Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Dec 3, 2023

Kissinger’s Corruption and Palestinian Solutions

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Matt Duss on moving on beyond war.

The Nation Podcasts
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Kissinger’s Corruption and Palestinian Solutions | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Matt Duss and Jeet Heer on moving on beyond war.

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Israeli soldier at border near Gaza

An Israeli soldier walks past a destroyed house in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the border with Gaza, on October 11, 2023.

(Menahem Kahana / Getty)

This week, I talked with Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, about the recent death of Henry Kissinger and how the violence in Israel and Palestine could realistically give way to diplomatic solutions.

We take up two pieces Matt has written. One is a New Republic essay on how Henry Kissinger trafficked his public service into a lucrative private career. Kissinger was a actually a pioneer in this type of self-enrichment through influence peddling.

With Nancy Okail, president of the Center for International Policy, Matt wrote an important essay in Foreign Affairs laying out a road map for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians. This path would require the United States to seriously push for a political settlement. We talk about the political obstacles to such a plan, including Joe Biden’s long held ideological convictions. But we also take note of the changing politics of this issue, particularly among progressive voters.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Trump is Using Terrorist Charges to Wage Political War w/ Josh Kovensky | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Kovensky has written an essay on the Trump

administration’s use of anti-terrorism law to target political groups it doesn’t like.

In that piece, Kovensky notes,

"Across the country, federal prosecutors are upgrading what would have been routine

prosecutions into terrorism cases when they involve people President Trump has cast as his

political enemies.

It represents a dramatic departure from how the Justice Department has historically used the

federal material support for terrorism statute. For decades, counterterrorism prosecutors have

largely reserved the statute — 2339A — for the kinds of audacious plots that wreak real, lasting

damage or whose ambition forms the stuff of movie screenplays."

I spoke to Kovensky about his essay and the history and politics of this dangerous legal

innovation.

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Jeet Heer

Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

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