This episode looks at the keyword “normalization” in conversation with independent writer and researcher Reem Farah. Our discussion draws on Reem’s 2024 article “Ottolenghi and Tamimi's Cookbook, Jerusalem: Israel as Frame and Palestine as Subject” in the Jerusalem Quarterly. Reem analyzes the cookbook as an example of the normalization of Zionism, and explains why opposing normalization is a pillar of the fight for a free Palestine.

Notes:

1) This is the last episode in our keywords series, at least for now. As we’re wrapping up the keywords, we have a new mini-series in the works dedicated to the movement that emerges out of K thru 12 schools in the US to resist Zionist attacks.

2) If you are listening to this episode on Spotify, this is the last episode that we publish on this platform. After this episode, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism is pulling our content from Spotify and will not be using the platform for our materials. This decision is a response to Spotify's chief executive, Daniel Ek’s $700 million investment in a military startup Helsing. Ek has now also become the chairman of Helsing, which is a company specializing in AI-powered combat drones and military software. Multiple musicians, including Massive Attack & King Gizzard,​​ already pulled their catalogs from Spotify and many users are canceling their subscriptions. We are joining this principled call to boycott Spotify over its ties to military technologies and manufacturers.

Follow us on Apple podcast or other platforms.

Other resources:

Reem Farah, “Ottolenghi and Tamimi's Cookbook, Jerusalem: Israel as Frame and Palestine as Subject”

Yara Hawari, “Arab Normalization and the Palestinian Struggle for Liberation”

Jumana Manna’s film Foragers

Rabea Eghbariah, “The Struggle for Akoub & Za'atar: On Edible Plants in Palestinian Cuisine and Israeli Plant Protection Laws”

This week we bring listeners a rich and concise episode on “disarmament” as a keyword for the critical study of Zionism. It's a short talk by Bikrum Gill, a member of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective and faculty at Virginia Tech, excerpted from a panel on Critical Zionism Studies and political theory at the 2025 American Political Science Association conference.

Bikrum Gill, The Political Ecology of Colonial Capitalism: Race, Nature, and Accumulation (2024) - https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/300/monograph/book/133572

Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective - https://www.anti-imperialists.com/

In this episode we’re with Dr. Nicole Nguyen to talk through securitization as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. From manipulations of the idea of “safety” to tech giant Palantir’s dystopian “digital kill chain” in Gaza and surveillance-to-deportation machinery in the United States, we connect the dots between Zionist and U.S. militarisms. This interview was recorded in June 2025.

Nicole Nguyen’s selected writings: https://clj.uic.edu/profiles/nicole-nguyen/

Mohammed El Kurd, Untitled essay on Substack (8/29/25)

Pro-Israel Group Censoring Social Media Led by Former Israeli Intelligence Officers (Lee Fang and Jack Poulson, 7/11/24)

What Big Tech’s Band of Execs Will Do in the Army (Wired, 6/28/25)

Foundation to Combat Antisemitism “Command Center”

This episode is a recording of a webinar on Confronting Zionist Expansionism. Moderators Jennifer Mogannam & Amira Jarmakani talk with Abdaljawad Omar on Zionism’s territorial drive and Natalie El-Eid on weaponizing Druze in Palestine and Syria.

This event was recorded on August 6 and is available as a video recording on our youtube channel.

Most of the organizations we’ve covered so far in this mini-series purport to represent Jewish communities’ opinions. But the one we’re covering today is different. It’s not about opinions, it’s about putting the armed, carceral muscle behind other organizations. We’re talking about the Secure Community Network (SCN). There isn’t much research on the SCN, so rather than interviewing a scholar or journalist who wrote about it, in this episode Emmaia and Yulia talk about SCN based on the reporting that is available.

Updates about our podcast: wrapping up "From Above," announcing new mini-series, and inviting your feedback.

You can find us at criticalzionismstudies.org and on Instagram at @institutecsz.

This interview with Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel program at Arab Center Washington DC, is about lawfare. Lawfare refers to the use of law as a political weapon that is more concerned with inflicting damage on an opponent than prevailing with a particular legal argument or proving facts based on evidence. We discuss Zionist lawfare, who formulates its goals and targets, and who funds and carries out these efforts.

Resources:

Yousef Munayyer, “Spaces Beyond Borders: Israel’s Transnational Repression Network,” in Suppressing Dissent: Shrinking Civic Space, Transnational Repression and Palestine–Israel (2024).

Emmaia Gelman, Astroturf Antisemitism Watchdogs, Jadaliyya (2024)

Charity & Security Network, The Alarming Rise of Lawfare to Suppress Civil Society: The Case of Palestine and Israel (2021)

In this episode we are looking at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) with journalist Alex Kane, senior reporter at Jewish Currents. This is the first of several episodes we'll have on the ADL, in an effort to grapple with its scale and long history. Lots of links in the show notes.

History:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y-w8y83byMLcxFd1gvI1xqpcDUaCo1WW/view?usp=sharing

https://jewishcurrents.org/the-anti-democratic-origins-of-the-jewish-establishment

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/emmaia-gelman-anti-defamation-league/

https://criticalzionismstudies.org/2024/10/26/from-the-new-antisemitism-to-the-ihra-definition/

Reporting & Analysis:

https://jewishcurrents.org/adl-shutters-flagship-anti-bias-program

https://jewishcurrents.org/scoop-internal-adl-memo-recommended-ending-police-delegations-to-israel-amid-backlash

https://jewishcurrents.org/examining-the-adls-antisemitism-audit

https://jewishcurrents.org/how-the-adls-israel-advocacy-undermines-its-civil-rights-work

https://criticalzionismstudies.org/2024/05/28/the-anti-defamation-league-counterinsurgency-and-the-palestinian-liberation-movement/

https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/educators-beware-the-anti-defamation-league-is-not-the-social-justice-partner-it-claims-to-be/

https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45918

Resistance to the ADL:

www.droptheadl.org

Related episodes:

Unpacking Zionism: Mothers Against College Antisemitism

Battling the IHRA Definition: The new 'terror' bill

Also mentioned:

Canary Mission

Amcha Initiative

American Jewish Committee

In this episode, we discuss the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) with the veteran of this podcast Amira Jarmakani, ICSZ collective member and Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies at San Diego State University. NCRI, presenting itself as a research institute interested in studying false and hateful narratives online, often flies under the radar as a Zionist organization. Amira Jarmakani debunks NCRI’s claim to be a small, neutral, not-for-profit institution and clarifies that it is actually an online surveillance organization, closely tied with major US policy-making institutions, and a purveyor of the War on Terror. We look at the work of NCRI and its reports demonizing leftist organizing, conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, attacking BDS, and labeling Palestine solidarity organizing as “terrorism.”

Also mentioned in this episode: Anti-Defamation League (ADL), AMCHA Initiative, Hetz, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), Charles Koch Foundation (CKF)

Resources:

Cox, Joseph. “Inside ICE’s Database for Finding ‘Derogatory’ Online Speech.” 404 Media. October 24, 2023.

Poulson, Jack. “The Australian ad-tech firm secretly fueling 'psychological warfare' against U.S. university students.” All Source Intelligence substack. June 10, 2024.

NCRI received $335,000 from Israel on Campus Coalition in 2021 “for a grant to build social media analysis.

ICE contracted Giant Oak from 2014-2022 to flag people for deportation, according to AFSC.

On FARA: Fang, Lee and Jack Poulson. “Leaked Israeli Docs Reveal Effort to Evade Foreign Agent Lobbying Law.” August 17, 2024.

ISGAP received 80% of its annual revenue from the Israeli government (Aiden Pink/ The Forward)

Joel Finkelstein's presentation to DHS,

The FBI identified SNA as a valuable tool for law enforcement as early as 2013.

Stop LAPD Spying, "The Algorithmic Ecology"

Stop LAPD Spying, "Before the Bullet Hits the Body"

Hate with Dylan Rodriguez

Terror with Arun Kundnani

This episode with Akhil Gopal and Matyos Kidane of Stop LAPD Spying Coalition looks at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is the parent organization of the Museum of Tolerance and a go-to Holocaust education provider. We look at how its work relates to what L.A. organizers call the "stalker state", and how anti-poor and racist politics – especially policing – are interwoven with Zionist politics and the War on Terror.

Also mentioned: The Anti-Defamation League.