Unpacking Zionism – Details, episodes & analysis

In the fifth and final episode of “The Trouble with White Feminism” series, Jessie Daniels talks to ICSZ founding collective member Lara Sheehi about maintaining clarity about the material reality of Zionist settler colonialism while resisting psycho-affective tactics that Zionists use to unsettle us.

Sheehi, Lara, and Stephen Sheehi. Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine. Routledge, 2021.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429487880/psychoanalysis-occupation-lara-sheehi-stephen-sheehi

Sheehi, Stephen. "Psychoanalysis under occupation: Nonviolence and dialogue initiatives as a psychic extension of the closure system." Psychoanalysis and History 20, no. 3 (2018): 353-369.

Stovall, Natasha. “Whiteness on the Couch,” Longreads, 12 August 2019.

https://longreads.com/2019/08/12/whiteness-on-the-couch/

The Zionist playbook is literally this

Hasbara Handbook: https://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf

Mary Louise Fellows and Sherene Razack, The Race to Innocence: Confronting Hierarchical Relations among Women, 1 J. Gender Race & Just. 335 (1998), available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/faculty_articles/274.

Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang: "Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor," Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 1–40.

Wekker, Gloria. White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. (2016). Duke: Durham, NC. https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/86/White-InnocenceParadoxes-of-Colonialism-and-Race

In the fourth episode of "The Trouble with White Feminism" series, Kim-Hong Nguyen talks to Jessie Daniels, author of Nice White Ladies, about white ladies celebrities. They unpack why white Jewish celebrities like Debra Messing, Amy Schumer, and Sheryl Sandberg stake a claim on their brand of feminism in service of Zionism.

Daniels, Jessie. Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role In It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It (Seal Press, 2021). https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jessie-daniels/nice-white-ladies/9781541675865/

This week we’re looking at Islamophobia as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. But it’s necessarily also about anti-Palestinian racism and DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is a special episode — rather than an interview, we’re bringing you leading thinkers and educators in conversation. We’re joined by Evelyn Alsultany, Nadine Naber, Nina Mehta, and ICSZ collective member Amira Jarmakani. This talk is called “Oh… and Islamophobia!” It was organized by ICSZ as part of the launch of the Coalition to End Zionist Repression, which is at bit.ly/campus-alliance.

This talk was recorded on Oct. 16, 2024.

Speakers:

Evelyn Alsultany, University of Southern California

Nina Mehta, PARCEO

Nadine Naber, University of Illinois - Chicago

Moderator:

Amira Jarmakani, San Diego State University

Presented by the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

(criticalzionismstudies.org)

as a launch calendar event of the Coalition to End Zionist Repression

(righttorejectzionism.org)

See the full calendar here: bit.ly/campus-alliance

Links shared:

Information:

- decolonizepalestine.com/rainbow-washing/faithwashing

- uscpr.org/activist-resource/fighting-faithwashing-and-islamophobia/

Curriculum/training resources:

- project48.com/curriculum-overview

- antisemitismcurriculum.org

DEI training resource:

- parceo.org

This episode with philosopher John Harfouch considers “propaganda” as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. We’re looking at the work of Fayez Sayegh — the incredibly prolific Palestinian-Syrian-American scholar who was instrumental in theorizing Zionism and defining Arab American politics. Dr. Harfouch walks us through Sayegh’s studies of how Zionism works as a colonial process in Palestine and as a system of politics and messaging in the United States.

Syllabus: Philosophical Approaches to the Question of Palestine (American Philosophical Association)

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/inclusiveness_syllabi/inclusiveness_syllabi_2/philosophical_approaches_to_.pdf

Fayez Sayegh, Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (Palestine Research Center, 1965)

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

Fayez Sayegh, “A Strange Concept of Reward and Punishment” (The Caravan, Mar. 26 1959) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ituULMZPUkHZzhug3ylQHunksB7euOze/view?usp=drive_link

John Harfouch's diagram of the Zionist movement as theorized by Sayegh https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j4JLKC62xVHJnUrj5h_M8bfZkl_3A4Qx/view

There’s another Unpacking Zionism episode on the work of Fayez Sayegh: Zionism and anti-Zionism with Miriam Osman.

Today's guest is Jamal Nablusi, a diaspora Palestinian writer, researcher, and organizer. And the term he is helping us unpack in this episode is “Indigenous sovereignty.” In 2023, Jamal published an article called “Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty” in the Journal of Palestine Studies, and that's the text that's guiding our conversation today. This interview was recorded in early September 2024, before Israel’s invasion of and attacks on Lebanon.

​Dr Jamal Nabulsi is a diaspora Palestinian writer, researcher and organiser, living as a settler on Yuggera and Turrbal land. He currently works at the University of Melbourne, while holding research grants from the Antipode Foundation, the Institute of Human Geography, and the European International Studies Association. He is a Founding Collective Member of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research, a Global Indigenous Member of the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures at Macquarie University, as well as a member of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. His academic work has received international awards such as the 2024 British International Studies Association Colonial, Postcolonial, and Decolonial Paper Prize.

This conversation with Sophia Azeb is the third and last (at least for now) episode in our mini-series about “future” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. We talk about Palestinian futurity and its entanglement with Palestinian history and memory of the past.

Sophia Azeb (she/they) is an assistant professor of Black Studies in the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sophia's current book project, Another Country: Translational Blackness and the Afro-Arab, explores the currents of transnational and translational blackness charted by African American, Afro-Caribbean, African, and Afro-Arab peoples across twentieth century North Africa and Europe. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Santa Cruz, Sophia was a member of the faculty collective that founded the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Sophia is a frequent contributor to The Funambulist platform.

Sophia Azeb, “Who Will We Be When We Are Free? On Palestine and Futurity”

Sophia Azeb, “The “no-state Solution”: Decolonizing Palestine Beyond the West Bank and East-Jerusalem”

Funambulist podcast with Sophia Azeb, “The “No-State Solution”: Power of Imagination for the Palestinian Struggle”

Funambulist podcast with Sophia Azeb, “A Moment of True Decolonization”

Workshops4Gaza - Sophia Azeb’s workshop “Black Studies and the Black Radical tradition,” Nov 3, 4-7pm PST on Zoom.

“Reclaiming Knowledge Production, Resisting Zionist Enclosures” is a recording of a panel discussion among scholars, organizers, and faculty labor leaders who are resisting Israel’s genocide of Palestinian in Gaza and also resisting the upsurging forces of intellectual and cultural repression in the US. The panel is moderated by Black studies scholar and ICSZ collective member Dylan Rodriguez, with brilliant talks from Heather Ferguson, Pranav Jani, Aaron Kirshenbaum, and Karim Mattar.

We’re also really proud to announce that with this talk, we kick off the Coalition to End Zionist Repression — and its first campaign, called the Right to Reject Zionism. The coalition is a powerful new US-wide effort that brings together the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism with Palestine Legal, the National Lawyers Guild, the Palestinian Youth Movement, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, National Students for Justice in Palestine, National Faculty for Justice in Palestine, Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), and more. We’re working within the Campus & Academia Alliance within that coalition. You can find resources and events online at bit.ly/campus-alliance

0:09 - Intro

5:44 - Opening remarks by Dylan Rodriguez, UC Riverside Center for Ideas & Society, Decolonizing Humanism (?) Programming Stream

9:48 - Heather Ferguson, AAUP AFT Local 6741

16:12 - Pranav Jani, FSJP & Advisor, SJP-Ohio State Univ. & President, AAUP OSU

30:38 - Aaron Kirshenbaum, Drop Hillel & Judaism On Our Own Terms (JOOOT)

43:48 - Karim Mattar, MLA Members for Justice in Palestine & Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network

55:43 - Q&A

1:20:58 - Closing remarks

1:29:15 - Outro

Resources:

Coalition to End Zionist Repression and its inaugural campaign the Right to Reject Zionism

Adalah resource on megadonors

Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism "No IHRA" toolkit

OSU Jews for Palestine

Drop Hillel

MLA Proposed Resolution 2025-1 –

Linguistics for Domination, Michel DeGraff

Tracking repression on campuses since August 2024

Mondoweiss on repression on campuses since August 2024

AAUP-organized National Day of Action for Higher Ed

In this episode I’m talking with Hussein Omar, who is a writer from Cairo currently based in New York City. After completing doctoral research on anticolonial political ideas in the Arab world he’s now writing a five hundred year history of Egypt as told through its cemeteries. He also writes about sexuality, aesthetics and psychoanalysis, and he organizes with Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG). Hussein’s recent essay titled Homo Zion: How Pinkwashing Erases Colonial History, is in Parapraxis Magazine. Expanding our thinking beyond the usual rejoinders to pinkwashing claims, this essay pushes us ask what it is about us that makes pinkwashing a workable tactic.

Additional resources for this conversation:

Christina Hanhardt, Safe Space (2017)

Kramer, Report from the Holocaust (1990)

Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct (1997)

Al Qaws, Beyond Propaganda: Pinkwashing as Colonial Violence (2020)

In this episode, Pranay Somayajula helps us unpack the term hindutva as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. Hindutva is a strain of ethnic supremacy and Indian nationalism that Pranay will help us unpack in the episode. It is specifically anti-Muslim, and – like Zionism – it has been fueled by British colonialism. In the present, Hindutva is more and more entwined with Zionist politics. In our conversation, Pranay untangles hindutva’s parallels and connections to Nazism and to Zionism.

In fact, this episode covers a lot of ground - we discuss the close military, political, and diplomatic relationship between India and Israel, the ideological underpinnings of the two countries’ nationalist regimes, the growing alignment of Hindu American organizations with the Israel lobby groups, and the solidarity and collaborations between anti-Hindutva and anti-Zionist organizers.

Pranay Somayajula is an Indian-American writer and organizer, based in Washington, DC, who currently serves as Organizing and Advocacy Director for Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). Pranay recently completed a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where his dissertation research focused on preventive detention and the legacies of colonial rule in postcolonial India. Prior to studying at LSE, Pranay worked at HfHR as Advocacy and Outreach Coordinator. He received his B.A. in Political Science and International Affairs in 2022 from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs.

Today, we are sharing a lot of resources so our listeners can dive into this topic much deeper:

• Vijay Prashad’s article “How the Hindus became Jews”
• Pranay Somayajula’s senior thesis at George Washington University “The ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and the ‘Jewish State’: the Ideological Foundations of Ethnic Democracy in India and Israel”
• Pranay’s more recent essay called “we are all palestinians: notes on solidarity and collective resistance”
• Aparna Gopalan’sarticle, “THE HINDU NATIONALISTS USING THE PRO-ISRAEL PLAYBOOK” published in the Jewish Currents in 2023
• ICSZ Battling the IHRA Definition Podcast

This is part 2 of our ongoing mini-series on “future” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. We talk to Eman Abdelhadi who explains that every liberation struggle is ultimately a struggle for a different future, one that rebels against the unjust present and past.

Eman Abdelhadi is an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago, where she researches American Muslim communities. She is co-author of "Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072," a sci-fi novel published in 2022 with Common Notions Press. Her academic work has been published in numerous sociology journals and covered by press outlets such as the Washington Post, Associated Press, and NPR. Her public writing has appeared in In These Times, Jacobin, Truthout and other outlets. She is based in Chicago, where she is also a community organizer with the Salon Kawakib Collective, Faculty for Justice in Palestine and other formations.

Eman and her co-author M. E. O'Brien wrote a speculative novel about a liberated future called Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072. Eman and M. E. also published a short story that is a continuation of the novel. The story is called “Sharaner Maash, or a haunting from the time before.” And in the episode, we mention a Truthout podcast “Palestine Solidarity Encampments Are a Rehearsal for Liberatory Self-Governance” that Eman was recently on.