In our very first Bonus Episode, agitated.’s resident anti-Zionist Jew Milly Harmon frames out our discussion on Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign against millions of Palestinians — which is currently ramping up at a horrific clip, and with full-throated backing of the Biden administration. We discuss the history of the region, the Zionist propaganda in our media that has manufactured consent for these crimes against humanity, and the role that the the U.K. and U.S. government — and their own geopolitical interests — have played in the creation, maintenance and highly sophisticated militarization of this illegitimate settler-colonial ethnostate.
We also talk about the rapid shifts in our culture that we’ve witnessed over these past few weeks. More and more everyday people (including many American Jews) are waking up to the realities of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the deeply disproportionate power dynamics in the region. This is thanks in large part to the accessibility of information and footage on social media platforms, and organizations/campaigns like Boycott, Divest & Sanction (BDS), Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, who have been doing the work on college campuses and beyond to challenge the dominant narrative and build the movement needed to end this apartheid. And the fruits of that work are finally being seen in the halls of power — for the first time, there are a handful politicians in Congress naming it for what it is and speaking out against these atrocities, and U.S.’s major role in facilitating them. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for — and it means we must keep pushing with all of our might to get us over the cultural tipping point, that is now within our sights.
And finally, we discuss our own individual processes in unlearning the propaganda that has been fed to us over the course of our lives and how we came to reject the “it’s just too complicated” narrative, that has been effectively used to discourage exploration of the truth and silence dissent. Milly discusses their own birthright trip as an anti-Zionist, seeing firsthand the nature of a program intended to recruit young Jewish people to settle in Israel…and shares some shocking details of that experience with us that you won’t want to miss.
BACKGROUND RESOURCES
- Gaza Fights for Freedom (Abby Martin)
- How Israel helped create Hamas (Mehdi Hasan)
- Last Week Tonight coverage (John Oliver)
- Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine (Michael Brooks & Jeff Halper)
- Decolonize Palestine
- Clip of exchange Israeli displacing a Palestinian (referenced in show)
CAMPAIGNS/ORGS TO SUPPORT:
POETRY:
- We Teach Life, Sir (Rafeef Ziadah)
My fellow non religious Jew. Well said.