Part 8 (cont) of "What Is Zionism?": The Jewish History of Anti-Zionism

Send us a textThis week we are rebroadcasting an interview we aired on June 28, 2024 by my co-host Margot Patterson. She interviewed journalist Mahmoud Mushtaha, assistant manager of We Are Not Numbers, a non-profit in Gaza that pairs young Palestinian writers with professional journalists to help them tell their stories to an English-speaking audience. Mahmoud had left Gaza for Egypt just a month before the interview, in which he describes the harrowing conditions he and his family faced in Gaza. The conditions that Mahmoud describes have only intensified since his interview in June 2024. On March 2, Israel resumed its blockade of humanitarian supplies and on March 18 the ceasefire collapsed after Israel bombed Gaza, killing 400 people in one day. On April 3, Mahmoud published an article for 972 Mag entitled “In Gaza’s devastated hospitals, treatable patients face ‘slow, quiet death.’ In the piece, he describes the well-documented massacre of Red Crescent paramedics on March 23 and the almost complete collapse of Gaza’s medical system.

Send us a textIn a talk given on Thursday, April 10 at the First Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Issa Amro reflects on the challenges he and Palestinians have faced in nonviolently resisting Israel's ethnic cleansing in and around Hebron following Oct. 7. Issa Amro is a Palestinian human rights activist who has dedicated his life to peaceful resistance against Israeli occupation in the West Bank city of Hebron. Together with the activist group he founded, Youth Against Settlements (YAS), he has become a leading voice in the non-violent movement, striving to create a future where Palestinians live freely and with dignity. 

Send us a textLara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, discusses the threat to free speech posed by the International Holocaust Rembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism now being adopted by many schools, institutions, communities and states. The definition associates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. While opposed by a broad range of human rights organizations, civil liberties groups, Palestinian rights supporters and religious groups, the IHRA is increasingly being used as a legal standard. Friedman says the IHRA is part of a long-standing effort to limit what can be said about Israeli policies and practices and to suppress free speech on Israel and Palestine.

Send us a textOn Oct. 7, 2024 the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. Since the Trump administration took office, this document has served as the basis for the escalating crackdown on Palestine solidarity in the United States, under the guise of combating antisemitism. To unpack this document, we spoke with Dr. Yoav Litvin, author a recent article entitled Project Esther: A Trumpian blueprint to crush anticolonial resistance. We discussed the document's fascist, McCarthyist overtones and how the initiative can be resisted.  

Send us a textMargot Patterson talks to Dr. James Zogby about the Trump administration's effort to deport foreign students and scholars who have protested Israel's war on Gaza. The attempt to stifle dissent over U.S. support for Israel is part of a larger attack on free speech and academic freedom at universities that the Trump administration is waging. Pollster, Middle East scholar and the founder and president of the Arab-American Institute, the political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community, Dr. Zogby says what's being dismantled is an architecture of human rights that will not easily be rebuilt.

Send us a textThis is the second part of a talk given by Dr. Norman Finkelstein at the University of Connecticut on February 27. The talk was sponsored by the Northeast Connecticut Gaza Peace Group. In this part, Dr. Finkelstein discusses the consequences of the horror inflicted on Gaza and makes recommendations for the tactics and strategy of the movement moving forward.

Send us a textThis is the first part of a talk given by Dr. Norman Finkelstein at the University of Connecticut on February 27. The talk was sponsored by the Northeast Connecticut Gaza Peace Group. In this part, Dr. Finkelstein dismantles the characterization of the devastation in Gaza as a war between Israel and Hamas. To make this argument, he makes observations about the nature of Israel's actions in Gaza, notes the rulings of international legal institutions, and points out the reports of major human rights organizations. 

Send us a textShaul Magid, visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard Divinity School, talks to Margot Patterson about the long-standing debate among Jews over Zionism and about the impact of the 1967 Six-Day War on the Zionization of American Jews. The author of several books on Jewish mysticism, radicalism and identity, Magid says anti-Zionism is a Jewish phenomenon as old as Zionism itself, and distinct from anti-Israelism among non-Jews.P

Send us a textShaul Magid, visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard Divinity School, discusses his views and personal experience of Zionism, a movement that he says was from its very inception beset by internal divisions. Magid lived in Israel for a decade. He talks to Margot Patterson about the 1940s when World War II transformed Zionism from an ideology into a means of survival and describes his own evolving perspectives on Zionism. Magid is the author of several books on Jewish mysticism and Jewish radicalism. His most recent book is The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance.

Send us a textWhat is the spectrum of Zionism in modern-day Israel? How has this changed over time, especially since October 7? And what forces are driving the continuation of the current ceasefire deal? Ori Goldberg, a political analyst and academic based in Israel, joined the show to answer these questions.