Middle East crisis, law, and accountability.
Arab Talk with Jess & Jamal tracks Middle East politics through a sharp Arab and Arab American lens. Its recent episodes move from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank into law, media censorship, diplomacy, and the human cost of state violence.
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Arab Talk with Jess & Jamal is a serious political interview program centered on the Arab world, the Middle East, and Arab American concerns. It speaks in the register of crisis. The show’s recent run is dominated by war, displacement, legal discrimination, settler violence, censorship, and the struggle over who gets to define events in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. The format is direct. A pointed opening sets the stakes, then the program often hands the argument to a guest who can work through the details at length. That structure gives the show a prosecutorial feel without making it abstract. Laws, institutions, casualty claims, sanctions, oil routes, religious sites, football bodies, and international courts all become part of the same political map. The show repeatedly links a single event to a broader pattern. A death penalty law is treated as part of a larger system of discrimination. Israeli media censorship becomes a way to discuss war reporting and military control over public knowledge. Settler attacks in the Jordan Valley open into a wider account of ethnic cleansing, land seizure, and Palestinian communities being forced into smaller spaces. Gaza ceasefire politics lead to questions about Tony Blair, transitional authority, autonomy, and who has power after bombardment stops. Iran episodes widen from missiles and oil prices to U.S. policy, the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf states, Lebanon, and global economic fallout. The tone is blunt and morally charged. It is also information-dense. Listeners should expect repetition, legal vocabulary, historical reference, and a strong editorial position rather than breezy debate. The show is most effective when it lets a guest build a case slowly, then returns to the hosts’ larger concern: accountability, civilian harm, and the political machinery that keeps producing catastrophe.
Made for: For listeners who already follow Middle East politics and want sustained, pro-Palestinian analysis with legal, historical, and regional context. It especially suits people looking for Arab and Arab American perspectives on war, diplomacy, media, and human rights.
What sets it apart: The show combines community-radio directness with long-form, evidence-heavy interviews. It moves quickly from breaking events to the legal and institutional structures behind them, while keeping civilian consequences at the center.
Arab Talk with Jess and Jamal brings news and analysis of the Arab World and Middle East, as well as issues affecting the Arab American community. Arab Talk broadcasts live every Thursday from 2-3 PM/PT on KPOO, 89.5FM San Francisco. Follow us on Twitter @ArabTalk Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/arab-talk-with-jess-jamal/id1244474570?mt=2
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani connect regional conflict to the censorship, imagery, and political framing that shape its broadcast life.
Arab Talk with Jess & Jamal treats media coverage as part of the conflict it describes. Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani move from urgent news rundowns into sustained interviews, pressing guests on what images circulate, which accounts reach the public, and how political language…
Breaking-news urgency meets unapologetic argument, with Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani keeping your attention on civilians.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused legal discussion of how discriminatory policy can become part of constitutional structure.
Palestinian human-rights attorney Salson Zahir examines Israel's new death-penalty law as part of a wider legal pattern. She connects it to the 2018 Jewish nation-state basic law, arguing that its exclusive treatment of self-determination, together with the absence of equality…
A grave, politically engaged account of escalation, civilian costs, and the Strait of Hormuz.
Arab Talk frames the sixth week of the Israeli-American war in Iran as a wider regional rupture, moving from the Lebanese front and warnings to Christians in southern Lebanon to an Israeli law allowing the hanging of Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks.
A sober political interview on Palestinian Christian life, regional war, and Israel's damaged democratic image.
Arab Talk begins with the Israeli-American war in Iran and tracks its pressure across the Gulf, Lebanon, energy anxieties, and the place of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land.
A sharp wartime episode on censorship, settler violence, and regional escalation.
Arab Talk tracks the fourth week of the Israeli-American war in Iran through a tightly linked set of pressures: military censorship, strikes on nuclear sites, oil-price shock, and worsening violence against Palestinian herding communities.
A grave discussion linking reported West Bank violence, Gaza death estimates and the prospect of war with Iran.
Jess and Jamal open with Ramadan greetings before turning to Palestinian dispossession, which the episode treats as a coordinated system rather than a string of isolated events.
A grave Arab Talk episode links Gaza's humanitarian crisis with U.S. policy, Gaza's Christian community, and 2024 election stakes.
Arab Talk begins 2024 with Gaza's humanitarian crisis at the center, as Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani link civilian deaths, starvation warnings, U.S. weapons shipments, and South Africa's Genocide Convention case.
A forceful reading of Netanyahu's congressional reception, protest rhetoric, and the politics of Gaza.
Arab Talk with Jess & Jamal reads Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress through the language surrounding it: the applause, the accusations of antisemitism, and the charge that protesters are being used by Iran.
Colombia's day, compressed into a hard news bulletin.
Arab Talk hosts Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani cover breaking news, including Israel bombing a school in Gaza, killing 30 children.
Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani open Arab Talk by stating over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, 70% women and children.
The episode discusses the opening of the Arab Film Festival amidst ongoing Israeli military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, and a UN report accusing Israel of destroying Gaza's healthcare system.
Arab Talk on KPOO 89.5 FM in San Francisco centers on Israel's new death-penalty law for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Trump's latest Truth Social warning says Iran has '48 hours' before 'all hell will rain down,' and Arab Talk frames that against a conflict already in its sixth week.
Arab Talk discusses the Israeli-American war in Iran, regional conflicts, and Israel denying Christians access to the Holy Sepulchre.
Jess Ghannam and Jamal Dajani open Arab Talk on KPOO 89.5 FM by saying the Israeli-American war in Iran is in its fourth week, oil is above $100 a barrel, and the U.S.
The hosts discuss the escalating US-Israeli war on Iran, including bombings, leadership casualties, and regional impacts.
Discussion of a fictional US-Israeli war targeting Iran and an interview about ICC charges against FIFA/UEFA for Israeli settlement clubs.
Arab Talk on KPOO 89.5 FM frames B'Tselem's report "Living Hell" around close to 11,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centers, many of them not charged or sentenced.
Jess and Jamal discuss Tony Blair's controversial role in Gaza's future and the implications of the Trump peace plan and Hamas's hostage release.
This episode discusses the targeting of Palestinian journalists in Gaza and the broader escalation of violence and rhetoric in Israel-Palestine.
The episode discusses the 77th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, recent incidents involving Ben Cohen and NYU student Logan Rosas, and critiques Israel's actions and U.S.