counts as violence when power calls even peaceful disruption violent, and how that logic plays out in Gaza today. We connect Malcolm’s internationalism to Gen Z protests, the language of decolonization, and the growing refusal to blur anti-Zionism with antisemitism.If you care about Palestine and Gaza, if you want to understand Malcolm X beyond the poster and the pull quote, if you are trying to think honestly about means and ends, this one matters.BUY MICHAEL SAWYER'S BOOK HEREhttps://www.plutobooks.com/product/black-minded/READ ZIONIST LOGIC BY MALCOLM X HERE https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-viewpoint-us/mayjun_05/mayjun_05_21.htm00:00:00 Coming Up…00:01:08 Member Thanks…00:01:47 Before Thoughts - Michael Sawyer Intro00:02:50 Before Thoughts - A Spectrum of Violence. MLK, X, Black Panther00:16:21 Sawyer’s Path to Malcolm X00:26:42 Malcolm X as a Philosopher00:31:03 The Internationalism of Malcolm & Malcolm Goes to Gaza 00:35:48 Does the International Scope Hurt the Cause?00:41:49 On Malcolm’s view on Violence and Liberation00:53:50 Understanding the Systemic Enemy00:58:12 The Gen Z Protests from Kenya to Nepal01:04:31 The Questions Around Malcolm’s Assassinations01:09:25 The Black American and Judaism, Zionism and Marcus Garvey01:20:08 After Thought - My Next Guest and Wrestling as PoliticsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com