‘After Zionism’ at the Brecht Forum next Tuesday night

After Zionism

Heads up, next Tuesday night, Antony Loewenstein and I will be speaking at the Brecht Forum in downtown Manhattan about the exciting new volume, After Zionism. And what with the demise of the two-state solution and the crisis of the Israel lobby, there couldn’t be a better time.

Loewenstein is particularly ravaging about the new discourse. He says of the typical hasbarist: “[He] wants complete immunity from criticism alongside continuing global diplomatic, political and military support for [Israel’s] behaviour. All care and no responsibility. But control of the internet is impossible using the old, tatty tools of Zionist advocates : sympathy for Israel after the Holocaust; Israel lobby pressure on journalists and editors; and little airtime given to coherent Palestinians to make their case.”

From the promotion for the event:

After Zionism brings together prominent thinkers on the Middle East question to dissect the century-long conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians, and to explore possible forms of a one-state solution.

Time has run out for the two-state solution because of the unending and permanent Jewish colonisation of Palestinian land. Although deep mistrust exists on both sides of the conflict, growing numbers of Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Arabs are working together to forge a different, unified future. Progressive and realist ideas are at last gaining a foothold in the discourse, while those influenced by the colonial era have been discredited or abandoned. Whatever the political solution may be, Palestinian and Israeli lives are intertwined, enmeshed, irrevocably.

This timely collection includes essays by Omar Barghouti, Diana Buttu, Jonathan Cook, Joseph Dana, Jeremiah Haber, Jeff Halper, Ghada Karmi, Saree Makdisi, John Mearsheimer, Ilan Pappe, Sara Roy and Phil Weiss.