Background Briefing: October 29, 2024
Israel’s Expulsion of UNRWA From Gaza Will Worsen an Already Dire Humanitarian Disaster
We begin with the Israeli Knesset voting to expel the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA from Gaza raising dire humanitarian concerns that food and water will be cut off from a besieged population already facing starvation and death from bombing. Joining us is Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now DAWN who was formerly the executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, where she oversaw 19 countries, with staff located in 10 countries.
The Puerto Rican Vote After Trump’s Hate-Filled Rally He Called a “Love Fest”
Then, with Trump describing his recent Madison Square Garden racist hate-filled rally as “a love fest” in which he was proud to participate, we examine the fallout in terms of how the Puerto Rican vote in key swing states like Pennsylvania could shift in Harris’s favor. Joining us is Luis Martinez-Fernandez, who is a professor of history at the University of Central Florida. He is a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean who focuses on the histories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. He was born in Cuba, graduated from a Puerto Rican university, and currently lives and teaches in Orlando, Florida, which has one of the world’s highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans.
Apparently Trump’s “Christians” No Longer “Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself”
Then finally we assess how many pro-Trump so-called Christians follow the Bible’s call to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and speak with Peter Montgomery, Research Director at People For the American Way who has studied the Religious Right movement and its right-wing political allies for more than two decades. He has written extensively about marriage equality, religious liberty, and other conflicts at the intersection of religion, politics and LGBTQ issues and is also an associate editor for the online magazine Religion Dispatches, and his writing appears in The American Prospect, The Public Eye, Alternet and other progressive outlets.