Franklin Foer on the Famine in Gaza

The Al Franken Podcast

Government, Progressive, Politics, Senate, Liberal, Senator, Minnesota, Franken, News, Saturday Night Live, Comedy, Snl

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gaza faces mass starvation as Israel blocks critical food and aid to the region. We're joined by The Atlantic's Franklin Foer to discuss his recent piece, “Israel's Last Chance,” and how the only answer to this atrocity is for Israel to flood Gaza with food.

Foer also discusses the legitimate criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu, while acknowledging that some of the protests can veer into antisemitism, especially on college campuses. Columbia and Harvard are the most prominent universities being attacked by the Trump administration, which is using accusations of antisemitism to withhold federal funding. And while we are seeing Harvard fight back, Foer warns that the end goal for the administration seems to be more government control over universities.

READ all of Foer's recent writing on Israel, Columbia, and Harvard: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/franklin-foer/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody, we've got a great one for you today.
0:06.8	You know, for a change.
0:08.1	Franklin Four of the Atlantic is back.
0:11.6	Over the last several months, Frank has written a number of terrific articles about anti-Semitism
0:17.9	at Columbia and Harvard, and how the Trump administration is using these claims as an excuse to go after the elite
0:26.7	left-wing colleges, which it hates.
0:30.8	I originally planned for this to be the focus of our discussion, but with the famine in Gaza,
0:36.4	I had to make sure that we discuss
0:38.3	that as well. So the serious subject of anti-Semitism at our elite colleges turned into
0:45.9	a tragic discussion of Israel's culpability for starvation in Gaza. In March, Israel froze all food aid to Gaza for six weeks. They then
0:58.9	restored some but only a little and did it so chaotically that Israeli soldiers shot and killed
1:04.9	over a thousand Gazans who were desperately trying to get food.
1:14.6	I have been a Zionist since I can remember,
1:18.2	and these images made me sick.
1:26.2	As Frank argues, Israel needs to work with the U.S. and the U.N. to flood Gaza with food. But now, Netanyahu is doubling down in saying that Israel is starting a
1:33.2	new offensive against Hamas. His security cabinet has announced its plans to take control of
1:39.5	Gaza City. Well, this isn't as terrible as Netanyahu's intention to control the entirety of the Gaza
1:47.3	Strip, it is still explicitly going against the Israeli military's own recommendations.
1:54.1	This expansion of the war is only going to add to the atrocities we're already witnessing.
2:02.0	We'll be right back with Frank Ford.
2:10.1	Frank, thanks for joining me.
2:12.3	Great to be here.
	...

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