Unpacking Zionism

This special episode maps the wide-ranging counterinsurgency against the anticolonial Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S., and opens a conversation on strategy for resistance. Lara Friedman, Amira Jarmakani, and Emmaia Gelman talk through campus safety narratives, Zionist “antisemitism watchdogs”, and a mushrooming landscape of federal and state legislation. This panel was recorded as part of the American Studies Association May 2024 Mini-Conference.

This week's episode is accompanied by a trove of materials. In the show notes, listeners can access the slides for Dr. Jarmakani’s talk, Lara Friedman's essential work on tracking legislation, and Emmaia Gelman's article on “Astroturf Antisemitism Watchdogs” in Jadaliyya along with the zine that goes with it. We're also linking to work from the Palestinian Feminist Collective on sophicide, Devin Atallah's article "Beyond Grief," the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition website, and a report on the politics of the IHRA definition from scholar Jamie Stern-Weiner.

Lara Friedman, Foundation for Middle East Peace

Amira Jarmakani, San Diego State University

Emmaia Gelman, Sarah Lawrence College

This episode, with Miriam Osman of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), goes right to the heart of the matter. We’re unpacking Zionism and anti-Zionism as keywords for Critical Zionism Studies, as we talk over Palestinian historical writing about Zionist colonialism. We discuss how understanding Zionism as a project of various powers — states, empires, and capital — is essential for defining anti-Zionism. Our conversation draws on Fayez Sayegh and Faris Glubb’s work on British and Nazi interest in Zionist colonization, then turns to the role of the United States. Miriam also explains PYM’s approach to political education about Zionism and anti-Zionism, and the importance of centering anti-imperialism.

Fayez Sayegh

Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (Palestine Research Center, 1965)

https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC12_scans/12.zionist.colonialism.palestine.1965.pdf

L. Allday and S. Al-Saleh

Zionism as a Fascist Ideology and Movement: Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany by Faris Yahya Glubb (Liberated Texts, Oct 2023)

https://liberatedtexts.com/reviews/zionism-as-a-fascist-ideology-zionist-relations-with-nazi-germany-by-faris-glubb/

You can find the transcript on our website criticalzionismstudies.org

For this episode, we invited Sara Kershnar to unpack antisemitism as one of the keywords in Critical Zionism Studies. In October 2023, Sara spoke at the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism's inaugural conference about Israel, U.S. white nationalism, and transnational right-wing alliances and you can view Sara’s talk on our website. In today’s conversation, we will pull on some of the threads Sara introduced in that talk, including why it is hard and contentions to define antisemitism, how accusations of antisemitism are weaponized to advance Zionist politics, and how Zionism is inherently antisemitic.

Sara Kershnar is the co-founder and international coordinator of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network established in 2007. Sara began her Palestinian solidarity work during the second intifada. Sara is also a co-founder of Generation FIVE, an organization working on transformative justice approaches to addressing child sexual abuse and works towards prison abolition in solidarity with currently and formerly-incarcerated people. After her father tested positive for HIV, Sara began her organizing and social justice work in the movements to reduce drug-related harm. Sara is the queer mother of a fabulous nine-year old. Sara has coordinated and been a lead writer on several publications including the The Business of Backlash: The Attack on the Palestinian Movement and Other Movements for Social Justice; Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression focused on the role of Israel’s government, its military, and related corporations and organizations in a global industry of violence and repression; Greenwashing Apartheid: The Jewish National Fund’s Environmental Cover Up – an eBook; and was a producer of a documentary film, “Enduring Roots: Over a Century of Resistance to the JewishNational Fund.” Sara has also published several articles on reducing drug-related harm and a manual on implementing transformative justice approaches to child sexual abuse.

In this episode, we invited Amira Jarmakani and Sean Malloy to talk about DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as a crucial term to unpack in order to understand how Zionist politics are working.

Amira Jarmakani is a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and affiliated faculty with the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and LGBTQ Plus Studies at San Diego State University. And most importantly, Amira is on the advisory board of our very own Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. Sean L. Molloy is a professor of history and critical race and ethnic studies at the University of California, Merced. And Sean is also, most importantly, a collective member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism.

This conversation builds on Amira’s talk From “Zionism is racism” to “antisemitism is racism” Sean’s talk From the “New Antisemitism” to the IHRA: The Evolution of Zionist Countermobilization that they presented at the Institute’s conference Battling the IHRA Definition: Theory and Activism in October 2023. During the interview, Amira also mentions a Vox article “How Republicans are weaponizing antisemitism to take down DEI.” And last, Sean’s article titled “A Safe Space for Apartheid, Zionist Organizations, and the Counter Mobilization Against Palestinian Solidarity on U.S. Campuses,” is coming out very shortly in the Critical Ethnic Studies Journal and we will post it when it’s out.

You can find the transcript and episode notes on our website criticalzionismstudies.org

In this episode, we invited Arun Kundnani, a member of the founding collective of the Institute, to talk about the idea of terror and how it relates to Zionism.

Arun is a writer and a thinker whose work is on race and racial capitalism, Islamophobia, surveillance, political violence, and radicalism. Arun wrote a recent article “Israel, US campuses, and the fragility of the coloniser” that is published in the New Arab. Arun also wrote a book called The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror.

You can find transcript and episode notes on our website criticalzionismstudies.org

For this first episode, we have three guests and we're excited to launch the podcast in conversation with Rabab Abdulhadi, Lara Kiswani, and Dylan Rodriguez. We discuss what Critical Zionism Studies is and what it can offer us in this moment.

To learn more about the Institute and to access episode notes and transcripts, visit our website criticalzionismstudies.org. And please subscribe to "Unpacking Zionism" so you never miss new episodes.

Introducing the new weekly podcast "Unpacking Zionism." It will feature conversations with scholars, activists, and artists about their insights into Zionism. Whether you're an activist or an academic, whether you're new to these conversations, or you've been thinking about this for a while, we're making this podcast for you.

To learn more about the Institute and to access episode notes and transcripts, visit our website criticalzionismstudies.org. And please subscribe to "Unpacking Zionism" so you never miss new episodes.