Gaza has been in the news for nearly two months now. Tonight’s South Asia edition of APEX Express is about uplifting South Asian solidarity with Palestine. Our multiple screens have been a tumultuous barrage of stories from West Asia the last few weeks, of Palestinian struggle and Israeli occupation, and a genocide unfolding on our collective clock of inhumanity.
In the first half of tonight’s show, co-producer Anuj Larvaidya talks to Sunaina Maira and Gabi Kirk to help make sense of this moment. They discuss the historical context and complexities, about the ecological impacts of the war on the region, about how we can plug into the growing Boycott-Divest-Sanctions or the BDS movement, and about faith-washing – how matters of land and settler colonialism are spun as matters of religious rights and persecution.
In the second half of the episode Preeti Gamzeh speaks with journalist Azad Essa about the relationship between India and Israel. How post-independence, India tried to be in solidarity with Palestine – but really was not; and how and where Hindu fundamentalism or Hindutva and Zionism intersect.
LEARN MORE AND PARTICIPATE:
Learn more about the BDS movement here: https://bdsmovement.net/ and https://www.whoprofits.org/
Join the BDS movement by organizing a No Appetite for Apartheid campaign in your localality or region: dsapalestine.link/NA4AInterestForm
ABOUT OUR GUESTS:
Sunaina Maira is a professor of Asian American studies at UC Davis. Her research and teaching focus on Asian, Arab, and Muslim American youth culture, migrant rights and refugee organizing, and transnational movements challenging militarization, imperialism, and settler colonialism. She is the author of the book Boycott! The Academy and Justice for Palestine. You can learn more about her work at: https://culturalstudies.ucdavis.edu/people/sunaina-maira
Gabi Kirk is a graduate student in the Geography department at UC Davis. Working between political ecology, feminist geographies, and geographies of colonialism, her dissertation project examines how Palestinian farmers and sustainable development institutions in the northern West Bank use agro-ecological practices in order to challenge normative notions of sovereignty.You can learn more about her research at: https://www.gabikirk.com/research.html
Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg, South Africa and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia and race in the US. He has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and the Guardian, and his newest book is the highly timely, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel. You can learn more about his work at: https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/azad-essa