Ran HaCohen, author of the “Letter From Israel” column at Antiwar.com, discusses the fascist characteristics of the Israeli state, Obama’s generous concessions on settlements that weaken U.S. leverage, the narrowly defined news spectrum that dominates Israeli media, Gaza’s permanent status as an open air prison and the unlikely prospect of Egypt or Jordan helping Israel by administering Gaza and the West Bank.

MP3 here. (28:16)

Dr. Ran HaCohen was born in the Netherlands in 1964 and grew up in Israel. He has a B.A. in computer science, an M.A. in comparative literature, and a Ph.D. in Jewish studies. He is a university teacher in Israel. He also works as a literary translator (from German, English, and Dutch). HaCohen’s work has been published widely in Israel. “Letter From Israel” appears occasionally at Antiwar.com.

Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, discusses her recent visit to Gaza at the end of Israel’s incursion, the systematic damage done to civilian infrastructure, the mounting evidence that the Israelis used white phosphorus and committed war crimes, the large volume of images and reporting broadcast by Al-Jazeera in Gaza compared to the Western media’s near-blackout of coverage and the hopeful possibility that new U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell can broker a peace deal.

MP3 here. (30:37)

Kathy Kelly is the founder of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, a 3-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and helped initiate the Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end the UN/US sanctions against Iraq.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, founder of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, discusses how the Israel/Palestine issue seen from a libertarian perspective defines the central conflict in terms of individual property rights, the difficulty in determining the motivation behind Israel’s recent – seemingly fruitless – military endeavors, the precipitous decline in non-Jewish land ownership in Israel from 1948 to the present day and the looming prospect of a democratic Jewish Israel with an Arab majority population.

MP3 here. (47:40)

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D. is the founder of the Minaret of Freedom Institute and an internationally known interdisciplinary scientist, author of Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer’s Perspective on Religion and Science. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Maryland where he teaches courses on religion and progress and on religion, science and freedom. He also teaches a course on Islam, Science and Development at Georgetown University for the Center on Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Tom Engelhardt, editor of TomDispatch and of The World According to TomDispatch, chronicles the failures of the Bush Administration and their misguided faith in the dark side of force, the state of complete catastrophe inside Afghanistan and on its border with Pakistan, the precarious situation in Iraq, Bush’s failure to get Iran to stop enriching Uranium (his standard), how U.S. policy has benefited Hamas and Hezbollah, the worst crisis on earth: the U.S.-caused war in Somalia and the rise of much more radical forces there than those whose power the invasion was meant to thwart.

MP3 here. (23:32)

An editor in publishing for the last 25 years, Tom Engelhardt is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War era, now out in a revised edition with a new preface and afterword, and Mission Unaccomplished, Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters. He is at present consulting editor for Metropolitan Books, a fellow of the Nation Institute, and a teaching fellow at the journalism school of the University of California, Berkeley. Visit his Web site.

Robert A. Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, discusses his database of every suicide terrorist attack on earth since 1980, what it shows about the role of religion and occupation in motivating suicide terrorism, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the amount of truth discernible from social science, the suicide bombing campaign in Iraq and spread around the world since the Iraq invasion, the motivation of the Japanese Kamikazes, the suicide attacks of the Jewish Zealots against Roman occupation 2,000 years ago, the strategic logic of suicide terrorism, the importance in the difference in religion of the occupiers and occupied, the illogical Obama/McCain consensus on escalating the war in Afghanistan and now Pakistan, the example of Hezbollah’s suicide campaign against Israeli/French/American forces in Lebanon, the profile of the individual suicide bomber, why fighting them over there makes us less safe here, Adam Gadahn and the real, human, political reasons he sites in al Qaeda recruitment videos, and why Paul Wolfowitz got it wrong even on the one occasion he was right.

MP3 here. (51:57)

Robert A. Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His publications include Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House 2005); Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell 1996), “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security (1997), “The Determinants of International Moral Action,” International Organization (1999); “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review (2003); and “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security (2005). His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College for five years and air power strategy for the USAF’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1988 and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity.

Lew Rockwell, founder and President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses his new podcast interview program, Joe Biden’s long term and central role in promoting the warfare state, demagoguery and omission at the Democratic convention, the reality of America’s empire and the elective emperor who rules it, the important new book We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now, why murder is still murder even if a government employee does it, the big lie of government provided safety and myth of a peace loving American population, why its fun to oppose evil, the growing militarism of the domestic police state, the terrible danger in “privatizing” the state’s police powers such as tax collections and prisons, the possibility that the Georgian crisis was deliberately precipitated in order to boost the Republicans’ fortunes in the November election, the bogus nature of the first Cold War and now the second, the sanity of the old imperial establishment only as compared to the new, Democracy as subservience to the U.S. government, how the state can always use its own failures as the excuse to increase its power as it is doing now in the financial markets and the need for a realignment toward peace and freedom.

MP3 here. (52:18)

Lew Rockwell is the founder and President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, Vice President of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, California, and publisher of the political Web site LewRockwell.com. He served as Ron Paul’s congressional chief of staff between 1978 and 1982. Check out his new podcast show here.

Daniel Levy, senior fellow and director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation, discusses the need for Israel to adopt a diplomatic foreign policy, prominent Israeli officials opposed to attacking Iran, the remaining danger of an Israeli attack, how hard-line rhetoric empowers Iran’s hawks in return, the disastrous effects any attack on Iran would have, the process for the upcoming Israeli election, the consequences of conflating all of Israel and America’s enemies and the new liberal U.S.-Israeli lobbying organization J-Street.

MP3 here. (28:48)

Daniel Levy is a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation and was a negotiator in the Rabin and Barak governments in Israel.

Philip Weiss, syndicated columnist, author of the blog MondoWeiss and the book American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps, discusses the touchy subject of the Israel Lobby and Jewish power in American politics, the difficulty Americans face in criticizing Israel due to the smear of “antisemitism,” the centrality of Israel policy to the neoconservatives, majority Jewish-American support for the takeover of Jerusalem, Barack Obama’s pandering to the Lobby, the relative peace position of the Olmert government compared to the U.S. War Party, the Lobby-Christian Zionist alliance, the brutality of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, the cause of the media blackout on the occupation, the new J-Street lobby and Israel’s conflict with Iran.

MP3 here. (40:44)

The New York Observer, The Nation and The American Conservative and in the past has written for the National Review, Washington Monthly, New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, and Jewish World Review.

Philip Giraldi, former DIA and CIA officer and columnist for Antiwar.com, discusses his scoop for the American Conservative magazine that the information leading the FBI to Ben Ami Kadish came from inside the Israeli government, speculation that it may have been an attempt by antiwar factions in Israel to thwart scheduled testimony by Israeli intelligence agents in favor of the bogus story of the North Korea/Syria nuclear weapons program, the promotion of Gen. Petraeus to commander of Centcom, the remaining danger of war with Iran given a suitable pretext, the detriment of the narrative of the indivisibility of Israeli and American interests, the natural divisions between groups like Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Iranian Mullahs, the War Party’s claims about their cooperation, the FBI’s bogus terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, America’s regime change in Somalia, the case for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and the McCain prescription for confrontation with Russia and China.

MP3 here. (39:51)

Philip Giraldi is a former DIA and CIA officer, partner at Cannistraro Associates, Francis Walsingham Fellow for the American Conservative Defense Alliance, contributing editor at the American Conservative magazine and columnist at Antiwar.com.

Middle East expert John Taylor discusses Bush and his lackey Elliot Abram’s successful efforts to do nothing at all to help achieve peace in Palestine, the dishonest media, Tom Lantos’ participation of the “babies left to die on the cold floor” hoax of 1990 and Abram’s role in Iran-Contra.

MP3 here. (26:30)

John Taylor received an A.B. in Near Eastern Languages from the University of Chicago, a B.A. and an M.A. in Oriental studies from Cambridge University, and an MBA from Columbia University. He served two years active duty in the United States Army, reaching the grade of sergeant, and spent six years in the reserves. Before making his career in the oil and gas business in Texas, he worked in the Middle East as an archaeologist, banker, and civil servant. Taylor is a life-long Republican.