Ship traffic has been halted again in the Strait of Hormuz after President Trump ordered the U.S. military to begin a naval blockade of all Iranian ports and coastal areas starting Monday at 10 a.m. ET. Iran denounced Trump’s move as an illegal act amounting to “piracy” and has threatened to strike Gulf ports in retaliation. Trump ordered the blockade after the U.S. and Iran failed to reach a deal…
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The Trump administration has fired two judges who ruled against them in their cases attempting to deport pro-Palestine student advocates Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, as officials seek to reshape federal immigration courts to speed deportations. According to The New York Times, the two judges, Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, were dismissed by the administration alongside four other judges…
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While international attention has decreased in recent months, the horrors Israel continues to systematically unleash on Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank have not. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa—a former Black Panther and political prisoner—speaks with renowned scholar-activist Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi about Israel’s apartheid system of incarceration and the urgent fight to free Palestinian political prisoners detained by Israel.
Additional Links:
Stop the Torture of Palestinian and Lebanese Prisoners – Open the Prisons to the Red Cross petition
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. The number of Palestinian detainees in Israel custody has been on the rise. A population now marked by a revolving door where ceasefire releases are being eclipsed by new arrest campaign. Despite the release of nearly 2000 prisoners during the October 2025 ceasefire, or I must say so- called ceasefire, a massive wave of new detentions and occupied territories of Palestine has effectively reset the scales of incarceration. Join us today is Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, the founding director and senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies Program at SFSU, a Yale educated sociologist. She is the principal investigator of Teaching Palestine. Welcome, doc. How you doing today?
Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:
I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m as best as could be expected under the terrible conditions that we’re living under.
Mansa Musa:
Before we go into a more detailed thing what’s going on with our occupation, give update as
Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) has ended its extraordinary work with the children of Palestine as a result of unending threats from the State of Israel. Despite having been designated by Israel as a terrorist organization in 2023, DCI-P had continued its groundbreaking work of investigating, documenting and exposing human rights violations against Palestinian children as well…
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Throughout their war on Iran, the U.S. and Israel broke many norms of military engagement, such as systematically targeting academic institutions in Iran. Universities became a major casualty, and explicit acknowledgements by Israeli leaders and some U.S. public figures clarified that these institutions were not collateral damage, but rather, intended targets. There are no definitive figures as to…
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Democratic Party leaders had a chance this week to push back against Israel’s violent expansionism and the Israel lobby’s massive political spending in the United States. Once again, Democrats chose instead to punt the issue despite plummeting public support for Israel, both among their base and the wider U.S. public, ahead of the midterms. At a meeting in New Orleans on April 9…
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