Contributing Writers

Ruth Ben-Artzi, the niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joins Democracy Now! to call for the Netanyahu government to focus efforts on releasing Israeli hostages and to stop the bombing. A professor of political science at Providence College, Ben-Artzi recently joined prominent Rhode Island rabbis, Jewish leaders and Israelis demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

We speak with two experts in international criminal law about the long history of Palestinians attempting to seek justice in global institutions and the “very grave crimes” for which Israel is being prosecuted regarding the country’s ongoing assault and siege of Gaza.

As Israel rejects growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Center for Constitutional Rights in the United States is suing President Biden for failing to prevent genocide. The center is seeking an emergency order to block Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from providing further military funding, arms and diplomatic support to Israel.

Speakers at Tuesday’s “March for Israel” on the National Mall included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Christian fundamentalist House Speaker Mike Johnson and radical Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, who once said God “sent Hitler to help Jews reach the Promised Land.

We speak to Rabbi Alissa Wise, an organizer with Rabbis for Ceasefire and the founding co-chair of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rabbinical Council, about Tuesday’s “March for Israel” in Washington, D.C., that was covered widely by the mainstream media and platformed antisemitic Christian Zionists.

Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, discusses proposals for a prisoner swap with Hamas, the ongoing cycle of Palestinian oppression and resistance, censorship of pro-Palestine advocacy in the United States, what he calls a “generational struggle” among American Jews over Zionism, and more on Israel’s current assault of Gaza.

The Israel military raid on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, is an “unprecedented attack on civilian society” in the “darkest time in modern history,” that is being justified in the West by “a deep-rooted and frightening racism,” says Dr. Mads Gilbert, who worked at Al-Shifa. “You don’t do these things to people you consider equal.” Dr.

We feature one of the final interviews with Palestinian doctor Hammam Alloh, who died Saturday when an Israeli artillery shell struck his wife’s home, killing him, his father, brother-in-law and father-in-law. On October 31, Democracy Now! spoke to Dr.

Worldwide protests calling for a ceasefire are drawing attention to the role of weapons manufacturers and distributors supplying machinery to Israel’s assault on Gaza, with demonstrators blocking shipping tankers and entrances to weapons factories, and unionized workers refusing to handle military materiel over the war in Gaza.

Democracy Now! speaks to award-winning writers Jazmine Hughes and Jamie Lauren Keiles in their first broadcast interview since being forced out of The New York Times Magazine for signing an open letter condemning Israel’s siege on Gaza. The magazine’s editor Jake Silverstein said the letter violated the outlet’s policy on public protest, but Keiles says there are no clear guidelines, especially for contributing writers.

One-and-a-half million residents of Gaza have been displaced by Israeli bombing and siege since October 7 in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, or catastrophe, referencing the 1948 expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians to create the state of Israel. “It’s what has been going on for the past 75 years,” says Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq, who describes how 21 members of his family were killed in Gaza, including his father and several siblings.

We speak with Palestinian human rights lawyer Noura Erakat about a new effort to hold Israel accountable at the International Criminal Court over the war in Gaza, where Israel’s monthlong air and ground assault has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians. On Wednesday, three Palestinian rights groups filed a lawsuit with the international body, urging it to investigate Israel for the crimes of genocide and apartheid.