March 27 2011

Broadcast Date: 
Mar 27 2011

The Israeli Knesset investigates whether Washington lobby group J Street is "pro-Israel" enough; Japan's nuclear catastophe raises troubling questions about the safety of U.S. nuclear plants; plus Jeff Sharlet, author of C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy.

Episode segments
  • Is J Street Pro-Israel Enough?
    Israeli Politics, Israel/Palestine
    Steven Krubiner is J Street's Director of Israel programs.  Prior to joining J Street, he worked for Oxfam in Jerusalem.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Recently, J Street's top leadership visited Israel and once again Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to meet with them.  But J Street President, Jeremy Ben Ami, and Chair, David Gilo, did testify before the Knessest committ--which describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace--was anti-Israel.

  • Nuclear Catastrophe in Japan
    National Politics, International Politics, Domestic Policy
    Christian Parenti is a contributing editor to The Nation, a fellow at The Nation Institute and a visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center.  His latest book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence,will be released by Perseus this June. He is the author of a series of articles on the nuclear crisis in Japan.
    Esther Kaplan

    Esther Kaplan talks with Christian Parenti about the implications of the nuclear crisis in Japan.

  • C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy
    Global Justice, National Politics, Christian Right, International Politics, Domestic Policy
    Jeff Sharlet is the author of C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy.  We talked with Jeff about his previous book--The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power--in 2008 on Beyond the Pale (click here to listen).  Widely published in numerous venues, Jeff is also a contributing editor at Harpers and Rolling Stone.  His next book, Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country In Between, will be released in August.  Jeff Sharlet is an Assistant Professor of English at Dartmouth College.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    In the wake of the recent series of sex scandels involving residents of C Street, the Washington townhouse owned by The Family, Jeff Sharlet revisits The Family, and brings us up-to-date on their domestic and global activities.