When Ben Schuman-Stoler, Matan Kaminer, and Guli Dolev-Hashiloni first approached the Diasporist with Bad Cousins, a podcast about the Abraham Accords, we were intrigued. We were fans of Kollo Media’s first project, Dig Where You Stand, which explored the legacy of colonialism through the ancestral remains in Berlin museums, and we were familiar with Matan’s work as an anthropologist and an activist. We had also worked with Guli on his piece, From Auschwitz to Skyscrapers, which detailed the enterprises of a community of Holocaust survivors in postwar Frankfurt. But why this podcast, and why now?
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A few minutes into the first episode, and it’s clear that is a challenge the podcast is ready to meet. The hosts begin with a deceptively simple question: why are the Abraham Accords, the diplomatic agreement brokered by the US in 2020 that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries, named after Abraham? The attempt to answer it sends hosts Ben and Matan into geopolitics, theology, pop culture, and anthropological theory. In conversation with scholars, activists, and civilians in the region, they begin by examining the paradoxical situation of a peace treaty that seems to lead only to war.
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The Diasporist is pleased to present the first episode of Bad Cousins, “Blood and Oil,” which you can listen to on our website or on your preferred podcast platform. In this episode, the hosts speak with political scientist Dana El-Kurd about what the Abraham Accords actually are and why they were such a disaster for the Palestinians and ordinary people throughout the Arab world.
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If you are in Berlin, please join the Diasporist and Kollo Media at Künstlerhaus Bethanien on Saturday for the podcast launch. On 1 November at 19:30, Guli Dolev-Hashiloni will be in conversation with hosts and fellow producers Ben Schuman-Stoler and Matan Kaminer, alongside Jewish studies scholar Yael Attia and artist Muhammad Jabali.
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Bad Cousins is published by Kollo Media in partnership with the Diasporist.
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