The Intervention

Hey all, no Intervention standalone this week, but enjoy Nick's conversation with two local Palestinian-American activists on Pittsburgh Liberation Radio.

Palestinian-Americans Karim and Ahmed return to the show to tell stories of struggle from the past and present that have defined their families. As we witness replays of the 1948 Nakba in real time, it is more important than ever to take a stand, unapologetically, for the human beings with families, children, hopes, and dreams in Palestine. Will you stand with them? 

If you are in Allegheny County, you can urge Allegheny County Council to support a ceasefire motion by sending a message to [email protected]. Your message should explain why you personally, as a resident, are urging the County to support an end to the genocide in Gaza.

You can also register for comment at the March 5th meeting to vocalize your feelings to the council ⁠here⁠!

Ceasefire Now! End the Occupation! Free Palestine!

Resources:
Answer Coalition
The Anti-Imperialist Archive
Jewish Voices for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Palestinian Youth Movement

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

The episode details the events of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War of 1973 (also known as the Yom Kippur War, the Ramadan War, and the October War) and the aftermath in Israels domestic affairs. The sizable amount of Israeli blood spilled provided an opening for what would become the Likud front to articulate a wedding of their revisionist Zionism with the religious Zionism embodied by the organization Gush Emunim.

As we’ve maintained, these ideologies existed among Zionists even before the Mandate period, but here the long line of contingencies led to their ascension. This episode goes a long way to describe the “rise of the right” in Israel and narrates the birth of the modern Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu.

We mentioned the following recommended listening: Panic at the Border w/ Alex Aviña on The East is a Podcast

Resources:
Answer Coalition
The Anti-Imperialist Archive
Jewish Voices for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Palestinian Youth Movement

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify

Nick and Comrade Ty have a discussion on imperialism, popular resistance and self-determination in our contemporary context. We discuss how to apply and update foundational theory to concrete conditions in 2024, with the genocide in Gaza and the actions of regional anti-imperialist forces as a backdrop. Now, more than ever, it is clear that our role in the belly of the beast is to build a strong, effective anti-imperialist movement. Reject US/NATO interventions! No to imperialist demonization campaigns! Uphold people's right to resist and self-determination in the face of imperialist aggression! 

⁠Points of Unity: Lessons from Libya

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Another heaping helping of slop for Mr Pig's piglets. On this one we "cherry-pick evidence — some factual, some highly distorted — to push misleading narratives" - according to the Washington Post. We talk bloodthirsty Dems John Fetterman and Nancy Pelosi antagonizing anti-imperialist protestors as well as the defunding of UNRWA. The point in each is to muddy the waters by conflating those taking a principled stand with anti-Semites, puppets of Putin, and pawns of China.

We spend the las half of the episode reading through the Washington Post's "Growing Oct. 7 ‘Truther’ Groups Say Hamas Massacre Was a False Flag." As the election season ramps up expect Trump to fan these anti-Semitic Q-spiracies while Biden links them to the left.

Resources:
Answer Coalition
The Anti-Imperialist Archive
Jewish Voices for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Palestinian Youth Movement

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify

We've been teasing this one for quite some time and, after long last, it's here.  Steve leads an initial discussion on where we're in our knowledge and preconceptions of the Irish Republican Army and the broad history of Ireland.

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify

Notes this is a rebroadcast from the Pittsburgh PSL podcast: Pittsburgh Liberation Radio

In this episode, Nick sits down with local Palestinian-American activists Karim and Ahmed for a wide ranging conversation on Palestine. Karim and Ahmed relate the heart-wrenching conditions of their families in Gaza, many of whom have been injured or murdered by Israel. We also discuss the ongoing people's movement for Palestine and the strength in solidarity, among many other topics.

If there is a theme for this episode it is that the cause of Palestine is the cause for all humanity. The time to act and speak out is now, as we witness the zionists attempting to author another chapter in the Nakba, destroying the lives of the men, women, and children in Gaza and across the region.

If you are in Pittsburgh, or nearby, here are some local orgs to follow/get involved with:
Party for Socialism and Liberation-Pittsburgh Branch
PSL-PGH Instagram
Pitt Palestine Solidarity Committee
SJP at Pitt
JVP-Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Palestine Coalition

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

As promised in the previous episode,  we discuss  V. I. Lenin's Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for the Second Congress of the Communist International. It takes us quite awhile to get to the actual text of Lenin because we end up discussing the nation, the ecumenical state, ethnicity, and many of the contradictions therein.

Note: Had some pesky background noise in this one that was hard to get rid of.  Sorry about that! 

Additional Sources:
Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson
Age of Coexistence w/ Ussama Makdisi on The Dig
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs w/ Elizabeth Thompson on Guerrilla History
Statement on Al Aqsa Flood Battle by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Marxism and the National Question by Joseph Stalin

Resources:
Answer Coalition
The Anti-Imperialist Archive
Jewish Voices for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Palestinian Youth Movement

Turn Leftist Podcast (Mike):
Patreon: @turnleftist
Twitter: @turnleftistpod
Instagram: @turnleftist

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify

This is an experiment of sorts. Before jumping into the seminar style discussion we've done in the past, we've chosen to do a straight reading of V. I. Lenin's Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for the Second Congress of the Communist International. The piece is short and, by nature as a draft, not fully fleshed out, but it is also brimming with insight and rife for interrogation.

We will be releasing our discussion of this piece as our next full episode.

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify

In this episode begins with the War of Attrition beginning 1967 through the fallout of the 1972 attack by the Black September Group on the Munich Olympics.

Pan-Arabism transitioned to more localized struggles in which the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as major, opposed, forces. As a benefactor of nobody, a stateless people, Palestinian invisibility and hostility, even among former Arab state allies, began to harden.  In this context, the Jordanian Crown kicked off a vicious onslaught to eradicate the PLO from their own borders. Within a year all PLO operations moved from Jordan to Lebanon - a chilling blow against Palestinian self-liberation.

A small number of Palestinian “terrorist attacks” committed by radical splinter groups outside of the Palestine-First ideology only encouraged the west to embrace Israel even harder. The Palestinian, when acknowledged at all, became an embodiment of “homicidal hatred” and not a people with a history.

Resources:
Answer Coalition
The Anti-Imperialist Archive
Jewish Voices for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Palestinian Youth Movement

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify

We're back with Evan of Left of the Projector for the third (maybe second?) entry in the History in Film series. This time it's 1960's Zionist epic, Exodus. Based on the novel of the same name by Leon Uris, this film aimed to convince American Jewry to consider the State of Israel (at this point, only twelve years old) as a nation deserving their investment, sympathy, and loyalty.

Somehow, we've dragged along Sam and Gabe from Labor Jawn to slog our way through this three and half hour long piece of Zionist propaganda...at least we got a shirtless Paul Newman out of it.

Primary Sources:
In Vigilant Brotherhood by The American Jewish Committee - (see pg 64-70 for "The Blaustein-Ben-Gurion Agreement")
"Is Zionism a Liberating Democratic Movement?" by Henryk Erlich
"This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle" Tweet by Benjamin Netanyahu
"שטיל, די נאַכט איז אױסגעשטערנט [Quiet, the Night is Full of Stars]" performed by Isabel Frey

Resources:
Answer Coalition
The Anti-Imperialist Archive
Jewish Voices for Peace
Middle East Children's Alliance
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Palestinian Youth Movement

Labor Jawn:
Patreon: @laborjawn
Instagram: @laborjawn
Tiktok: @laborjawn

Left of the Projector (Evan):
Patreon: @LeftoftheProjectorPod
Twitter: @LOTP_Pod
Instagram: @leftoftheprojectorpod
Letterboxd: @lotppod
Merch: https://leftoftheprojectorpod.threadless.com

The Intervention Podcast:
Twitter: @intervenepod
Instagram: @intervention_pod
Email: [email protected]

Levi Levi:
Twitter: @levi0levi
Instagram: @levi0levi0levi
Email: [email protected]

Big thanks to Plasmid for the music for the show: Instagram - @plasmidband. Listen / follow on Spotify