The Israel Lobby Con EXTRA! Podcast

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...

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 V...

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...

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, A...

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 & M...

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...

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 ...

Ali Abunimah is a journalist and the co-founder and executive director of the widely acclaimed The Electronic Intifada, a nonprofit, independent online publication focusing on Palestine.   A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Chicago, Abunimah is a frequent speaker on the Middle East, contributing regularly to numerous publications. He is the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian ...

Walter Hixson is the author of a half-dozen books on the history of U.S. foreign relations. He has taught history for 36 years and is currently distinguished professor of history at the University of Akron.   Hixson’s books include American Foreign Relations: A New Diplomatic History (Routledge, 2016); American Settler Colonialism: A History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Fore...

Delinda Curtiss Hanley is news editor and executive director of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a 76-page nearly monthly magazine with the largest circulation of any Middle East related publication in North America. The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, features insightful analysis of the political, economic, and historical realities of the U.S.-Middle East relationship. Each colorful issue is packed with spec...

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson's last position in government was as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff (2002-05). He previously was associate director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and member of that staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific, political-military and legislative affairs (2001-02).

Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson se...

Jefferson Morley is a veteran Washington investigative reporter and the author of the 2017 St. Martin’s Press book, The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton. The book sheds new light on Angleton’s close relationship with Israeli intelligence, citing such cases as Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty and the diversion of U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium from Apollo, PA to Israel in the 1960s.

A ...

Ali Abunimah is a journalist and the co-founder and executive director of the widely acclaimed publication The Electronic Intifada, a nonprofit, independent online publication focusing on Palestine.

A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Chicago, he is a frequent speaker on the Middle East, contributing regularly to numerous publications.

He is the author of One Country, A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Pales...

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which he joined in 1982. He spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor and is currently a member of its editorial board. He is widely considered the “dean” of Israeli journalism—as well as “the most hated man in Israel.” As Levy has written, “Treating the Palestinians as victims and the crimes perpetrated against them as crimes is considered treasonous.”

Levy writes t...

Thomas Getman is partner in a private consulting group that specializes in international, United Nations and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) affairs and university seminars, on U.N. Reform and humanitarian interagency partnership building. He was World Vision’s executive director for international relations until March 1, 2009. He managed World Vision’s liaison activities with the U.N. and the World Council of Churches and was ...

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi is the director and senior scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas; associate professor of Ethnic Studies/Race and Resistance Studies; and affiliated faculty in Sexuality Studies graduate program at San Francisco State University. She is a co-founder and editorial board member of the Islamophobia Studies Journal for which she is co-editing the forthcoming special issue on “Gender, Sexuality and ...

Dr. Barry Trachtenberg is the Michael R. and Deborah K. Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History and an associate professor of history at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. On Nov. 7, 2017, he testified before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on “Examining Anti-Semitism on College Campuses.”

A scholar of Jewish history and the Nazi Holocaust, Dr. Trachtenberg told the committee: “Legislation such as H.R.6421-Anti-Sem...

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and activist. She is an assistant professor at George Mason University. She is a co-founder/editor of Jadaliyya e-zine and an Editorial Committee member of the Journal of Palestinian Studies. Prior to joining GMU's faculty, she served as legal counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, as a legal advocate for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and...

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 ...