February 29
GUEST: Yakov Pipman, long time Israeli citizen who fought as an IDF soldier for three wars, talks about winning Palestinian human rights and the history of Matzpen, the revolutionary socialist movement in Israel.
Matzpen, Israeli peace movement
Perhaps Israel could have been different. It could have been that shelter from the storm that this persecuted people most richly deserved, after the genocide of the Third Reich.
But somehow Israel got tangled up with imperialist powers, the United States and England. These victors of World War II never really stopped fighting. They plotted how to gain control over the entire oil rich Middle East, and Israel was to be their linchpin.
But imperialist powers are always based on racism, and Israel soon learned how to abuse and punish the indigenous people of Palestine. The Nakba of 1948 is one terrible example. Three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced off their land, so that the state of Israel could become a theocracy. To get the Palestinians to move, the new state of Israel slaughtered various villages, a precursor of things to come.
Today's genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza shows the direction of Israel from some limited form of democracy to a full blown fascist state. And for every step of the way, the US has been there to furnish the ammunition and provide the international cover in the UN. Matzpen is the history of some more progressive Jews who resisted the bloody theocracy. That resistance is now flourishing on campuses as well is in community resistance organizations like Jewish Voices For Peace.
Join the resistance! Free, Free Palestine!
