This episode is the second installation in our series on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Our first episode covered the very recent history of the conflict, looking at the round of violence that began in October of 2023 with a Hamas-led attack on Israel. The primary focus for that episode was the genocide that Israel has perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza since the fall of 2023.
In this episode, we journey back to the early history of the conflict, looking at the linkages between Zionism and colonialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As we investigate this early history, we introduce the overarching narrative put forward by Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American historian, in his popular book The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, about the history of the conflict: that this has been “a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will” (pg. 9). Our discussion focuses on the ways in which the early history of the conflict fits into this narrative framework.
Show Notes
False Messiahs: How Zionism’s dreams of liberation became entangled with colonialism (Boston Review, Winter 2024 issue)
Gaza in a Historical Perspective on Modern Genocide with Martin Shaw (ACMCU, 10/8/25)
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (Rashid Khalidi, 2020)
Credits
Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.
Cover art by Arthur Santoro.
