Alternate Focus

About this original series

Alternate Focus broadcasts a weekly television program about Palestine, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East. We air documentaries, interviews, and speeches about subjects that the mainstream media ignores. You can watch Alternate Focus on Free Speech TV, cable stations around the country, and online.

Episodes of Alternate Focus

    • Preview: Drone Wars

      Foreign Policy on Autopilot: The drones that are currently killing people in several Muslim countries are manufactured in Poway, California, where 10,000 people are employed at General Atomics. We will examine the implications of this kind of warfare, and the loop of finance that rewards contractors and the politicians they support.

      • Release date
        May 14, 2012
      • Runtime
        12:09
    • Three Minute Egg: Syria, Egypt, and Libya

      Michael Provence and the relative legitimacy of republican monarchies

      • Release date
        Apr 24, 2012
      • Runtime
        04:56
    • Three Minute Egg: Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas

      Michael Provence comments on the shifting alliances among three political forces in the Middle East

      • Release date
        Apr 24, 2012
      • Runtime
        09:10
    • Michael Provence: Understanding Syria, Part One

      Michael Provence is the director of the Middle East Studies Programs at the University of California, San Diego His research focuses on the colonial and post-colonial Arab world, particularly popular insurgency and nationalism, and he has travelled and lived in many countries in the region including Lebanon and Syria. In this two-part interview, Ed Sweed of Alternate Focus asks Michael about the current situation in Syria and its implications for the wider region.

      • Release date
        Apr 14, 2012
      • Runtime
        33:28
    • Michael Provence: Understanding Syria, Part Two

      Michael Provence is the director of the Middle East Studies Programs at the University of California, San Diego His research focuses on the colonial and post-colonial Arab world, particularly popular insurgency and nationalism, and he has travelled and lived in many countries in the region including Lebanon and Syria. In this two-part interview, Ed Sweed of Alternate Focus asks Michael about the current situation in Syria and its implications for the wider region.

      • Release date
        Apr 14, 2012
      • Runtime
        33:28
    • Stephen Sheehi: Deconstructing Islamophobia

      Stephen Sheehi is Associate Professor of Arabic and Arab Culture and the Director of the Arabic Program at the University of South Carolina. He is also core faculty in USC’s Comparative Literature Program and the Islamic World Cultures Program. Professor Sheehi’s latest book is Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims. In the following interview, he distinguishes between the extreme types Islomophobia promulgated by a few right-wing organizations and the more pervasive form of Is...

      • Release date
        Apr 6, 2012
      • Runtime
        28:25
    • James Foley: Covering Libya, Questions and Answers

      Freelance Journalist and war correspondent James Foley arrived in Libya from Afghanistan in March 2011 to cover the Libyan revolution. Three weeks later he was ambushed by Loyalists forces, along with two other reporters, one of whom was killed. After over six weeks in captivity, Foley was released, and he returned to Libya to report on the final days of the Gaddafi regime. Here he answers questions about his experience

      • Release date
        Feb 23, 2012
      • Runtime
        20:54
    • James Foley: Covering Libya

      Freelance Journalist and war correspondent James Foley arrived in Libya from Afghanistan in March 2011 to cover the Libyan revolution. Three weeks later he was ambushed by Loyalists forces, along with two other reporters, one of whom was killed. After over six weeks in captivity, Foley was released, and he returned to Libya to report on the final days of the Gaddafi regime. In this talk at San Diego State University he describes his experiences.

      • Release date
        Feb 23, 2012
      • Runtime
        33:28
    • Exit Strategy

      With the departure of the last American soldier from Iraq, a bloody and expensive adventure ends—not with a bang, but with a whimper. As the Iraq War passes into history, Raed Jarrar, Tom Hayden, Nadia Keilani, and Johan Galtung comment on the lessons learned from this nine-year event, and debate whether the war and occupation are really over.

      • Release date
        Feb 9, 2012
      • Runtime
        33:28
    • James Gelvin: Understanding the Egyptian Elections

      James Gelvin is a scholar of Middle Eastern history. He has been a faculty member in the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles since 1995 and has written extensively on the history of the modern Middle East, with particular emphasis on nationalism and social and cultural history. He is the author five books on current Middle Eastern issues, his most recent is "The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know." Now, a year after the Egyptian revolution, James Gelvin,...

      • Release date
        Feb 3, 2012
      • Runtime
        33:26
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