In this live call-in program, Link TV's team of journalists and Middle East experts answers viewers' questions and e-mails about what's really happening in the current crisis. Drawing on reports from 28 Middle Eastern news broadcasts, Link TV provides context, analysis and a behind-the-scenes look at the stories you never see on American TV.
This program was originally aired in the days following 2006's bombing crisis in Lebanon.
Stewart Cheifet - Moderator
Mr. Cheifet has been a broadcast journalist for nearly forty years. He began his career with ABC News in New York and then moved to CBS News in Paris and London. He eventually returned to ABC News in Los Angeles where he covered the law beat. Stewart was also a correspondent for the PBS “Nightly Business Report” covering the high-tech industry in the Silicon Valley and the Pacific Rim.
Mr. Stewart’s experience in the Middle East includes: coverage of the six-day war in 1967 for CBS, a PBS documentary entitled, A Wife From My Enemies, profiling Arab-Israeli marriages, and a two-part PBS special on the high-tech industry in the Middle East. He has also written about the Middle East conflict, covering both Israel and Lebanon.
Jamal Dajani - Co-Host and Media Analyst
Mr. Dajani is a producer and the director of Middle Eastern programming at Link TV. Since 2001, he has produced more than 1,000 installments of the Peabody Award-winning program “Mosaic: World News from the Middle East.” In 2005, Dajani completed “Occupied Minds,” a documentary on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and “Who Speaks for Islam?” both aired on Link TV and PBS stations. He was born and raised in Jerusalem.
The Peabody Award-Winning Mosaic: World News from the Middle East
Mosaic features selections from daily TV news programs produced by national broadcasters throughout the Middle East. The news reports are presented unedited and translated, when necessary, into English. Mosaic includes television news broadcasts from selected national and regional entities. These news reports are regularly watched by 280 million people in 22 countries all over the Middle East.
Visit the Mosaic Intelligence Report blog to share your questions and comments about the conflict.
GUESTS:
Amichai Magen
Currently a Israeli Fulbright Scholar, Mr. Magen is completing a Doctorate in Juridical Science at Stanford Law School, and is a Fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies. A former legal and policy advisor to Israel's Ministers of Justice and the Attorney General, Mr. Magen was involved in putting together the Barak Administration's Camp David efforts to achieve comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians from 1999-2000. In over four years of government work, Amichai gained intimate knowledge of Israeli policy-making and campaigned to improve civil rights and access to justice for all Israeli citizens — Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Prior to his governmental experience, Mr. Magen served as Israel Defense Forces' Legal Affairs Officer in the Gaza Strip, gaining expert knowledge of the reality on the ground and dealing with the complex challenges of peace-making in the Middle East. Upon completion of his military service, Mr. Magen was awarded a prestigious Shalem Center Fellowship, developing a deep and ongoing interest in Jewish political thought and Israeli political culture.
Ramiz Rafeedie
Ramiz Rafeedie is a Palestinian American and longtime activist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mr. Rafeedie has served on the board of the San Francisco chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee. Mr. Rafeedie received his law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law and has been practicing commercial litigation for the last 5 years.
Hisham Melhem
Hisham Melhem is the veteran Washington Bureau Chief for the leading Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, correspondent of the Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas, senior analyst on al-Arabiya TV and regular commentator on Radio Monte Carlo. Mr. Melhem has appeared frequently on the News Hour, and in The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Boston Globe, among others. As one of the most respected Arab analysts and a leading advocate of democratization in the region, Hisham Melhem has lectured at the Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Institute, and the Carnegie Endowment in New York.
Dahr Jamail
Weary of the overall failure of the U.S. media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and U.S. soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself. His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have been published in The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, The Guardian and The Independent. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Mr. Jamail is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.
Yitzhak Beer
Mr. Beer is an Israeli farmer, from Galil, which is seven miles from the Lebanese border. During one of 2006's bombings, he was travelling with his goats and a rocket missed him by only ten seconds. One of the soldiers kidnapped by Hamas --in the event which sparked the conflict -- was the son of his neighbor. Mr. Beer appears via telephone from Israel.
Laura Farha
Ms. Farha is an Arab-American of Lebanese descent. Her family is originally from Marjeyoun in South Lebanon, and currently resides in Beirut and the Midwest. In addition to concerns about the physical and economic damage being done to Lebanon, Ms. Farha is deeply concerned and outraged about the brutal psychological damage being inflicted on a people already wounded from years of war. Ms. Farha is a social worker and practices psychotherapy in the Bay Area.
Zeev Maoz
Prof. Maoz is a professor of Political Science and director of the International Relations Program at the University of California, Davis. Before starting at Davis, he was head of the Graduate School of Government and Policy at Tel-Aviv University. He also served as the Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (1994-1997). Prof. Maoz serves on the editorial board of several journals including International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Interactions, and Conflict Management and Peace Science.
His fields of specialization include strategy and international security affairs, international relations theory, decision making and negotiations. In the field of Middle Eastern politics, his work concentrates on the strategic relations between Israel and Syria. His most recent work in this area includes editing and contributing to two special issues of The Journal of Strategic Studies on regional security in the Middle East. Prof. Maoz is also one of the first Israelis to have published a major article in the Egyptian daily newspaper, Al Ahram.
Rayan Elamine
Mr. Elamine is the Program Director for the San Francisco chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC-SF) and teaches Politics of the Middle East at City College of San Francisco. Mr. Elamine is from south Lebanon, where his family still resides.
Billal Elamine
Rayan Elamine's brother will be calling in from south Lebanon. He is a reporter with ITN.
Michael Jacobs
An attorney and former US foreign service officer, Mr. Jacobs is also the ertswhile chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council. He is now an officer for the Jewish Community Federation. He has worked with Middle East matters for 30 years, having lived in Israel as a student and instructed and lectured on Zionism and Arab nationalism.
George Bisharat
Professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, Mr. Bisharat teaches courses in criminal law and law in Middle Eastern societies and is a frequent commentator in the media on Middle Eastern affairs. Mr. Bisharat has lived and traveled throughout the Middle East and North Africa and recently returned from Lebanon - just days before the Israeli bombardment began. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School and also holds a PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.
Rania Masri
Ms. Masri teaches Middle Eastern studies in Lebanon and is there reporting on the situation through her blog Siege of Lebanon.
LEARN MORE:
Embassy of Israel
Embassy of Lebanon
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
US Department of State - Lebanon Situation Updates
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
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