The Mondoweiss Podcast: 64. Katie Halper: Why Jews should support Palestine, lessons from the holocaust, and a message to Amy Schumer

64. Katie Halper: Why Jews should support Palestine, lessons from the holocaust, and a message to Amy Schumer

Dec 7, 2023

The so-called "humanitarian pause" in Israel's assault on Gaza ended just days ago, and already nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed.

The Israeli military released a map dividing Gaza into over 2,000 small sections. They say they will notify Palestinians in each of these sections when they plan to bomb or invade it so that the Palestinians can move to a different section. People have compared this to the Hunger Games or similar dystopian stories.

As a result, Palestinians in Gaza continue to be squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces with nowhere to go and not nearly enough food, medicine, and fuel entering the area to sustain human life.

The international community continues to wring its hands without doing anything to stop Israel. In fact, led by the Biden administration in the United States, most of the Western nations continue to stand firmly behind Israel. Biden wants to lift the few small restrictions on arms transfers that do exist between the United States and Israel so that, presumably, the Israeli military can increase its attacks on Gaza.

Because of his blanket support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Joe Biden's approval ratings continue to sink lower with the exact voting blocks he will need in the upcoming presidential election, an election, we are told, that will determine whether U.S. democracy will even exist anymore.

However dark this moment may seem, we can take heart that the mass protests sparked by Israel's brutality are continuing unabated across the United States and the world. The past two months have seen people mobilizing for Palestine in huge numbers.

Jewish Americans, in particular, have turned out in larger numbers than ever before and in far more militant ways. Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now have carried out dozens of nonviolent direct actions across the country, shutting down highways, bridges, train stations, and institutions like colleges and even Congressional office buildings.

In this episode, our Palestine News Director, Yumna Patel, speaks with Katie Halper about why Jews should support the Palestinian cause. Katie talks about lessons she's taken from the Holocaust and has a special message for high-profile Jewish Americans like Amy Schumer. Katie is a journalist, activist, and filmmaker who hosts the Katie Halper Show and the podcast Useful Idiots.

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