Israel Joins Peace Talks in Cairo Amid IDF Escalation in Gaza
We begin with a mid-level Israeli delegation joining ceasefire negotiations in Cairo as the IDF steps up military operations on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, closing off the two main entry points for humanitarian aid into Gaza. Joining us is Leila Hilal, an independent analyst who until recently was the co-director of the New America Foundation Middle East Task Force. Previously, she served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian Negotiations Department and advised the Palestinian Constitutional Committee during the drafting of the Basic Law. She acted as an external adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team as part of the Annapolis bilateral peace talks of 2008. She was a Senior Policy Adviser to the Commissioner-General of the UN Palestinian refugee agency and a Visiting Fellow and Instructor at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University.
The Disturbingly Accurate Analogies Between Hitler’s Rise to Power and Trump’s Threat to Democracy
Then, with Trump fined $9,000 for violating many gag orders and threatened with jail by the judge, we explore in depth the chilling and disturbingly accurate analogies between the rise of Hitler in 1932 and the American political moment in 2024. One hundred years ago, in 1924, Hitler’s grandstanding in court and his jailing as a martyr for the cause of making Germany great again only boosted his popularity. From there he rose to power, thanks to a divided gerontocracy on the left, weakened by a split with the far-left, which allowed a deranged demagogue, supported by a one-third minority (but with help from right-wing media barons and short-sighted plutocrats), to seize power and end democracy. Joining us is Timothy Ryback, who has written on history and politics for more than three decades and is co-founder and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague. He is the author of Hitler’s Private Library, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Last Survivor, a New York Times Notable Book. His latest book, just out, is Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. We discuss his article at The Los Angeles Times, “Trump turns his trials into a soapbox. Does he know he’s channeling Hitler?”