Unpacking Zionism

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/133572Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective - https://www.anti-imperialists.com/

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.

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 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 RodriguezTerror with Arun Kundnani

In this episode, Sean Malloy and Meira Gold discuss the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), which has been working behind the scenes on campuses, advising many of the administrators who have been imposing the repressive measures that we've seen throughout the Israeli genocide. AEN claims to have trained 3000 university administrators since 2020 and set up presence on 320 campuses. Along with the ADL, the AEL has now turned its attention to scholarly associations -- sites of growing solidarity with Palestine, and accordingly sites of concern for Zionist institutions.Also mentioned: Anti-Defamation League, Israel on Campus Coalition, Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement, ISGAP, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Israel Action Network, Brandeis Center, Hillel, Betar, MEMRI, Canary Mission, Amcha Initiative, Milstein Fund, Schusterman Fund, Marcus Fund, Heritage Foundation, American Jewish CommitteeResources:On Project Esther -https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-currents/jvp-rejecting-project-esther/Previous episode discussion AEN - https://criticalzionismstudies.org/2024/04/01/amira-sean-dei/

WARNING: the word "rapist" appears in this episode several times in the context of Zionist smears. At the 15'48" mark, there is a mention of a Jewish man being shot by a CAMERA-affiliated agitator.In this episode on CAMERA and the Camera Education Institute, we’re hearing from education organizers Sana Fadel, a member of Sawa: Newton-Area Alliance for Peace and Justice, and Nora Lester Murad, of Drop The ADL from Schools. We talk through how Zionist institutions are using education as a platform for much broader political leverage, the split between the ways those institutions aim for respectability in the policy arena while using smear and violence in the streets, and the interconnections among Zionist organizations and figures. Be sure to read Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar on the history of these institutions, linked in the show notes.Also mentioned in this episode: Academic Engagement Network, Jewish Leadership Project, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, Campus Watch, The Daily Wire, The David Project, Faculty Against Antisemitism Network, Hillel, Islamist Watch, Israel on Campus Coalition, Middle East Forum, Scholars for Peace in the Middle EastLinks:droptheadl.org // droptheadlfromschools.org“Resistance to Repression and Back Again: The Movement for Palestinian Liberation in US Academia” (Lara Deeb & Jessica Winegar) https://www-tandfonline-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/doi/full/10.1080/19436149.2024.2375669A CAMERA With the Wrong Focus, https://www.pbs.org/publiceditor/blogs/ombudsman/a-camera-with-the-wrong-focus/Leaked NYT Gaza memo tells journalists to avoid words ‘genocide,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘occupied territory’ https://theintercept.com/2024/04/15/nyt-israel-gaza-genocide-palestine-coverage/What Goes Unsaid, https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/what-goes-unsaid/Neocon Man, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neocon-man/

This is the first episode in a mini-series called "From Above," which looks at the Zionist organizations that have been laying the groundwork for Trump-era fascism and are now helping it advance. This mini-series isn’t so much a “how did we get here” as an effort to demystify the ongoing structures of Zionism that underwrite this present moment. In this episode, we’re joined by Zach Samalin from New York University to discuss the group called Mothers Against College Antisemitism (MACA), which was among the first Zionist groups to publicly embrace Trump’s deportation machine. RESOURCEShttps://www.nyu-aaup.org/aaup-nyu-report-nyus-president-mills-interfered-with-student-disciplinary-process-at-request-of-islamophobic-anti-palestinian-group/https://theintercept.com/2025/01/31/nyu-gaza-protesters-deport-maca-antisemitism/ https://politicalresearch.org/2024/10/30/understanding-rise-multiracial-right-and-why-it-matters