This week on Crossing The Line: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama recently wrapped up a tour of the Middle East during which he assured Israelis that the United States will always be their friend and reaffirmed the “special relationship” between the two countries. But as Obama made visits to Jerusalem, the southern Israeli town of Sderot and a brief stop in Ramallah, he neglected to mention Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories. Host Naji Ali speaks with Bruce Dixon, investigative journalist and managing editor of Black Agenda Report, about Obama’s tour and his blindness to Israeli apartheid.

Also this week, as Obama stood before a cheering crowd in Berlin an spoke about the need to “tear down walls,” referring to the Soviet-built Berlin wall, he made no mention of the wall that Israel has erected on Palestinian land and the siege on Gaza. Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor, author, activist and lecturer joins Ali to talk about the Obama’s policy towards Israel, and the upcoming action in which she will take part to break the siege on Gaza by sea.

And as always, Crossing the Line begins with “This week in Palestine,” a service provided by The International Middle East Media Center.

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Crossing the Line is a weekly podcast dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine. Through investigative news, arts, eyewitness accounts, and music, Crossing the Line does its best to present the lives of people on the ground.

Crossing the Line’s host, Naji Ali, is an independent journalist currently living in San Francisco. Ali’s South African roots and desire for social change are the reason for his strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1990 Ali was arrested in South Africa where he was detained and tortured for nearly two years by the South African secret police. Ali also lived and worked in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.