Frdh Podcast With Michael Goldfarb

The war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023 with a terror attack that killed 1400 Israelis and now the world is waiting for the next phase, an expected israeli invasion of Gaza. In the lull before the assault begins FRDH host Michael Goldfarb speaks with two veteran journalists who have been living the story and reporting on it for nearly 50 years. What can be done and how far will Israel be allowed to go by the US in its aim of eradicating Hamas? What are the prospects for gettting nearly 200 Israelis held hostage by Hamas safely returned?

In a world of conspiracy theories presented as facts in new media how can you be sure of what you know? In this FRDH podcast Dr. Matthew Sweet, cultural historian and BBC presenter who has spent more time than you or I investigating this murky world, explains how knowledge is intentionally corrupted by conspiracy friendly media and why people embrace these ideas.

A half-century after the Chilean coup of 1973 an eyewitness and participant in that traumatic history remembers. Marc Cooper, then an American in his early twenties, was the President of Chile Salvador Allende's translator. In this podcast he remembers what he saw before, during and after the coup; his narrow escape; and the US role in Allende's overthrow. Eyewitness testimony on an important but neglected moment in history.

Christian nationalism is an increasingly loud form of the faith and many evangelical Christians in America are tired of its hypocrisy. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb speaks with Andrew Whitehead, evangelical Christian and professor of sociology about his book American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens The Church.

For decades Saudi Arabia was a place of official silence but now it is taking its place and the center of the geo-political stage. Whether it is paying exorbitant sums to entice football stars to play in its new league or holding peace conferences on Ukraine or opening up diplomatically to Israel, Iran AND the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia's leader, Mohammed bin Salman has put his kingdom in the center of the global conversation without revealing much about the place. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations about the Silent Kingdom.

War has come with a vengeance to Odesa in 2023 and poet and translator Boris Dralyuk wants to talk about Odesa's identity and the poetry and comedy and love it inspires. In this podcast he tells about Odesa's unique historical identity as the place where so many poets, novelists, musicians and comedians come from. He knows his stuff since he is one of them.

Karl Marx was wrong when he wrote History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce. The second time around it is still tragic as the events of midsummer 2023 show. In this podcast with BBC great Robin Lustig we look at how from riots in Paris to Israeli incursions into the West Bank city of Jenin the conflicts we have covered 15/20/30 years ago keep blowing up again. Give us 50:56 to argue it out.

Every Saturday night for the last 26 weeks in Tel Aviv crowds of up to 150,000 have staged demonstrations against Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu over his attempt to gut the courts and steer Israel towards strong man rule, with Netanyahu as the strong man. This short shapr podcast contains sound and interviews from the demonstration held on July 1st, 2023.

To say Democracy is in crisis today is not hyperbole but people don't have an idea about fixing it. Forty years ago Oxford professor Maurice Pope saw the crisis coming and wrote a book about one possible solution. Needless to say the book couldn't find a publisher. Their attitude was crisis, what crisis? The manuscript was lost for forty years, rediscovered and has recently been published and in this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with the author's son, Hugh Pope, about his father's big idea to bypass electoral politics and take democratic decision making back to the people.

Journalist Isabel Hilton talks about China today, its leader Xi Jinping, and the many different Chinas he is trying to bring under his control. China is constanstly in the news but for all the coverage it remains an unknown place. Isabel Hilton has half a century of experience reporting on the country and in this wide-ranging conversation paints a picture of Chinese society and the recent history that has created it,

25 years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed this is the story of how Mo Mowlam accepted what the price of peace in Northern Ireland would be and heroically acted to make peace possible. FRDH podcast host Michael covered that story throughout the 1990s on the 25th anniversary remembers his encounters with Mo Mowlam and the twists and turns that led to Northern Ireland's peace after three decades of conflict as well as the key lesson of her brave work.

The voice missing from most US/UK histories of the Iraq war is that of Iraqis who saw their hopes raised and then ruined. This sound history was made by FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb who covered the Iraq War as an unembedded reporter. He followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein through the eyes of someone who had suffered terribly under Saddam’s regime. This radio documentary first aired in 2003 a few weeks after Saddam’s statue in Baghdad came down, it contains essential Iraqi voices and stands as a sound history of that conflict.

Sir Lawrence Freedman, takes an anniversary look at two of the big wars of the 21st century: Ukraine and Iraq. Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London, talks about the current state of play in Ukraine on the first anniversary of Russia's invasion as well as what happened in Iraq on the 20th anniversary of the American invasion. Do the two conflicts have anything in common? Listen through to the end to find out.

In the year 2023 Israel reached a crossroad. Hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrated every week against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and its lurch towards authoritarianism. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with former Knesset Member Ksenia Svetlova about Netanyahu's power grab and the dangerous, violent nationalism of the the religious Zionists on whom he depends for power, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

Greenwich Village in 1944 as World War 2 came to an end saw the beginnings of an explosion of artistic expression among the Village bohemians. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb tells the origin story of two of them: Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. The pair met by chance and became lifelong friends in an unrepeatable time and place: Greenwich Village 1944

As Britain's NHS turns 75, author Henry Marsh, who worked as a surgeon and is now a cancer patient of the National Health Service, discusses his book "And Finally" which looks back at changes in the NHS over 40 years and the role reversal of being a patient in the service. Marsh was one of Britain's foremost neurosurgeons and his conversation roams from operating room tales to philosophy to the very different experience of being on the other side of the consultant's desk. Give us 39:50 to tell you all about the difference between being an NHS surgeon and an NHS patient.

American politics was held hostage in the first week of 2023. Once again the hostage takers were from the extremist right-wing of the already radical faction called the Republican Party who forced one of their own, Kevin McCarthy to go through 15 ballots before finally being elected Speaker of the House. The hostage takers extracted maximum concessions before giving their votes. In this extended, pull no punches conversation, Norman Ornstein, who has been studying Congress since the 1970s as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute traces the history of how the party became the threat to American democracy it has become.

In this FRDH holiday special to mark the end of 2022, Michael Goldfarb plays Jewish Ukrainian music recorded by him while on assignment in L'viv before Putin's war. The stories behind these pieces are interesting and the music is unique, lovely and presciently defiant.

In this edition of Bible Study for Atheists, FRDH host MIchael Goldfarb looks at the results of the 2022 Midterm Election through the story of the children of Israel's search for a strongman, a King. What does it say about American society that nearly half the country want to give over their democratic republic to an autocrat, if not Donald Trump than Ron DeSantis? Give him 13:30 to lead you through a Bible Study that gives an answer

FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb was in L'viv Ukraine recently and this is his diary. L'viv is a city he knows well and he explores how war has changed it and how different the courage of Ukrainians who are living through real war is to the enervated resignation of Britons and Americans to their own deteriorating democracies. Give him 13:30 precisely to explain it to you.