Today’s podcast guest is Michael Wuthrich, Associate Professor of Political Science and the Associate Director for Global & International Studies at the University of Kansas. He is co-author of the book, Beyond Piety and Politics: Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences in the Middle East and North Africa.
In this episode, we discuss the intersection of religion and politics, particularly in the non-Arab Muslim countries of Turkey and Iran, what has been behind the growth of Islam globally, changes in secularism in Turkey under Erdogan, and the impact of the Islamic Republic on religiosity for everyday people in Iran.
Listen now; link in bio.
Full bio
Mike Wuthrich is an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Associate Director for Global & International Studies at the University of Kansas. He received his PhD in Political Science from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey in 2011. His interests are Middle East politics, particularly Turkish, Kurdish, and Iranian politics, parties and party systems, electoral behavior, religion and politics, women and politics in Turkey, and nationalism. His publications have appeared in Journal of Democracy, Political Research Quarterly, Parliamentary Affairs, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Middle East Journal, and Turkish Studies among others. He is co-author of the book, Beyond Piety and Politics: Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences in the Middle East and North Africa, with Indiana University Press in 2022. His book, National Elections in Turkey: People, Politics, and the Party System was published in 2015 with Syracuse University Press.
The forces that define America—its creativity, capacity for reinvention, scientific genius, and moral imagination—are stronger than any one man’s madness. They cannot be extinguished; they can only be surrendered.
The next episode of my podcast "On the Issues" is this upcoming Tuesday, October 6, at 10:00am EDT with Michael Wuthrich, Associate Professor of Political Science and the Associate Director for Global & International Studies at the University of Kansas. He received his PhD in Political Science from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey in 2011. His research focuses on Middle East politics, particularly Turkish, Kurdish, and Iranian politics, electoral behavior, religion and politics, and nationalism. He is co-author of the 2022 book, Beyond Piety and Politics: Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences in the Middle East and North Africa.
Listeners can register for the live podcast recording on Zoom at the link in my bio
Archived episodes will be released the following day, on Wednesdays at noon. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, including Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify, to be sure to always get the latest episodes.
Today’s podcast guest is Tony Klug, a Middle East analyst who has been a senior advisor on the Middle East to the Oxford Research Group and a consultant to the Palestine Strategy Group and the Israeli Strategic Forum.
In this episode, we discuss the plausibility of a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the feasibility of such a resolution, the past negotiations between Israel, the Palestinians, and involved Arab states, and what can be done based on the current facts on the ground.
Listen now; link in bio.
Dr. Tony Klug has been a senior advisor on the Middle East to the Oxford Research Group and a consultant to the Palestine Strategy Group and the Israeli Strategic Forum. He has written extensively about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the early 1970s and was one of the first advocates of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the wake of the 1967 war. His PhD thesis (1979) was on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. For many years, he worked at Amnesty International, where he headed the international development program.
NETANYAHU’S DAY IN COURT IS NEAR
Netanyahu has made Israel less secure, less democratic, and more isolated. He ignored warnings before October 7; he waged a genocidal war in Gaza. He has prolonged destructive wars on five fronts and sacrificed lives, prosperity, and national cohesion. His assault on judicial independence, the free press, and the Supreme Court threatens Israel’s democratic foundations. He has deepened polarization, empowered extremists, accelerated the emigration of talented Israelis, and destroyed Israel’s global moral standing, making Israel a pariah state. He faces trial on three corruption indictments. He continues to resist a state inquiry into his catastrophic failure. He desperately clings to power to avoid trial and potential imprisonment. On election day, October 27, every Israeli must remember: do they want to save the country or sacrifice it on Netanyahu’s altar?
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THE GAZA WAR HAS STRIPPED NAKED THE MYTH
OF ISRAEL’S “MOST MORAL ARMY”
The war in Gaza has stripped the “most moral army” myth naked for the whole world to see. The IDF flagrantly committed nearly every category of war crime imaginable: torture; ethnic cleansing; indiscriminate killing; starvation; attacks on humanitarian zones; wholesale destruction of commercial infrastructure; demolition of homes; extrajudicial execution; strangulation of movement; assassinations of journalists; blocked medical supplies; and attacks on hospitals and health clinics. The sheer number of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the IDF led to a near-global conclusion that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
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Most moral…yeah right…🧐💩
Did you really fall for that “Most moral army in the world” crap? I never did!
INCOMPETENCE + CORRUPTION = TRUMP
Trump’s presidency has been a relentless catalog of failure: tariffs and trade wars that have raised costs for working families; a reckless, costly war with Iran that has fueled higher gasoline prices and inflation; and an ICE campaign that has spread fear and upheaval through American cities. He has undermined confidence in elections, deepened America’s polarization, and treated democratic institutions as obstacles to his personal power. Abroad, he has squandered America’s global leadership, alienated our closest allies, weakened vital partnerships, and emboldened adversaries. All the while, he has pursued personal enrichment at taxpayers’ expense. Trump will be remembered as America’s most incompetent, corrupt, and damaging president.
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THE WEST BANK IS BLEEDING AND
THE NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENT IS CHEERING
What is happening in the West Bank is a daily tragedy. It is a relentless assault by the settlers on the Palestinians—carried out openly and repeatedly. Netanyahu’s criminal government is not only abandoning the Palestinian victims but emboldening those criminal settlers who act with impunity. The settlers are undertaking, in broad daylight, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. By definition, ethnic cleansing is the deliberate use of force, threats, or intimidation to remove an ethnic group to make room for other ethnically homogeneous groups. It involves forced displacement, terror, killings, and destruction of homes, which is exactly what the settlers are doing to the Palestinians under the watchful eyes of the Israeli military.
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Israeli genocidal terrorists. Israel is now the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany, and those who support the actions of Israel and the Israeli “settlers” in the occupied West Bank are morally the same as Hitler’s Nazi followers who supported the Holocaust.
The State of Israel is absolutely ensuring another generation of white hot hatred and militarism against itself.
Do you mean Judea and Samaria?
