A History of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Through One Activist's Life Story

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu’s July 24th address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress was skipped by roughly half of the Democratic caucus, including the party's new presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. This marks a shift in Democratic Party politics around Israel and Palestine after nearly 10 months of mass protests across the country in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. For many, it has been a first introduction to the U.S movement for Palestinian rights, but for Arab Americans across the country, it is the latest in a very long story of Arab American political engagement and its connection to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Arab American civil rights lawyer Abdeen Jabara was born in the small town of Mancelona, Michigan in 1940. Over the course of his life, he watched the Arab American community grow into a political group now at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election. In this episode, Jabara joins host Kai Wright and producer Suzanne Gaber to share the history of the community’s political organizing and its complicated relationship with the U.S. government – a history that includes how he discovered the government was illegally surveilling him and more than 150,000 other Arabs in the U.S.

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Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.