Today’s podcast guest is Yossef Ben-Meir, co-founder and president of the High Atlas Foundation, a Moroccan-US nongovernment organization dedicated to sustainable development. In this episode, we discuss sustainable development in Morocco and the role the High Atlas Foundation has played in development. Particularly, we discuss the importance of water infrastructure in uplifting everyday Moroccans, the environmental and societal implications of planting millions of trees across Morocco, and the critical importance of community participation in establishing development projects which will benefit local communities.
Listen now; link in bio
Full bio
Yossef Ben-Meir is co-founder and president of the High Atlas Foundation, a Moroccan-U.S. nongovernment organization dedicated to sustainable development. In Morocco, he was also a Peace Corps Volunteer (1993-95), Associate Peace Corps Director (1998-99), Research Fellow at the American Institute of Maghreb Studies (2003-4), and Assistant Professor at Al Akhawayn University at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (2009-2010). Dr. Ben-Meir holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Mexico (2009) where he also taught, an MA in international development from Clark University (1997), and a BA in economics from New York University (1991).
In Israel, since early 2026, the West Bank has witnessed horrific crimes that Israel commits in full view of an indulgent international community. Settlers murdered six Palestinians in a single March week, including two brothers shot while farming near Kiryat, as Western governments mouthed “concerns” and kept sending weapons. Israeli forces killed two young children and their parents in Tammun, an atrocity that would have triggered sanctions anywhere else—but here is met with diplomatic cover and empty talking points about “Israel’s right to defend itself.” Nearly 700 Palestinian children have been displaced in just three months, their homes destroyed while European capitals and Washington block meaningful action. In 2026 alone, dozens of Palestinian children were killed before their fathers’ eyes—the Bani Odeh family shot in their car near Tammun, brothers gunned down in their fields, another family ambushed in a settler attack—under a shield of international complicity. This represents nothing short of Israel’s moral bankruptcy.
Contrary to Trump’s false and deliberately misleading arguments, multiple studies show that immigrants commit far fewer crimes than US-born citizens across numerous categories. Using detailed Texas data, native-born citizens are more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crime, 2.5 times more likely for drug offenses, and over four times more likely for property crimes than undocumented immigrants.
In the latest episode of my podcast "On the Issues," I spoke with Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab about how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached the point it is at today. He noted the failure of `gradual negotiations,` which kept delaying discussions of the actual status of the West Bank and Gaza. Listen to this and more; link in bio.
In recent years, Russia has been accused of forcibly transferring hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children—some estimates are around 750,000—into Russian territory. These children are often placed with Russian families or in camps where they undergo re-education to erase their Ukrainian identity and foster loyalty to Russia. For Ukraine this is not only a humanitarian tragedy but also a cultural and demographic threat. It deprives Ukraine of its future generations, undermines national cohesion, and potentially violates international law. The systematic abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children could weaken Ukraine’s cultural continuity, while the trauma inflicted on these children will reverberate for generations. It’s a stark tactic in the broader war aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity.
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Trump’s appointment of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense is a scandal in its own right, especially in the midst of war. He is manifestly unfit for the job: vulgar, impulsive, and chronically uninformed on the very issues he oversees. He has never commanded large forces, managed a vast bureaucracy, or handled complex alliances, yet he is now nominally in charge of the most powerful military machine in history. The Pentagon budget is now over one trillion dollars a year, and Trump has handed it to a partisan propagandist who mistakes television bombast for strategy. America’s generals know it; they mock him privately and sidestep him in practice. This is not just bad judgment. It is an unforgivable dereliction of duty by a president playing politics with national security. The time is overdue for Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired in disgrace.
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Exactly.
Who wrote it for you Meir?
More liberal garbage!
Nothing happens. We,Americans, in a stupor. The world on fire, body parts in bags, … the world according to Trump inc .gov. The world in complete shock watching the Americans watch.
Alon Ben Meir - You are an Islamist terrorist sympathizer and an anti-Semite. You don’t know fuck about America military operations or strategy. Go spread your lies and misinformation somewhere else.
Pete Hegseth didn't just fire the Army Chief of Staff. He's been quietly blocking promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across ALL branches of the military — some targeted specifically because of their race, their gender, or their service under Biden. This isn't a policy disagreement. This is a purge. Officers who earned their rank through decades of service are being sidelined because of who they are, not what they've done. Every service member watching this knows exactly what it means: your career can be ended by politics, not performance. If that doesn't alarm you, it should.
Today’s podcast guest is Yossef Ben-Meir, co-founder and president of the High Atlas Foundation, a Moroccan-US nongovernment organization dedicated to sustainable development. In this episode, we discuss sustainable development in Morocco and the role the High Atlas Foundation has played in development. Particularly, we discuss the importance of water infrastructure in uplifting everyday Moroccans, the environmental and societal implications of planting millions of trees across Morocco, and the critical importance of community participation in establishing development projects which will benefit local communities.
Listen now: soundcloud.com/alon-ben-meir/on-the-issues-episode-142
Full bio
Yossef Ben-Meir is co-founder and president of the High Atlas Foundation, a Moroccan-U.S. nongovernment organization dedicated to sustainable development. In Morocco, he was also a Peace Corps Volunteer (1993-95), Associate Peace Corps Director (1998-99), Research Fellow at the American Institute of Maghreb Studies (2003-4), and Assistant Professor at Al Akhawayn University at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (2009-2010). Dr. Ben-Meir holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Mexico (2009) where he also taught, an MA in international development from Clark University (1997), and a BA in economics from New York University (1991).
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People of the countries which have US military bases should demand to withdraw the bases from their respective countries to ensure their independence from USA hegemony and make good relationship with neighbours whcih USA has destroyed
No Exit Strategy in Sight
Despite his extended justifications for continuing hostilities, Trump in his address to the nation failed to present any plan, timeline, or measurable goal for ending the war on Iran. He offered no vision for stabilization, no diplomatic channel, and no criteria for success. This omission underscored an administration operating on impulse rather than strategy. As he said in the past, he will feel it in his bones when to end the war. The absence of an exit plan speaks volumes—it reflects a president driven by political optics rather than substance, leaving America entangled in yet another costly quagmire. Trump’s speech failed to convince anyone beyond his devoted followers that the war enhanced America’s security. His contradictory claims and hollow boastfulness projected weakness, not power, alienating allies and deepening mistrust. What emerged was a portrait of a leader lost in his own illusions, isolated and increasingly irrelevant.
alonben-meir.com/writing/bluster-without-strategy-trumps-ill-fated-iran-war/
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