Episode 012: When We Were Arabs with Massoud Hayoun

This week we first provide updates on some BDS wins (go Abby Martin!) and recent actions by workers and activists to disrupt the sale and manufacturing of weapons intended for Israel. Lara and Michael also share their thoughts on the wins and losses of this ongoing global intifada of unity before getting into this week's interview with journalist and author Massoud Hayoun. Together with Massoud, we discuss his book When We Were Arabs, a colorful tale of his family's origins, which interweaves personal anecdotes, political vignettes and elements of cultural history that paint very clearly for the reader what the Jewish Arab identity meant to this family, not only in the past, but also how Massoud understands and lives his identity today, which includes Massoud's ethical stances as an anti-Zionist Jewish Arab in support of Palestinian liberation. Lara makes a Ja Rule joke.

To consult the sources used in the preparation of this episode, please see:

Books

1. When We Were Arabs (Massoud Hayoun)

Articles/Videos

1. “I am a Jewish Arab. Israel is Responsible for My Family’s Dispossession.” (Massoud Hayoun, Institute for Palestine Studies): “While our treatment by former governments is inexcusable, Israel provoked our Arab homelands’ collective punishment by casting doubt on our allegiances, raising concerns that our continued presence in our homes was a national security threat.”

2. I am a Jewish Arab (Massoud Hayoun, Pacific Standard)

3. Judge: Ga. law barring contracts by groups boycotting Israel unconstitutional (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

4. Maldives suspends all ties with Israel, showing solidarity to Palestine (The Edition) 

5. Italy: workers refuse to load arms shipment to Israel (Middle East Monitor)

6. Activists Arrested, Leicester Community’s Direct Action Prevents Removal (Palestine Action)

7. Protesters on drone factory roof ‘drank rainwater as police blocked supplies’ (Metro)

8. U.S. Sen. Sanders offers resolution blocking arms sales to Israel (Reuters)

9. Israel: AOC and other progressive Democrats attempt to block $735m US arms sale (Middle East Eye)

10. 385,671 people (as of June 9, 2021) signed a petition requesting the UK government to impose sanctions against Israel. On June 8, 2021, the UK government’s reply in full to this show of solidarity was firmly oppose boycott and sanctions against Israel and entirely dismiss the views of more than 385,000 of its residents.

11. British MP demands action against Israel as civilian casualties mount in Palestine (Middle East Monitor)

12. People Before Profit renews call for expulsion of Israeli ambassador (Irish Times)

13. Ireland condemns Israel’s ‘de facto annexation’ of Palestine (Al Jazeera)

14. Irish lower house passes bill to ban Israeli settlement goods (Al Jazeera)

15. Social networks accused of censoring Palestinian content (Columbia Journalism Review)

16. Digital apartheid: Palestinians being silenced on social media (Al Jazeera)

17. Increase of Google searches on Palestine (Google Trends)

18. The Lavon Affair: How a false-flag operation led to war and the Israeli bomb (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

19. The Invention of the Mizrahim (Journal of Palestine Studies, University of California Press)

20. The Invention of the Mizrahim (Al Jazeera)

21. Israel’s cynical campaign to pit Arab Jews against Palestinian refugees (Electronic Intifada)

22. Palestinian Refugees: Myth vs. Reality (Middle East Institute)

23. The truth behind Israeli propaganda on the 'expulsion' of Arab Jews (Middle East Eye)

24. Moroccan Jews Return to Morocco (Al Jazeera)

25. The Jewish Spies Who Posed as Arabs (NYT)

26. Do States Have a “Right to Exist”? (Charged Affairs, Young Professionals in Foreign Policy)

27. The ‘Other’ in Zionism: The Case of the Mizrahim (Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture)

28. Israel’s Mizrahi Activists Are Fighting the Racist Nation-State Law (The Nation)

29. Israel's Racist Lynch Mobs Are Hunting Arabs. And They're Fueled by Government Incitement (Haaretz)

30. Mizrahi-Ashkenazi Educational Gaps in the Third Generation (Research in Social Stratification and Mobility)

31. Study finds huge wage gap between Ashkenazim, Mizrahim (Times of Israel)

32. Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims (Duke University Press)

33. Jews from the Middle East: Fact Sheet (Jewish Voice for Peace)

34. Racism in Medicine: The Politics of Segregation in Health (Physicians for Human Rights)

35. Off-duty Police Officer Shoots Dead Ethiopian Israeli Teen in Northern Israel (Haaretz)

36. Spokesman: Israel to deport dozens of African Hebrews (Associated Press)

37. Zionist Eugenics, Mixed Marriage, and the Creation of a 'New Jewish Type' (The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute)

38. The Disappeared Children of Israel (NY Times)

39. Yemenite Children Affair: Families of the kidnapped speak out (+972 Magazine)

40. Rethinking the Yishuv: Late-Ottoman Palestine’s Jewish Communities Revisited (Journal of Modern Jewish Studies)

41. 'Israel is your home' Benjamin Netanyahu tells French Jews after Charlie Hebdo rally  (Independent)

42. It Could Have Been Paradise Here (Haaretz)

43. Mizrahi-washing: The new face of Israeli propaganda (+972 Magazine)

44. “We are Hear to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves:” Zionist Occidentalism and the Discourse of Hygiene in Mandate Palestine (International Journal of Middle East Studies)

45. Mizrahi-Ashkenazi educational gaps in the third generation (Research in Social Stratification and Mobility)

46. Ben-Gurion’s Uncensored Diary Revealed: “Pester and Motivate the Refugees to Move Eastward” (Haaretz)

47. The unspoken alliance: Israel’s secret relationship with apartheid South Africa (Mondoweiss)

48. With Whom Are Many U.S. Police Departments Training? With a Chronic Human Rights Violator - Israel (Amnesty International)

49. Israel’s Latin American trail of terror (Al Jazeera)

50. Ben Gurion: Letter to His Son on October 5, 1937 (Jewish Voice for Peace)

51. Sexual Violence, Women’s Bodies, and Israeli Settler Colonialism (Jadaliyya)

52. Al-Aqsa Mosque: Israel police storm the complex following Gaza ceasefire (Middle East Eye)

53. The Moroccan Quarter: A History of the Present (Palestine Studies)

54. The Christian Who Wakes Up Muslims in Time to Eat for Ramadan (Haaretz)

55. Salim Halali (Making Queer History)

56. Heroic Tale of Holocaust, With a Twist: How a Paris mosque sheltered Jews in the Holocaust (NYT)

57. Please don’t call us ‘Arab’ (Mondoweiss)

58. The Mizrahi-Palestinian Intersectionality Nobody’s Talking About (Forward)