We are re-airing this short story by our co-host Jesse Strauss: Thanksgiving in the year 2223 in Israel celebrates the colonial promise of the complete settling of the land of Palestine. 

When it was first written in 2023, Jesse’s intention was to challenge those of us in the United States to re-think the holiday that many of us look to today, and how some of us participate in it, even in the most minor of ways – is it really possible to divest this celebration from the false tale of pilgrims and indians, and the founding of this country? The intention was to challenge us about any version of a celebration that commemorates the ethnic cleansing of a people in a place. The story is grounded in Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Gaza, but at the time it was written it would have been hard to imagine where we’d be a year later, that it could be conceivable that the intent for ethnic cleansing would be so clear that every detail of this fictional story could become true. Israel has become even more clear than ever of its intent to ethnically cleanse the region of Palestinians. The possibility that this zionists will commemorate this ethnic cleansing with a regular holiday is a real possibility. It’s not far from the United States’ founding narrative. Happy Thanksgiving.

—-

Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page

The post A Thanksgiving Story: Israel in the Year 2223 – Commentary w/ Jesse Strauss appeared first on KPFA.