SUMMARY:
In a special bonus episode, Scott hosts a 90-minute discussion between Brad Meyer, the Democratic nominee for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District, and Dan Segal, a retired professor of anthropology and history and a Jewish Voice for Peace activist. The conversation is framed against the backdrop of the recent Michigan Senate primary, where Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Haley Stevens in a race where Israel policy played a central role. Meyer and Segal — who had already had one private conversation on the topic — cover whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide, U.S. arms funding and a contested provision of the defense authorization bill, the history and legitimacy of the Israeli state, the BDS movement and its South Africa apartheid-era precedent, the Democratic Party’s shifting relationship with Jewish voters, and what a lasting resolution might require. The episode closes with both guests’ positions on the November race against incumbent Republican Erin Houchin.
Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net
HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us
Brad Meyer: https://bradmeyer.org/
JVP Indiana: https://www.joinalocal.org/organization/jvp-indiana-6619b58946eda1692d2c5ecf
WHAT’S INSIDE:
00:00:03 Cold Open: A Change of Plans
Scott explains that severe weather knocked out power to originally-scheduled guest Jessica Bailey, two-term Porter County Clerk and Democratic candidate for state comptroller, and that this special roundtable with Brad Meyer and Dan Segal — recorded the week before and originally planned as a bonus release — is dropping in its place tonight.
00:01:35 Introduction
Scott frames the topic against the Michigan Senate primary, where Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Haley Stevens in a race where Israel policy was central, and lays out when the topic is and isn’t fair game for a candidate — not a state or local race, but squarely within a congressional candidate’s purview.
Introduces Brad Meyer, Democratic nominee for Indiana’s 9th District, facing incumbent Republican Erin Houchin this November; and Dan Segal, retired professor of anthropology and history and a Jewish Voice for Peace Indiana state coordinating committee member.
00:06:04 Welcome: Brad Meyer and Dan Segal
Meyer explains he proposed inviting Segal after a constructive private conversation between them; says there isn’t Democratic consensus on this issue within the 9th District specifically.
Segal introduces himself: Bloomington resident since 2023, born in New York, 68, Jewish, raised in the wake of the Holocaust, serves on the Jewish Voice for Peace Indiana state coordinating committee.
Segal describes JVP as the largest pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist Jewish organization in the country and notes the chapter’s early endorsement of Zohran Mamdani.
00:12:46 The Genocide Question
Scott notes that the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Lemkin Institute, B’Tselem, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN have all used the term “genocide” for Israel’s conduct in Gaza, while Zionist organizations push back on it.
Meyer says he respects people for whom the word is a red line, but frames his own objection around U.S. interests and values rather than a legal determination, noting the ICJ process takes years; declines to personally use the word while saying he doesn’t support Israel’s conduct.
00:17:22 Dan’s Personal Stake: Holocaust and “Never Again Is for Everybody”
Segal describes growing up in a Jewish New York neighborhood among Holocaust survivors and a lifelong friend whose family died in the camps, and says the lesson that “never again is for everybody” grounds his advocacy for Palestinians.
Invokes Martin Luther King’s framing of urban uprisings to explain, without endorsing, violent resistance to sustained oppression.
00:20:30 The Human Rights Case for “Genocide”
Segal cites two personal trips to the West Bank (2017 and 2023) and reiterates that Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Al-Haq have concluded the conduct constitutes genocide, with most reservations centered on intent.
Notes the ICJ has found it plausible that genocide is occurring without a final finding, and argues the length of that process is itself a reason not to wait.
00:22:40 A Path Forward, and the Defense Authorization Bill
Segal calls for ending the roughly $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military assistance to Israel and flags a provision in the current National Defense Authorization Act — Section 219, per Scott, differently named in the House version — that would tie U.S. and Israeli defense industries closer together.
Draws a comparison between West Bank violence and the pogroms his grandfather experienced in the early-1900s Pale of Settlement.
00:25:22 Root Causes: Who Started the War vs. What Caused It
Meyer argues many people conflate who started the war (Hamas, on October 7) with what caused it, and pushes back on the idea the conflict is 2,000 years old, dating its actual roots to about 120 years.
Offers a scaled hypothetical — the October 7 attack, scaled to the U.S. population, would represent roughly 40,000 killed and 9,000 taken hostage — and argues Americans wouldn’t show the restraint they’re asking of others.
Says he opposes deepening U.S.-Israeli defense-industry ties and wants real diplomatic and funding pressure applied, short of a total cutoff.
00:32:23 One State, Two Peoples: The Single-State Reality
Segal argues roughly 14 million people live under one governing authority across Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and calls it a Jewish-supremacist single-state reality — citing legal restrictions on where Israeli-Arab citizens may live, and comparing their status to Jim Crow-era second-class citizenship.
Describes pre-October 2023 Gaza under blockade — destroyed water infrastructure, restricted agriculture — as “the world’s largest open-air prison,” and cites the Great March of Return, a nonviolent movement he says was met with Israeli gunfire and little international attention.
Says decades of oppression produced both that nonviolent resistance and, on October 7, violent resistance; states he doesn’t approve of or celebrate October 7 but understands it and doesn’t condemn it.
00:36:47 West Bank Checkpoints: A Firsthand Account
Segal recounts his own experience at West Bank checkpoints controlled by young Israeli soldiers — some, he says, American-born — that restrict Palestinian movement without appeal, including witnessing Palestinian children present when relatives were stopped at gunpoint.
00:38:21 Is Israel a Legitimate State?
Segal argues no state is legitimate without equal protection under the law for everyone it governs, drawing on the 14th Amendment, and says the Israeli state as currently constituted fails that test — while stressing this isn’t a call for harm to Jewish Israelis.
Says he personally experienced no antisemitism traveling in Palestine.
00:40:16 Empire, Reagan, and the Apartheid Comparison
Scott traces the history through the British Mandate and 1948 founding, calls the arrangement a “white supremacist project,” and draws a direct parallel to the Reagan administration’s stated rationale for continued relations with apartheid-era South Africa.
00:42:32 “Death Ground”: Brad’s Theory of the Conflict
Meyer argues the conflict is structurally unstable regardless of whose historical narrative one favors, and introduces his central framing: Israel acts from a psychological position of “death ground” — the belief that anything short of decisive victory means annihilation — which drives disproportionate responses.
Extends the same framing to Palestinians, citing their lack of any alternative destination since 1948, and argues the cycle continues regardless of whether U.S. support continues or stops as long as both sides feel existentially trapped.
00:47:42 Positive Peace and the Roots of Zionism
Segal argues Israel’s pursuit of security through military dominance has made it less safe for Jews, and invokes Martin Luther King’s distinction between negative peace (absence of violence) and positive peace (presence of justice).
Argues the more fundamental obstacle to peace is Zionism’s commitment to supremacism, not fear of annihilation specifically, and disputes that Israel could easily replace $3.8 billion in U.S. arms.
Cites Nathan Thrall’s The Only Language They Understand as scholarship showing Israeli concessions have historically followed U.S. pressure, not reassurance.
00:52:58 Two-State, One-State, or No State: What Does a Solution Look Like?
Scott raises the unresolved practical questions in a traditional two-state framework — which borders, what happens to existing settlements.
Meyer pushes back that defunding alone forces peace, citing the Rwandan genocide as a low-tech mass-violence precedent, and warns a cornered Israel could respond in shocking ways.
Credits Segal’s 14th Amendment framing as the necessary long-term end state, but says hardliners on both sides make it difficult to reach, and that support should shift away from Netanyahu-aligned hardliners specifically.
Recounts a rabbi telling him she no longer feels she has a home in the Democratic Party on this issue, and argues the U.S. has lost credibility as an “honest broker” for peace.
00:58:57 The Democratic Party’s Israel Problem
Scott argues the rabbi represents a shrinking minority view, citing a broader shift toward unfavorable views of Israel among Democrats, independents, and younger Republicans, and notes current Netanyahu-government figures like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir aren’t far outside the mainstream of Israeli political opposition on Palestinian policy specifically.
Segal cites declining Zionist identification among Jewish voters under 35–40, his own campaign work for Zohran Mamdani, and argues there’s never really been a “peace process” given the underlying asymmetry of power.
01:04:36 BDS and the South Africa Precedent
Segal frames BDS as the largest form of Palestinian civil-society resistance this century, drawing a direct line to the anti-apartheid boycott movement and the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, passed over Ronald Reagan’s veto, and argues sanctions — not a change of heart — brought apartheid-era South Africa to the table with Nelson Mandela.
Meyer compares the situation to South Africa’s transition but argues Israel additionally fears regional attack in a way South Africa didn’t fear Botswana; Segal responds that South Africa’s shift came from external pressure, not epiphany.
Segal extends the argument to Saudi Arabia, citing continued U.S. arms sales despite the government’s role in journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing.
01:13:51 Beyond Israel: Egypt, Jordan, and U.S. Arms Exports
Scott notes BDS has been outlawed in several states, with the Trump administration pushing for a federal ban, and broadens the conversation to U.S. arms relationships with Egypt and Jordan.
Raises the Trump administration’s regional diplomacy toward Arab recognition of Israel as a possible (if backhanded) pressure release valve; Meyer, “channeling” Segal, calls it stabilizing conditions for the Netanyahu government rather than genuine diplomacy.
01:17:43 Three Scenarios: What Happens If the U.S. Cuts Off Israel?
Meyer lays out three outcomes of a total funding cutoff — a forced negotiation, a lower-tech Rwanda-style mass-violence response, or an outside attack on a weakened Israel — and argues two of three cut against U.S. interests.
Segal disputes the odds, argues Palestinian lives are most immediately at stake, and says he defers to Palestinian leaders’ own read of their interests, citing his past deference to ANC leadership during the anti-apartheid struggle.
Cites Abdul El-Sayed’s recent position that arms restrictions should extend to Egypt and Jordan too, and argues the U.S. should get out of the business of arming foreign governments broadly, citing past U.S. arms support for Osama bin Laden as a cautionary precedent.
01:23:27 Closing Statements
Meyer closes by reiterating he’s neither reflexively pro-Palestinian nor pro-Israel, framing his position around U.S. interests and values, without committing to a specific vote on ending all support.
Segal, asked whether it’s still okay to vote for Meyer in November, endorses him over Erin Houchin without reservation, and closes with a personal statement of Jewish values — freedom, equality, universal human rights — as the basis for his Palestinian solidarity.
01:30:06 Closing: Where to Find Brad Meyer, and What’s Next
Brad Meyer: bradmeyer.org.
Sunday’s HoosLeft This Week panel: Brad Meyer alongside progressive organizer and physician Megan Alderman.
