Middle East on a Knife’s Edge: Axis of Resistance to Strike Back on Israel

On The Freedom Side LIVE, Thursday, 8/08 at 3pm ET/12pm PT, Eugene and Rania are joined by special guests: Layan Sima Fuleihan - The world waits on a knife’s edge after leaders of the Axis of Resistance have promised a calculated, synchronized response to Israel’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr. As regional tensions are higher than ever, The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement has named longtime Hamas military commander Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of its political bureau, succeeding Haniyeh. Layan Sima Fuleihan, Education Director at The People’s Forum and an editor at 1804 Books, joins the show to analyze the latest developments. Zoe Alexandra - The US State Department and the Venezuelan right wing have gone into overdrive in a concerted effort to discredit Venezuelan July 28 election. Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner with 51.2% of the vote, but the US-backed opposition continues to make unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and are propping up Edmundo Gonzalez as the winner. Zoe Alexandra, co-editor of Peoples Dispatch and an international election observer describes the mass mobilizations in support of Maduro that corporate media won’t cover and her observations of the voting process. Dayvon Love - After AIPAC spent $25 million to unseat progressive Squad members Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, the internal fissures in the Democratic Party over the war in Gaza are wider than ever. Dayvon Love, Director of Public Policy at Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, explains how the right-wing mega donors behind AIPAC’s attacks on progressives are not only driving more of a wedge into the DNC over Palestine but are pushing the party further to the right. Roger McKenzie - Decades of anti-migrant, Islamophobic politics in the United Kingdom culminated in an egregious far-right attack targeting mosques, public infrastructure, and hotels housing asylum seekers last weekend. Roger McKenzie, International Editor of the Morning Star Newspaper, joins the show to discuss the rampant scapegoating of migrants and the other social and political forces fueling racist outbursts of violence in the UK. Michael Roberts - Global stock markets have been plummeting over fears that the US economy is headed for a recession. The global panic was set off following a lower-than-expected July jobs report, which showed an increase in the US unemployment rate, a signifier for a ‘slowing economy’. But what does this news mean for workers? Michael Roberts, a socialist economist and author of the blog The Next Recession, joins the show to break it all down. #breakthroughnews