The Chris Hedges Report

While Palestine has always represented a contradiction in the Western-established world order, the genocide in Gaza has brought the issue to the forefront of the world’s conscience — and moreover, may signal the end of an era marked by U.S. hegemony. As today’s guest Dylan Saba, host of the Turbulence podcast, puts it, the genocide is “the capstone of the War on Terror, [with] Israel as the greatest representation of U.S. overextension…What’s happened is all of those forces, all of those colonial forces that had been amassing over over generations really exploded on October 7th, and catalyzed the most dramatic imperial overreaction that we’ve seen to date.” Amidst the chaotic collapse of American hegemony — where do normal people, those who are ruled by the elite, fit in? And must they fall victim to the violence and psychological warfare that characterizes the policy doctrine of Western democracies, or can they seize the moment and build parallel systems of oppositional power? “The cause of Palestine can be this tip of the spear, both in terms of repression but also potentially in terms of catalyzing a political response that’s adequate for the moment,” Saba tells host Chris Hedges. In a post-October 7th world, one where the need to cloak brutal warfare in humanitarian rhetoric is disintegrating, what pressure points can the working class exploit? Though the masses are outgunned and militaristically vulnerable in the face of the American empire and its allies, “there are ways to think strategically about how to leverage a marginal position to have an outsized impact.” The Houthis in Yemen, Saba suggests, have demonstrated this reality. With targeted, strategic planning that can kneecap critical parts of the machinery of state, we may stand a chance against the oligarchy dominating the globe.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza has become a litmus test of institutional integrity. When a university denies the reality of Israel’s brutality, it reveals complicity with the genocidal regime’s actions. To then misrepresent campus dissent over institutional investment in the Zionist entity as illegitimate — or even “antisemitic” — makes it clear that that these institutions are invested in the existence of Israeli apartheid and genocide.    These contradictions were brought to a head during the Gaza solidarity encampment movement in 2024, where hundreds of college campuses around the world protested against their universities’ affiliations and investments in anything related to Israel. The media and Zionists inside these universities cried wolf about widespread bigotry and hatred, and many believed them.   Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker documented through their film, “The Encampments,” that these protests were not only peaceful and nonviolent but that the violence described in the media almost always came from the Zionist counter protestors.   Workman and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who was a negotiator for the encampment movement and was made famous after being kidnapped by ICE agents, join host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. They share their experiences seen in the film as well as updates to Khalil’s case as he faces potential deportation by the Trump administration. The film — as well as their accounts — document a clear narrative that demonstrates the failure of our institutions to abide by any moral standards, and their active role in descending Western society into fascist authoritarianism. 

Achieving greatness requires immense sacrifice. Nobody knows this better than perhaps professional athletes or, as author and journalist Brin-Jonathan Butler reveals, chess players. Butler joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his book, The Grandmaster: Magnus Carlsen and the Match That Made Chess Great Again and how the history of chess’ greatest players is riddled with psychological dysfunction. Butler invokes famous chess figures such as Bobby Fischer, Peter Winston and Magnus Carlsen to demonstrate how those who reach the top do so at the expense of their humanity. Referencing Fischer’s famous victory over Boris Spassky in 1972, Butler explains how Fischer was not satisfied because “it’s not enough to murder your opponent, you need to compel their suicide.” “That was a very common sort of narrative throughout all the top levels of chess, how often the metaphor of blood execution, murder, blood on the board was commonly used,” Butler adds. The level of obsession that develops within the best chess players transforms into an addiction, similar to one with drugs, alcohol or gambling. Despite it being a fun, challenging game for most, for others who have a propensity to become addicted in such an obsessive way, it must be cautioned with. Butler says, “For that narrow group, which I think comprises the people at the top because you have to be that way, it’s not only sort of recommended that you be this way, there’s no other way to qualify for that top zone unless you happen to be this relentlessly devoted.”

“How do we understand now if we don’t understand 1948 or 1917 or all the things that happened during the British Mandate?” This is a central question Micaela Sahhar, author and educator, asks while dissecting her book, Find Me at the Jaffa Gate. Sahhar reframes these monumental events in Palestinian history through an intimate, granular lens of her own family’s displacement during the 20th century. Sahhar joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, sharing more personal narratives, revealing how her family lived through the pivotal moments that shaped modern Palestine. “To grow up as a diaspora Palestinian,” Sahhar explains, “ is to be equipped with a particular kind of superpower, which is to understand the enormous rift between a dominant culture and what you know to be true from the people you love and trust.”

Filmmaker, author and journalist Antony Loewenstein documents how Israel has used Gaza as a weapons showcase. Spyware, killer drones, robot dogs and other weapons are debuted in Gaza and field-tested on the civilian population, demonstrating their effectiveness to regimes around the world that await their chance to purchase them. Loewenstein joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to chronicle what he has learned from writing The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World and producing The Palestine Laboratory, a documentary based on the book. “I think the whole idea of what Israel…has been showing the world, I say two things. One, what weapons you can use to murder, kill, target Palestinians but also how to get away with it. I think Israel sells that concept,” Loewenstein explains. As spyware companies like Pegasus and Paragon and arms companies like Elbit and Rafael see business boom, Loewenstein argues countries have a moral imperative to end trading with Israel. These same technologies perpetuating the genocide in Gaza, Loewenstein explains, will come back to haunt the citizenry of purchasing countries. “All these governments around the world, whether they’re so-called democratic or repressive, are obsessed with these tools. They can’t give them up. They’re desperate to listen to their opponents, to the journalists, to activists,” Loewenstein remarks. “It’s very hard for these regimes to give them up because there’s no regulation. There’s just none. It just doesn’t exist.”