Democracy Now! Friday, May 15, 2026

This episode of Democracy Now! marks the 78th anniversary of Nakba Day, commemorating the 1948 displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of the State of Israel. The program centers on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Israel occupies 60% of the territory, has displaced nearly the entire population, and continues to impose severe restrictions on food, medicine, and shelter. Palestinian analyst Mohamed Shahada describes Gaza’s current conditions as 'a thousand times harder' than 1948, detailing systematic violence, the 'disarmament trap' imposed by the U.S.-brokered Trump deal, and the psychological and physical degradation of civilians. He condemns Israel’s policy of treating Palestinians as subhuman, citing the 'shoot to kill' protocol and the banning of tents despite the extreme weather. The episode also features Israeli-American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartoff, whose new book, Israel, What Went Wrong?, argues that Zionism’s original settler-colonial foundations and its evolution into a genocidal ideology have led to today’s atrocities. Bartoff asserts that Zionism is no longer reformable and must be discarded for a shared future. Gidon Levy, an Israeli journalist, agrees that Zionism was flawed from the start, not merely corrupted, and criticizes Israel’s ongoing colonial and racist policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The segment concludes with a discussion of widespread sexual violence in Israeli detention, including allegations of dog abuse, and Israel’s attempt to silence reporting through defamation threats against The New York Times.