The Dig

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FIFTEENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment addresses the Palestinian Revolution’s project in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan—leading up to the 1970 conflict with the Jordanian state and the violent expulsion of PLO guerrillas during Black September. Then, Egypt and Syria checked Israel’s power in the October War of 1973—only for Anwar Sadat to lead Egypt into Kissinger’s plan to pacify Arab revolution.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

The Palestinian Revolution website is live! learnpalestine.qeh.ox.ac.uk/teach

Buy tickets for live Dig with Corbyn in London unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khalili

The Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 – Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.org

Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the FOURTEENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the rise of the Palestinian Revolution and then its explosion after the Arab defeat in the June War of 1967 with Israel. Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation and Palestine, and other factions launched an armed guerrilla struggle against Israel, engaging the Palestinian people in a full-scale mobilization for their liberation. Also: Ba’athists Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, as did Muammar Gaddafi’s Free Officers in Libya.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

Buy Happy Apocalypse at versobooks.com

Buy Love in the Time of Self-Publishing at princeton.press/love

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the THIRTEENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the armed left-wing revolutionary movements that challenged British imperial power across Southern Arabia, with the National Liberation Front taking over South Yemen and Dhufari rebels in Oman waging a liberation war against the Sultan. Today’s alliance of reactionary Gulf monarchies was not inevitable; they were made by colonial power, and Arab revolutionaries in the 1960s and 70s mounted a major effort to overthrow them.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:

Buy The Last Human Job at Princeton.press/job

Buy How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement against Imprisonment at haymarketbooks.org

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TWELFTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Saudi Arabia, a country whose reactionary, US-aligned trajectory was throughout the 1950s and 60s challenged by labor strikes, dissident currents, rebellious princes, and an anticolonial oil minister. But Saudi royal conservatism asserted itself and a friendship with Nasser’s Egypt turned into conflict. Ultimately both countries got drawn into North Yemen’s civil war, which sapped Egypt’s military strength ahead of the 1967 war with Israel. Plus: radical politics against British colonial power in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Trucial States.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:

Buy Twilight Prisoners at haymarketbooks.com

Buy Automatic Fetish at versobooks.com

Featuring Dylan Saba and Waleed Shahid on how Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the mass solidarity movement opposing it are transforming US politics. This anti-imperialist internationalist moment marks a profound turning point for the American left.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:

The Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 – Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.org (early bird discount until 6/28!)

Buy Unbuild Walls at haymarketbooks.org

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the ELEVENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of the destruction of the two giant revolutionary projects of 1958: the union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser’s United Arab Republic and Iraq’s July Revolution that brought Qasim alongside communist allies to power. The rival radical projects of pan-Arabism and communism suffered huge blows. So did Nasser and Qasim, the era’s most significant Arab anti-imperialist leaders. Meanwhile, the Ba’ath, once ideological and idealistic, became increasingly dominated by military men who made the party into an instrument for raw domination.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Buy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:

Buy Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom at Versobooks.com

Subscribe to Dissent magazine in print or online at dissentmagazine.org/subscribe

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the TENTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment tells the story of Iraq’s 1958 July Revolution: a Free Officers’ coup overthrew the imperialist-aligned Hashemite monarchy and brought nationalist Abdul-Karim Qasim to power alongside a surging Communist Party. Revolutionary currents soon turned against one another, however, as did Qasim and Nasser. Conflict stemmed from serious political and strategic differences, but also petty rivalries and bitter feuds. And in Iraq, class conflict often appeared dressed up in the sectarian and ethnic modalities through which class was lived.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin

Buy The Black Antifascist Tradition at haymarketbooks.org

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the NINTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the creation of a Palestinian national liberation movement throughout the 1950s by a people dispersed by the Nakba: organizations, alliances, and theories of change assembled in the universities, cities, and refugee camps surrounding Palestine. We end with the 1959 foundation of Fatah, the first organization for Palestinians led by Palestinians focused first and foremost on Palestinian liberation. This is the story of the beginning of the Palestinian national liberation movement as we have come to know it today.

Buy How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement against Imprisonment at haymarketbooks.org

Buy States of the Earth: An Ecological and Racial History of Secularization at Versobooks.com

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the EIGHTH episode of Thawra (Revolution), our rolling mini-series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. A compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, from Beirut and Jordan to Cairo and the Gulf—becoming a truly powerful force in Kuwait. Led in significant part by Palestinians, its early history offers a ground-level look at the organizational and theoretical currents shaping radical Arab politics. It is also the backstory for key Marxist groups that later grew out of the Movement: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, South Yemen’s National Liberation Front, and the Dhofar Liberation Front.

Buy Future of Denial at versobooks.com

On May 1st, subscribe to a year of Jacobin‘s digital publication for just $1, or a year of Jacobin in print for only $10: jacobin.com/subscribe/?code=MAYDAYDIG

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com

Spread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/Thawra

Featuring Noura Erakat, Avi Shlaim, Ussama Makdisi, Ilan Pappé, Ghada Ageel Hamdan, and Abdel Razzaq Takriti on the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Recorded at the World Academic Forum for Palestine in Houston. We’ll be back next week with episode eight of Thawra, our rolling series on 20th century Arab radicalisms.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Donate to Palestine Legal palestinelegal.org/donate

Watch more from the World Academic Forum for Palestine youtube.com/c/haymarketbooks

Check out our vast archives and newsletters at thedigradio.com

Buy An Enemy Such As This at haymarketbooks.org

Buy The Jail is Everywhere at versobooks.com