Has Donald Trump peeled back the veil on the toxicity of America?What will his second term mean for Israel, Palestine and the pursuit of justice?This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we welcome back Norman Finkelstein, political scientist, author and legal scholar, to talk about the aftermath of the US elections, Israel’s war in Gaza and shifting tactics of the Palestine movement.Finkelstein has spent his career chronicling in excruciating detail the Israel-Palestine conflict from the perspec...

What is the link between Zionism, capitalism and the American empire?Fresh off the back of a deeply toxic, all consuming US election - one in which the issue of Palestine and the war in Gaza was largely ignored - we examine what it means to survive a system intent on silencing and marginalising dissenting voices.Despite the key role the Biden Administration has played in arming and supporting Israel, a position opposed by the majority of Americans, few political voices were interested in chal...

Can Zionism survive the current war in Gaza?Israeli historian Ilan Pappé believes it can’t. In fact, he argues that the liberation of Palestine is an inevitability.Pappé is the author of 24 books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and most recently published two books: ‘Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic’ and ‘A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict’.This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with Ilan Pappé to talk about where the Zionist project originate...

Before the formation of the Israeli Defence Forces in 1948, there were three underground Zionist militias - The Haganah, the Irgun and the Lehi.They differed in tactics and beliefs, and at times fought with each other - but together they terrorised Palestinian villages and executed bombings and assassinations against the British to force them to give up control of the land.They blew up hotels in Jerusalem, embassies in Europe and assassinated a UN mediator.After Israel was officiated as a sta...

Can Kamala Harris defeat Donald Trump without ending the war in Gaza?That could be up to a handful of key swing states, including Michigan, home to 150,000 Arab-American voters. This is a community that has never had a political voice in Washington, that is, until now. A group of activists, community organisers and political insiders have come together to galvanise the anger around Gaza and force the Democrats to pay attention.That birthed the Uncommitted National Movement.This week on T...

Does Elon Musk have too much power over how we communicate online? Is he using that power to fuel dangerous far-right conspiracies?This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we’re joined by Marc Owen Jones, social media analyst, author and assistant professor at Northwestern University in Doha.Over the last few weeks, he’s been documenting the Southport anti-immigrant riots across the UK, and the link between online misinformation and the real world violence it can cause.The riots, fueled by misin...

What is the price tag for convincing Iran to back down?The US is desperately trying to keep a lid on the heightened tensions in the Middle East, following Israel’s assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Hanieyeh in Iran’s capital, and the airstrike on a Beirut suburb that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.Benjamin Netanyahu, the gambler and accused war criminal, seems determined to escalate tensions with Iran to the brink of war, largely to keep himself in power.Iran, meanwhile, has m...

Two assassinations. Two capital cities. Less than 24 hours.One struck an apartment in downtown Beirut, killing a woman and two children - targeting a Hezbollah senior commander.Then just hours later, a strike in the heart of Tehran, assassinating Hamas’ most high profile figure, and its political chief - Ismail Hanieyah.Israel has claimed the first attack, though not the second - at least not yet - but the reverberations are already starting to be felt - as are fears that we’re barreling towa...

Just days out from a historic general election expected to usher in a Labour government for the first time in 14 years - we speak to one of its most vocal and fiery MPs - Naz Shah.Shah has been the MP for Bradford West since 2015 - after beginning her career as a carer with the NHS and a community advocate - campaigning among other things for the release of her own mother from prison.In November, she broke ranks with the Labour Party leadership to support a call for a ceasefire in Gaza - and ...

Can a lone 24 year old Palestinian take on the Labour Party?That’s what Leanne Mohamad is determined to do, campaigning as an independent candidate in the safe Labour seat of Ilford North at the upcoming general elections.It’s no small feat - she’s up against Wes Streeting, a senior party heavyweight and a man tapped by many as Keir Starmer’s successor. So how can she take him on?Mohamad’s no stranger to taking on the odds. When she was 15, a high school speech she gave on Palestinian rights ...

Jeremy Corbyn was the Labour MP for North Islington for 40 years - his entire political career.But not anymore.Now, he’s campaigning against his former party, trying to convince his lifelong voters to abandon the party that abandoned him. After he was suspended from the Labour Party by his former shadow minister Keir Starmer, Corbyn chose to stand as an independent, and feels like he no longer recognises the party that shaped him.This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we go on the road to...

In 2004, Les Roberts smuggled himself into Iraq as his own government was in the midst of bombing and occupying the country.His mission was to find out how many civilians had been killed in the devastating US-led invasion, because Western media was refusing to cover it.When he published his findings in the Lancet Report, that between 100,000 and 600,000 people had been killed - it was dismissed and scorned. Years later, his estimate has been accepted as true.Inside Iraq, Roberts witnessed the...

We are living through a moment of social and political upheaval - one that has somehow aligned the Houthi rebels in Yemen, South Africa’s greatest legal minds and students across the wealthiest campuses in the world. They’re all fighting for Gaza, and against an increasingly isolated Israeli government and its Western backers. So are we witnessing a historic tipping point?Norman Finkelstein has documented the Israel-Palestine conflict for over 4 decades, with a particular focus on Israel...

Fiona Lali wants to bring down the British government, as well as capitalism. The marxist organiser turned independent candidate in the upcoming UK general elections says there’s a link between the powerful protest movement for Palestine and the widespread anger felt by young people and workers alike.Lali went viral in May when she confronted former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman on TV, in what many saw as a powerful rebuttal of Braverman’s views on the university encampments pr...

Will Benjamin Netanyahu face justice at the Hague?The International Criminal Court on Monday issued arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders over their actions in Gaza and on 7 October, accusing them both of committing war crimes.It’s an unprecedented move, the first time a US-ally has been pursued by the ICC.Prosecutor Karim Khan says that the reputation of international law itself hangs in the balance, and that the decision must be respected in order to prove that “human beings wh...

Winston Churchill is one of the most biographed figures in modern history, and held up as an orator and wartime strategist that turned the tide against Hitler and Nazi Germany.But how accurate is this image? And is it hiding a darker reality?This week on The Big Picture, we sit down with British-Pakistani writer, political activist and public intellectual Tariq Ali.Ali published his own biography, titled ‘Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes’. In it, he paints a different portrait - one o...

“I was definitely raised to be a Jewish leader of some kind.”With college campuses all over the US gripped by intense battles around free speech, antisemitism and Palestinian rights - the voices of young Jewish Americans have led the way. One of the boldest and most prominent voices is that of Simone Zimmerman.Zimmerman was raised in a conservative Zionist household, taught to idolise and support Israel as the highest aspiration of all young Jewish Americans like her.But as she got older...

Did Iran fall into Israel’s trap when it attacked on Saturday, or did it outmanoeuvre Netanyahu? Are we on the brink of regional war, or can the US contain the spill? When Israel bombed an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on 1 April, killing top Iranian commanders, many saw it as bait laid out by Benjamin Netanyahu to force a direct confrontation that would drag the US into a wider regional conflict. More isolated than ever on the world stage after six months of brutal war in Gaza,...

Is Europe ‘nostalgic for a racist past’ when it didn’t have to apologise for its colonialism?  In this week’s episode of The Big Picture, we sit down with renowned Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage.  Hage is currently fighting against the prestigious Max Planck Society in Germany over accusations of ‘antisemitism’ over his critiques of Israel. This week, Germany’s government had to defend its ongoing military support for Israel’s war in Gaza after a legal case was filed at the...

In this episode of The Big Picture, we sit down with Sadiq Khan for a wide ranging conversation about Labour’s election hopes, his political regrets and his vision for the future of London. Sadiq Khan wants to make history by winning a third term as London’s mayor - but his confidence is shaky. A winter of mass protests, a smear campaign in the media and a new set of voting regulations ushered in by a hostile Tory government have pushed him to rally his supporters not to take the upcoming...

How do you humanise people facing unimaginable odds? That was the task Plestia Alaqad gave herself when she first put on her press vest on October 7. Freshly graduated from journalism school and dreaming of a bright future, she suddenly found herself in the middle of a war zone, with the eyes of the world watching. Armed with her phone and internet access, she began documenting the lives of her family and the people around her - finding stories of hope and resilience amid the...

In this episode of The Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein to talk about how for decades, Israel used its occupation of Palestinians as a testing ground for new weaponry, which it then packages and sells to governments around the world. In fact, Loewenstein argues that since its inception, Israel built its economy around military and surveillance technology, exporting it to some of the world’s most repressive regimes including Myanmar, Pinochet’s...

What does coverage of Gaza tell us about how the West sees the rest of the world? A recent report into mainstream news coverage found Islamophobic and anti-Arab language was widely used in coverage of the events after 7 October, with Israeli victims described using emotive language 11 times more than Palestinian victims. It also documented how pro-Palestinian voices were frequently vilified and treated with hostility during interviews. So why is this happening? In our first episode of...

Why are Western societies so fearful of Islam and Muslims? One can answer this question by examining history, particularly that of European colonial powers, and the ways in which they justified their actions in the Global South by painting its peoples and religions as alien and in need of reformation. Another answer can be found in the murky ties between our modern political parties, powerful media figures and well-funded think tanks, who have all benefited from casting Muslim communities...