as a sociologist and criminologist i'm well familiar with her classic work the new jim crow mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness many consider it to be the bible for the movement to radically transform our criminal justice system i'm also familiar greatly and greatly admire and identify strongly with her other writings on criminal justice and her more recent work on spiritual progress of efforts to use the ideas of radical love to transform the system and our world i was also aware that the piece appeared at about the same time as this year's women's march was to happen a marched in to become fractured over serious allegations of anti semitism that had dogged some of the marches leaders for over a year but which lately reached a crisis point so it was with great eagerness and some trepidation that i read her january piece in the article alexander starts out by seemingly equating martin luther king speaking out about the vietnam war in one thousand nine hundred and sixty seven and the need to do the same about palestine today to quote her martin luther king jr courageously spoke out about the vietnam war we must do the same when it comes to this grave injustice of our time palestine later in the article she cites rabbi brian wald one of our guests on the show today he's spoken publicly about the reasons that he abandoned his faith in what he viewed as political zionism for him liberal zionism meant that he believed in the creation of a jewish state that would be a desperately needed safe haven and cultural center for jewish people around the world a state that would reflect as well as on of the highest ideas and ideals of the jewish tradition he had grown up in south africa in a family that shared those views and identified as a liberal zionist until his experiences in the occupied territories forever change him during more than twenty visits to the west bank in gaza he saw horrific human rights abuses including palestinian homes being bulldozed while people cry children's toys s one demolished site over another and saw palestinian lands being confiscated to make way for new illegal settlements subsidized by the israeli government he was forced to reckon with the reality that these demolition settlements and acts of violent dispossession were not rogue moves but fully supported and enabled by the israeli military for him the turning point was witnessing legalize discrimination against palestinians including streets for jews only which he said was worse in some ways than what he had witnesses a boy in south africa alexander goes on to argue that the days when critique zionism in the actions of the state of israel can be written off as and i semitic are coming to an end there seems to be increased understanding she says the criticism of the policies and practices of the israeli government is not in itself anti semitic and to further solidify her case reverend william barber of the poor people's campaign is cited as leading by example pledging allegiance of the fight against ever semitism while also demonstrating  wavering solidarity with the palestinian people struggling to survive under israeli occupation a number of organizations and individuals supporters of the boycott the vestment and sanctions movement against israel including jewish voice for peace the legal center for arab minority rights in israel the pension board of the united methodist church and the united church of christ and sitting members of the congress representative you know on omar and  were mentioned in the article supporting the b d s movement no israeli or the sign is positions were included while the piece admits that we can't know for sure what king would do or think regarding israel palestine today it argues that the evidence regarding king's views on israel is complicated and contradictory furthermore though the article agrees with the story in robin d g kelley  concluded that if king had the opportunity to study the current situation in the same way he had studied vietnam quote unquote his unequivocal opposition to violence colonialism racism and militarism would have made fiber of american judaism as a further example of what he's referring to in a recent email to the leadership of move on rabbi wasco pointed to the pro impeachment rallies scheduled for noon local time on saturday june th were timed in such a way as to raise questions as to whether move on was ignorant of the jewish or bought practice or consciously chose not to involve bridge religiously carrying jews we are thrilled to have on the radical imagination today two of the leading visionaries and voices of progressive jury in this country and the world to help us discuss these issues and more ram our brian walt was born in cape town south africa during the apartheid era as a human rights activist who was the founding zakk of director of rabbis for human rights in north america from two thousand and three to two thousand and eight and is the palestinians really nonviolence project fellow at the dorothy cotton institute he's been a congregational rabbi for over twenty five years serving at the could be or synagogue in athens in new york since two thousand  our other guest today is susanna hazell the ely black professor of jewish studies at dartmouth college her scholarship his focus on jewish and christian interactions in germany during the one thousand dollars so many th centuries she's the author of numerous books and articles is a going home fall fellow and the recipient of numerous awards including for honorary doctorates she's been in the forefront of the jewish feminist movement writing about judaism from a feminist summer about organizing a fundraiser for reverend barber and the poor people's campaign and then him in person for the st time at the freedom seder with rabbi was go and reverend barber just a couple of months ago suzann was the person who introduced me to her old dear friend brian so we are all friends here trying to grapple with of difficult issues that can impact on progressive politics as a movement it's possible influence on american politics inside and outside the democratic party and its possible influence over the next election cycle the last thing progresses in the left need to do is divide and fracture the movement along class race religion or ethnic or gender lines and i know my guests on this show agree i'm so grateful that they're here today to help in our struggle to imagine when justice is what love looks like in public as we strive toward a more infusion and policy based on transformative radical love respect for all human and non human species on earth that sustains and has given us all life so welcome thank you so much thank you and and as we discussed we want to start off with each of your commitment and understanding and connection to israel  palestine and take a few minutes and make this as personal as you want to our audience is interested in what you come to believe and think and understand about both israel palestine for all of her work and i really look forward to the conversation it's really a privilege to be involved with this conversation so jim you shared a lot of what michelle alexander shared about me in her article and also beyond that you told a lot of my story i grew up in south africa i grew up in a very committed liberal zionist family and not only that i really  assimilated and believed in the zionist dream as sort of was conveyed to me i love the idea of the miracle of of israel after the holocaust providing a safe haven for jews i became a zionist i belong on to hobble name i made i immigrated to israel as a young man right after high school really feeling like there was no place for me in a party society and my role was to build an ideal jewish society that would reflect the highest moral values taught to me by scientists and as the goal of zionism itself was to provide safety and a place for us to really act out our moral values and to be tested in terms of history whether when jews have power would we treat those who are under our power or would we use our power in a just a way and unfortunately in terms of my life story i maybe will go back to some of the instances along the way but i became very involved in trying to build up that kind of israel i left israel thirty two and a half years after i emigrated there and then and went back to south africa and then came to america and from america as a person studying to be a rabbi and then it's a rabbi i've taken on this issue as critical i've taken it on as critical because when i as a child i learned st of all that justice and justice for those who are oppressed was the central piece of my judaism it wasn't for not that the ten commandments identifies god the source of all being as being the being who took us out of the land of slavery and that god is you today five he is totally associated with justice for those who are oppressed not only that i learnt that jewish experience historical experience taught us that and so i made that a central part that is a central part of my faith it's a spiritual issue for me and also my experience in south africa of course it to me to the incredible suffering that existed also in my own world and where i was privileged in south africa so that's a central spiritual issue for me i then supported various israeli human rights groups israelis committed against home demolition rabbis for human rights in israel and essentially from those people i gained access to see with my own eyes atrocities that are done daily by the state of israel that led me in two thousand and eight to finally realize after many many years that i could no longer identify as a zionists i could zionism had become a movement that implemented systemic discrimination on a daily basis on a people who had been dispossessed in the creation of the state of israel in more recent years i have realized as you pointed out that sadly with great heartbreak that in fact it was in some ways inevitable there was no way to create a jewish state on the land inhabited by a one million people with outs trying to move those one million people and it's not incidental that sign isn't in facts removed three quarters of the inhabitants of similar to me to south africa so it was great heartbreak that i came to realize that and i guess that's what michelle alexander highlighted in her piece was to highlight the fact that i had gone through a change of heart but i'm not alone many people have gone through that change of heart many people who haven't made a break with zionism are going through can be heart broken by israel as it develops into a more nationalis sure so my experience in many ways is similar to brian's except that i grew up in the united states new york in a very comfortable environment but very conscious of the racism in america which was pointed out to me by my father all the and he became active in the civil rights movement and do very strong connections between the experiences of poverty in that he had in poland and that african americans were experiencing in the united states that he also made it very clear that this was a for a systemic oppression especially in america that this was not some kind of accident let's say but that it was institutionalized i was deeply moved by the way he and dr king and so many others use the bible to make their point and the way that the bible and the prophets could speak to people and hard at the heart of hearts of america could be softened by invoking the prophets so it to be a jew for me meant to be a prophetic jew it was prophetic she isn't and so when i st went to israel what was most conscious to me was the history of my own family the fact that my mother's family had come here but my father's family while his mother was murdered three of his sisters his whole family was wiped out and that was something that i knew about from the time i was very little so israel was presented to me and i understood it as a kind of refuge produce and really is a miracle and i remember thinking is child it is incredible that a jew can be a firefighter or make an army and all of these things that i grew up thinking is this is not possible this is not a jewish thing i'm because in america all those things were done by gentiles so i was very proud of israel was only much later when i went as a student by myself to israel to the university and i suddenly started being attentive to what had been there was a lot when i saw for example harz stopped at a roadblock and it depending if you had an israeli plate or palestinian was it yellow was it blue and palestinians being stopped in the hot sun at sure of their engine stand outside their car and wait for a very lengthy period of time and i came home from that experience as so many other things that i observed and i remembered rushing to dinner that my father had since died but i went with my mother to somebodies home of we've gone every year and they asked me how was your year in israel and i was very happy it cetera but i said this is not a viable situation this is this is just like in the south it's kind of a segregation you can't treat people like this in this camp continue and a man of the table or israeli green that me and he turn purple and he waves and i had said this and honestly refusal to recognize which are so obvious from below jews sitting at a table so they were all angry at me i will say that we continue to be invited every year for russia china and after three or four years  always there every year who said to me you were right you so also recognize that all of us brian too i suppose and i would describe ourselves as having gone through a process of having our eyes open let's say being sensitive to the reality of not going to israel simply as a tourist with a large jewish group or your kind of insulated from everything but going is an individual and living in israel gives you a very different picture right and that way i see and the one hand it's devastating and depressing to see what brian has just described and on the other hand i have a little bit of hope because i do think that people can change and they can in fact open their eyes just like that under the table opened his eyes and i suppose that's what i hope the open if you eyes if i can i feel as though life is short i have a little bit of time what can i do i'm not going to change things one hundred and you know i don't know what that means frankly these terms i mean me must know you serve it ever for more than i don't know i don't like the labels so there were so many millions of different kinds of scientists from the beginning and it wasn't only a hot versus hertz all the other ecord all of these people probably would have been dropped hints he had said yeah give me a rifle i want an army so it depends on the moment rights i don't think of a kinski is for this moment i think the problem right now is that we're living in a moment and we have the wrong kind of zionism dominating was not  as we need right now and people need to understand where we are historically and politically and culturally is jews what is it that we need right now to to bring the conversation forward what is it we need to talk about was the was michelle article helpful how helpful in what ways was it perhaps you know  brian go ahead well i think what we need right now is exactly what susanna just talked about we need a prophetic judaism the problem is that judaism got wedded completely with is the critical faith statement of most jews today as a rabbi as a liberal rabbi i could criticize anything about jewish theology history ethics whatever i would people wouldn't do that and they wouldn't they wouldn't pay they wouldn't it wouldn't upset them in any way if i simply criticise the state of israel in any way all kinds of things like that dinner table that susanna you just described will happen in the congregation and i've experienced that so we need a prophetic judaism that is separate from science and that is judaism that's a spiritual tradition and not wedded to a national wedded to a nation state it may have a relationship to that for sure i would want it to have a relationship to it the relationship i would want it to have is a relationship as a prophetic judaism trying to help that st to as susanna says to open our eyes and to choose another course to change course to do choose to turn around and so that's what i think we need in our time and i think that  alexander's piece was such a piece written not by a jew it was a prophetic statement she made a prophetic statement and she refused to be silent about something that she felt she  people about this issue all the debates about about b d s in fact our attempts to silence people about this issue why it's b d s portrayed as anti semitic why is why are all palestinian advocates monitored and censored and they god forbid say something out of line and they're brought up as and the semitic and so on it's all a censoring done so as to silence to promote the orthodoxy of zionism and judaism and and the nexus between and we need to break that nexus and we need to be able to i think develop a prophetic judaism and a prophetic faith that transcends  judaism that's michel in fact i'm spoke about which is a prophetic religion that speaks truth to power doesn't necessarily make the comfortable more comfortable right it's a prophetic what i think we need at this moment through grace of their i fully agree with brian and i agree with him on all the points that is just made and i would just add to that one of the things that i find disturbing is that there's an assumption that design ism is something is jewish movement that israel is a jewish state but frankly i think zionism bandaging ism and the state of israel is a band of judaism and if this is the values that this is the behavior what happened to a sense of jewish values and jewish prophetic values this is a distortion of judaism and a lot of scholars have actually written about this how judaism has been misconstrued misused by what's developing now among the so called leadership in israel and we also know that there are israelis who join with us in this struggle and agree with us and who are in fact putting themselves our lives on the line i think of david children for example  among others women wage peace movement as well correct yes but you know i think the problem is that it's gotten harder in the country the politics in israel gotten harder and harsher over the years as they have in this country to i mean look what we're doing and that also i ask myself how much of that is coming you know people say that there was that ad and i'm rather the cartoon in the new york times international new york times people who make the argument that israel is in charge of american politics in misery is an old problematic trope that jews are running the world i don't like that tro i actually think that that israel is very much running at the behest of the united states in certain ways we as a country we americans and we have our military equipment and bases its outer etc located there we use israel also as a tool to give a kind of welfare system to the arms dealers and arms makers in this country we give foreign aid to israel so that is look at mentored around and buy jet planes and bombers etc from us which keeps our companies going and gives jobs to our workers so there is a relationship there that's very complicated israel doesn't stand by itself right so the progressive movement you do worry about fracturing along racial or ethnic lines as i mentioned in the introduction do you see that happening are you worried about  that i think it's fracturing along political lines and what bothers me is for example when black lives matter three years ago came out with the platform it was a very very very long platform that one paragraph about israel supporting b d s and all the jewish organizations that we're never going to talk to black lives matter that's it well no you know i'm a teacher what do i do i sit and talk to people i discuss i want to hear their viewpoints what should i talk to on with the people who agree with me black do that's exactly what we should be talking to if you don't agree with someone talk to them and the problem right now is that we only talk to people who have everybody know society know who's going to do the hard work of sitting down and talking to people legally disagree whose position they're in now that matter was right that's not so easy and they are no want to sit down with us and they persecute people like brian right and brian can you give us some insight in terms of commission it would be a wonderful day when there is a truth and reconciliation commission in the united states or in israel neither pullets either place but you only get to the truth and reconciliation commission once you have had a transformation of an unjust oppressive society it's only once a movement that is working for the prophetic goals of justice freedom and equality has achieved something of that or maybe a large part of it but usually they don't achieve everything they move the needle towards justice freedom and equality and this is a significant moving of that needle towards justice freedom and equality you don't really get a truth and justice  sion because the truth and justice commission is part of that transformation secondly i want to say it's a frocks question my own daughter arrived back from six months in south africa just last  night and i had this conversation with her this morning in the car about the truth and justice about the truth and reconciliation commission there are many many diverse feelings in south africa about the truth and reconciliation commission because it didn't it didn't demand that people who had committed atrocities of the highest order that would just make your spouse you or your blood boil yes you would just be devastated by hearing the cruelty of it and they were until they could come together and then somehow their victims were encouraged to forgive them and some of the victims said there's no way i'm forgiving them i'm not going to forgive them until they take accountability true accountability for what they did they not going to just stand up here and say ok i this is what i did maybe to say i'm really sorry for what i did and they need to do some reparation they need to needs to be some way in which my my birth is repaired and so so it's a complicated it's a complicated question i don't want to say it's an easy question on the up and what's the alternative what's the alternative and i think that's what motivated to multiple people were just let off for acknowledging that they did it and now today they may be rich white south africans living in the suburbs living the life much like they lived pre black citizens that they oppressed are still living as poor people in a society that's incredibly i'm equal so there are mixed feelings about the truth and reconciliation transformation it went through a transformation that involved political equality more political equality but not economic equality and so in south africa today black citizens for the most part are in the was there in two thousand and twelve as it happened one friday morning there was a front page article about a strike of black workers of mine and the police that opened fire and massacred a whole bunch of them i remember the exact number that night i went to a local synagogue for the service friday night service and the chief rabbi of south africa came to give the sermon that might just by chance and he spoke about everything everything but he didn't mention what had just happened  say what they say how he rushed me off he brushed me off now turned away wasn't interested would even give me an answer let me the jews a south africa that i met and that's just one occasion one moment let's say but if they're not engaged and they don't care about a massacre that just happened they're living in their own bubble they are living in south africa but they are not part of south africa of the country of the culture of the promise of the future of the hope that's not how one can live now i think in israel woods going on is somewhat different somewhat the same that is you don't make peace by having two leaders signed a treaty there has to be a cultural revolution the country has to want peace and has to embrace it and has to embrace peace with palestinians and that means a great deal it means in fact truth you know as well as reconciliation and they haven't gotten there and i see just what happened this past few days in berlin when the director of the jewish museum had to resign and he was attacked among other things for an exhibit on jerusalem the city of jerusalem right why because he mentioned that not only jews the christians and muslims also long for jerusalem well that's true but the of the things one of the things i wrestle with a lot is the sort of mythology that every nation state has the right and the mythology that we were taught about the nation state of israel which of course has as many lies in its story as is the myth but as the mythology of the united states of america all the mythology i was taught about the history of south africa and the question for jews is are we going to be able to face the truth about the founding of israel given work hughes said and which i agree with i totally agree with for me as well as a child and even now i see the founding of israel as a miracle of all those folk jews who were massacred in europe and the refugees those who survived afterwards to go and live in a jewish space that would provide them with safety and security that does seem like something that's profoundly moving and on the level of thinking of it as miraculous and yet i know that that miracle if it was a miracle is the reality is that the story i was told and that you were undoubtedly told as a child is simply a pack of lies now i actually heard that story directly from bin gouri on about what happened in one thousand nine hundred and forty eight and he went through all the out of basic propaganda out there which was that no palestinian was expelled told we offer to ensure that they can stay in their houses that they would be protected by the state no one was thrown out and in in fact what happened was arab propagandists offered them two houses if they went out and forty four  for the the ending of the zionist movement up till that point so all of that is he started plea totally inaccurate it's just totally smudges it's not true it's not a true story but then nation states aren't usually don't was only directed to the holocaust but it is a project that came out of the the the violence of christian anti semitism for jews in europe and so that for us to face the truth that that that jewish state was created based on the dispossession of another people is something that is really at the heart of the truth that jews are going to have to rappel that's not going to have because politicians do lie and create myths and seek to escapade themselves as been going and did i agree with you and so i'm grateful for example to benny morris for the work he did  the birth of the palestinian refugee problem where he pointed out that some ballast in eons left their homes because they were fleeing war and scared and some were told by advancing arab armies get out of the way and some were expelled by jewish forces israeli forces told them to get out but the real issue isn't even the expulsion as much as that is the refusal of the israeli government at the end of the war to allow the palestinians to return to their homes but that's really the even bigger problem and scandal and what do we do with that and i have to the problem today to be seems though of course it's even worse one might say that is when we talk this way we are thinking in our minds about human rights about the rule of law of what's acceptable and not acceptable we think about principles of justice for example and what a state has to do it's really the responsibility of a state toward  citizens and toward the accident has done in the past and in the present in the future etc etc and my concern right now is that there are a growing number of israelis who couldn't care less about the state what they want is the land  religious leadership for example and that's a kind of anarchy that takes is even beyond what we could have imagined in our worst most depressing moments were even more traumatized population on both sides correct say it's going to feel sometimes as though the whole world has been drinking poison water and it's a kind of virus because i see this kind of rejection of the state around the world including in this country don't you think look how trump has destroyed just destroyed the state department and abandon diplomacy don't you think it's people want to get rid of a supreme court altogether institutions of the state they don't want to finance anything you know no taxes no fire department no schools let them all be privatized the prisons the concentration camps that are being run right now for people seeking asylum that are in for profit is and others poor people's campaign are testifying before congress to try to develop that narrative which we haven't had so many decades listening to the lea this country are there forces in israel palestine that are trying to do the same what are the koran reconciliation relate i mean personally i i feel an obligation as a jew to support the demand of the oak pressed for justice equality and that's a basic demand that's a basic demand that i think god makes of human beings to support and definitely what i think god demands of jews to support is justice freedom and equality each human being is created in the image of god  another child of god who happens to be jewish or christian or muslim or who wondered or whatever or children of god entitled to justice and there is movements i mean the irony here is there is a movement that palestinians created that was in nonviolent movements right that is a nonviolent movement that cause for pressure to be brought on the state of israel to change its ways and to do and somehow israel governments evangelical christians i'm not sure of all the players jewish organizations have decided to brand that movement as the central issue and to branded as anti semitism and to make n t semitism the focus that energy semitism the problem there the problem here is oppression and inequality may be it is true that there is any semitism too and it is a problem but the primary problem here is oppression is oppression of palestinians and that's what we need to have as religious people in front of us that needs to be that needs to be what guides us so that i find for me i support the boycott divestment and sanctions movement because i think it's a movement run by the oppressed calling for freedom and equality that's what it's basically about and calling for it with nonviolence now i don't but i could disagree with one of its goals or another for instance many jews will say that the the call for the return of refugees is a is a is a is a code for the destruction of israel and it's not buyable whatever but even then great st of all i think as susanna said those refugees have the rights to return whether it's possible for them to return will be worked out but it's definitely possible for large numbers of palestinians who were expelled from israel to return to israel without anything bad happening to jews in israel without them many certificates of trees that were planted in israel to reclaim their lands quote unquote later in my life i've learnt that those trees like most other trees of the j n f that were  ground just demolished and on top of it a forest was planted with money that was given to me for my apartments that there needs to peer redress that needs to be addressed and there needs to be re dress for that we need to have in mind that those people palestinians have the rights to equality freedom and justice and choose some how many jews have framed only realized the so intensely this past week as a result of an interfaith dialogue i did in if you can new york last week that in some ways jews have from the outset miss understood palestinian resistance to zionism as anti semitism basically seeing palestinian resistance to the creation of the state of this realm as a form of anti semitism now in fact sign is them as i said earlier was propel by christian anti semitism christian anti semitism made it impossible for jews to live in europe in safety and so jews want to get out quite understandably and find a safe space but not at the expense of another people and then calling those other people anti semitic for not agree to the displaced to their own displacement and dispossession so the racist notion that this was a land without a people for a people without and that's exactly what it is it's a racist colonial notion because any sane human being would understand that on that land just as on the land of all the land in africa there were people who were living there and they were real people children  know those people have their rights to be where they are and so that's what we need to i believe that that's where i go with my that's what i support in the world that's what i support in the and i do anything to help their work do anything to help their work because i think it's it needs to be a joint project ultimately the oppressed need to fight for their freedom and we need to support that but ultimately it will what should happen is so i appreciate everything brian has said i would just die and there's a lot more of course we could could have either have or statesman from one time i think american jews also have a responsibility and play a very significant role i know that in the united states there is a sense of horror among a lot of jews really a sizeable number about the policies of the state of israel and they want to see him major change and that's one of the reasons that the current prime minister and has turned to the even talk of christian community for support they support him i think i with more enthusiasm that american jews do most american jews so what can we do then in this situation it puts us in a very difficult bind but we do try to talk to explain to have conversation and to get porton for us to st of all boaster bolster the notion of a state and a state has responsibility secure for its citizens and we can't let the state be rejected