Nov 23 2008

Broadcast Date: 
Nov 23 2008

In the wake of anti-immigrant raids, the Agriprocessor plant in Postville shuts down and its CEO is indicted; a conversation with political scientist Neve Gordon about Israeli politics; plus why the movement against Prop 8 failed.

Episode segments
  • Update: Postville Iowa
    Religion, Jewish Communities, Jewish Life, Food
    Nathaniel Popper is news editor at The Forward, the national Jewish weekly.  His story two years ago was the first in the press to raise questions about the treatment of both workers and animals in Agriprocessor's Postville plant.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    In early November, Agriprocessors--at one time the nation's largest kosher meat processor-- filed for bankruptcy and shut down its operations.  Last Friday Agriprocessors, its former CEO and several company managers were indicted, charged various immigration crimes as well as bank fraud and aiding and abetting document fraud and identity theft. Nathaniel Popper talks with us about the impact of these events on Postville Iowa (population 2,300), on the Somali and Palauan workers who were recruited to replace the largely Latino workers caught up in last May's massive federal immigration raid and on the Latino workers recently released on probation and ordered to remain in the U.S. testify at the upcoming Agriprocessor trials.

     

  • Israel’s Occupation
    Israel/Palestine, Occupation
    Neve Gordon is Chair of the Political Science Department at Ben Gurion University.  He was Director of Physicians for Human Rights, Israel ,during the first Intifada and is active with the Arab-Jewish partnership, Ta'ayush.  His most recent book, Israel's Occupation, is he first complete history of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. 
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has changed dramatically over the past 40 years.  During the early years of the occupation, Israel helped Palestinians plant trees (some 618,000 trees in Gaza in 1968), provided farmers with improved varieties of seeds for crops and provided immunization for cattle and poultry and employment for Palestinian workers in Israel. In contrast, during the first three years of the second Intifada, Israel destroyed more than 10% of Gaza’s agricultural land, uprooted over 226,000 trees, prevented Palestinians from receiving immunizations and barred Palestinian labor from entry into Israel.  We talk with Neve Gordon about the origin and nature of what he calls the logic of colonization—in which Israel sought to exploit the resources of the West Bank and Gaza (then, labor, water and land) by managing the lives of the population and normalizing the occupation—to one of separation, in which the exploitation of resources is accompanied by indifference to the lives of the Palestinian population and a sharp increase in Palestinian deaths.

  • Why Prop 8 Won
    National Politics, Christian Right, Electoral, Domestic Policy, Civil Rights
    Richard Kim is an associate editor at The Nation, writing frequently about race, sexuality and popular culture.  He is the author of Marital Discord: Why Prop 8 Won.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    According to many reports, Prop 8, the amendment to California's Constitution to bar gay marriage, won because of strong support from communities of color.  Richard Kim places the fault elsewhere, in the failures of the mainstream gay organizations that spear headed opposition to the amendment to mobilize an effective grass roots, community based campaign.