Nov 2 2008

Broadcast Date: 
Nov 2 2008

The New York Senate on the cusp of a Democratic majority; new Attorney General guidelines allow for wider FBI surveillance; Chabad rabbis play a key role in Israel's settler movement; and Israeli activists help with the Palestinian olive harvest in the face of settler violence.

Episode segments
  • A Democratic Senate in New York State?
    Electoral
    State Senator Eric Schneiderman is Chair of the Democrats' Senate Campaign Committee
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Over recent years the NYS Democrats have been whittling down the long-standing Republican majority in the New York State Senate to a slim single seat.  With a number of Republican seats vulnerable this year, State Senator Schneiderman is optimistic that this is the year that will change the balance of power.  We talk with him about some important local races and what it will mean to turn the NYS Senate from red to blue.

  • Revised guidelines for FBI Terrorism Investigations
    National Politics, Domestic Policy, Civil Rights
    Laila Al-Qatami is Communications Director for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently issued revised guidelines for the FBI that allow the agency expanded investigative powers based merely on a generalized "threat."  Many see these changes "as a chilling invitation for the government to spy on law-abiding Americans based on their ethnic background or political activity." The guidelines go into effect on December 1st. 

  • Chabad of the West Bank
    Israel/Palestine, Occupation
    Jeremy Gillick is the author of Chabad of the West Bank, which appeared in the September issue of New Voices.  He is a writing fellow at Moment magazine.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Familiar to New Yorkers for their on-the-street proselytizing of fellow-Jews, the Lubavitcher Chassidim's work in Israel and the Occupied Territories has a far more political dimension.  In his article in New Voices, the national Jewish student magazine, Jeremy Gillick writes about the Chabad Rabbis who play a key role in Israel's right-wing settler movement.

  • Israeli Jews Help Palestinians Harvest Their Olives
    Israel/Palestine, Occupation
    Oded Efrati is an Israeli Jew who volunteers with his family each year to help the Palestinians harvest their olives.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Palestinian olive growers face formidable obstacles each fall when they try to harvest their olives.  At best, Israel grants them only limited access to fields that are on the "wrong" (western) side of Israel's "security" /"apartheid" wall (and that only after a series of bureaucratic hurdles).  And if their fields are near Israeli settlements, the settlers mobilize to disrupt the harvest, often violently attacking the farmers and damaging their trees.  The Olive Harvest Coalition organizes Israelis and international supporters to protect the olive growers and to uphold their right to work the land and to harvest their crop.