Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of Left podcast.

Israel's Assault on Gaza is fueled by pain, rage, trauma, a desire for revenge, the hope for the safe return of

hostages. It's a complicated mix of all of the above and more and it will be

different for each person. However, there's also a deep well of denial and

delusion about the decades old status quo between Israel and Palestine that made the current conflict all but inevitable and the pursuit

of genocide by some in the Israeli government as well as the support of the US and other governments possible.

Sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today

include The Intercept, Citations needed, Zetio,

This is Hell, Double down news, and democracy now.

After those first clips, I will have some thoughts on the nature of the conflict between

Israel and Palestine going back to the founding.

Mostly though, I'll be sharing insights

from an excellent long-form piece

that thoughtfully and empathically explains

why the project of Zionism can only be undertaken with a heavy dose of denial

about the harms caused.

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more on four topics. Section A, the

Uncommitted, Section B, torture, Section C, Arms Embargo, and Section D

journalism. It's been just a little bit over a month since Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris became

the presumptive nominee for the party. It's been 10 months since October 7th, and there have been tens of thousands of Palestinians

killed in Gaza with weapons that the U.S. is continuing to send to Israel.

Just the week before the convention,

...