Journalist and author Shane Burley returns to the podcast to discuss his article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches. He addresses historical traumas and contexts that underlie, in part, the dramatic escalation of violence by the State of Israel in the Palestinian territories since Hamas’s October 7th attack. This is a two-part interview. 

As of the release of this episode, the Gaza Health Ministry has reported over 10,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the ongoing incursion by the Israeli military, with over 4,000 of those being identified as children—nearly half. Since the October 7th attack by Hamas militants, Israel has bombed hospitals, refugee camps, aid convoys, and entire neighborhoods, while cutting off electricity, fuel, and other vital supplies and utilities to the over two million residents of the Gaza Strip, with no way for them to escape.

To describe this as anything other than genocide would be to betray the Palestinian people, as well as our humanity. With the full backing of Western powers—especially the United States—Israel is engaging in an ethnic cleansing campaign, one that has been ongoing for the better part of a century. The founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was an act of settler colonial violence, one that instigated the Nakba—the “disaster” or “catastrophe”—expelling 750,000 Palestinians from their lands. To discuss the October 7th attack by Hamas militants, or the recent bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, without contextualizing the colonial realities Palestinians have endured for many decades—even before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948—is to perpetuate a wholly unjust, murderous status quo. 

While stating the obvious is crucial, there are complexities that need to be contended with. To describe this situation as “complicated” or “complex” is often part of a rhetorical cop-out—an obfuscation from speaking to the vast scale of injustices the Palestinian people and their allies are fighting against. That’s not what I’m referring to in this introduction, and not what I’m gesturing toward in this interview with Shane Burley. There are diasporic historical traumas that need to be reckoned with to, at the very least, understand how this horrific ongoing catastrophe reached this inflection point and commonly perceived intractability.