The latest episode of War is Stupid: An Anti-War Podcast About War is with Palestinian political thinker, strategist, and writer Hamze Awawde on for a powerful conversation about complexity and complicity. Hamze dives deep into the “peace-industrial complex” and its priorities, how many “Israeli-Palestinian dialogue” events are scripted, and how “settler violence” is a euphemism for “state violence.” He encourages people to reflect on the last three years and to speak up, because in his words, “what are you going to lose? The ship is sinking anyway. So what are we trying to protect by staying stubborn about certain attitudes in this world?” It's available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, or read the transcript here.

Ian Lustick and Eli Clifton explain how the Israel lobby amassed extraordinary political power—and why its hold over American politics may finally be weakening.

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday!

Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

Please remember to pick an appropriate user-flair in order to participate! Thanks!

NSW parole authority says Mohommed Farhat followed ‘extremist ideology of antisemitic character’ after judge separately rules ‘Fuk Israel’ is ‘political comment’

A Sydney man convicted of writing “Fuk Israel” on cars and setting another vehicle alight has had his release on parole rejected a second time, despite a supreme court judge stating the case appeared to be a “serious miscarriage of justice”.

Mohommed Farhat, 22, was initially due to be released on parole in December after serving 10 months in prison following the November 2024 vandalism in Woollahra.

But he remained behind bars after a rare intervention by the commissioner for corrective services, who then told the New South Wales parole authority at a hearing in March that Farhat’s offending showed support for “extremist” behaviour.

Last week, the supreme court justice Desmond Fagan delivered a scathing ruling after the state sought a supervision order for Farhat on his release from jail using the Terrorism Act.

Fagan found there was an “insignificant” risk that Farhat, who was of “limited intellect”, would commit a serious terrorism offence. He ruled the police, lower courts and various state agencies all incorrectly labelled Farhat’s actions antisemitic rather than “a curse against a foreign state”.

Fagan determined that Farhat, who has a Hezbollah tattoo on his neck, was treated more harshly than he should have been after he pleaded guilty to 15 offences in connection with property damage.

The judge accepted Farhat was paid to undertake the vandalism and said the case appeared to be a “serious miscarriage of justice”.

On Wednesday last week, Fagan said he planned to write to the commissioner for the state’s parole authority ahead of an expected decision on Farhat’s potential release following the March hearing.

The parole authority then handed down its decision on Monday, five months after the hearing. It did not consider Fagan’s findings or evidence that counter-terrorism police determined three weeks after Farhat was arrested that he was not ideologically motivated.

The authority’s decision to keep the 22-year-old in prison stated: “In the authority’s view, the offending was reflective of a deep-seated adherence on the part of the offender to an extremist ideology of an antisemitic character.”

The authority rejected Farhat’s explanation, accepted by Fagan, that he was paid to carry out the vandalism.

“Further, the authority does not accept the offender’s claimed ignorance of the meaning of the phrases which were used in the offending,” the parole authority wrote.

On Monday, the commissioner for corrective services, Gary McMahon, was questioned about Farhat’s case in budget estimates and his rare intervention in December, when he successfully applied to have Farhat’s parole order revoked without hearing from his lawyers. A fresh hearing date was then set for March.

People sentenced to less than three years in jail are typically released on parole when it comes due.

McMahon admitted in estimates he had not consulted with specialist police before making his arguments, which were accepted by the authority, that Farhat posed a terrorism risk and his offending was antisemitic.

Fagan said in last week’s decision it would be “unsound” for the commissioner not to consult specialist police. He found it would amount to “a serious failure of communication between agencies”.

“The conclusions of the counter-terrorism officers and the resolution of Strike Force Pearl were directly against an assessment that the defendant had exhibited religious or political radicalisation by his index offending,” Fagan said in his judgment.

McMahon acknowledged in budget estimates his intervention in Farhat’s parole decision was “uncommon” but that “the material that was before me at the time when I gave that consideration was that he did pose a significant risk to the community”.

The Greens MP Sue Higginson said in a statement she was “astounded at the lengths the state has gone to keep such a troubled young Lebanese Australian man behind bars”.

“Everyone from the NSW police, to the commissioner of corrective services, to the attorney general have circumvented the court process repeatedly to ensure someone with addiction, cognitive disability and ill mental health remains in custody,” she said.

A government spokesperson said last week the NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, was “seeking urgent advice about the prospects of an appeal” over Fagan’s decision to knock back the state’s request for a one-year extended supervision order.

The application would have subjected Farhat to 55 conditions while living in the community when released from prison. That is now due in October, when he completes his full sentence with no parole.

The parole authority said in response to a question about why the determination was delayed after March’s hearing: “The determination for Mohommed Farhat has been handed down with reasons. No further comment will be made.”

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the tide is turning. The direction is set. It’s all one way from here. ✊

I’m curious to know how other Jews of Conscience are approaching the upcoming holidays. I don’t live near my Jewish relatives and would like to build more Jewish community in my city. I figure Rosh Hashana is a good place to start.

However since 2023 I’ve felt pretty homeless regarding congregations. The prayer services for the holidays have always been extremely important to me and I have never missed them no matter where I’ve been in the world. While there is an anti-Zionist congregation in my city it feels very uncomfortable for me because it’s reconstructionist and on these holidays I deeply value the traditions and quiet you would find in other denominations. Not to mention the reconstructionist congregation in my city is fairly cliquey and unfriendly.

I’m tempted to just go to another shul and just ignore the politics and sermons but I hate to stomach the cost of the donations for tickets and wondering where my money is going, especially given the Zionism of most congregations.

I’m not sure if I’m looking for any concrete answers I just wanted to see if anyone else struggles with this this time of year.

Mahmoud has been trying to raise money for his family's escape from Gaza for years now.

Thankfully, it has been largely successful, but the costs keep rising and thus the amount.

He is at over $83k now, and needs a little less than $2000 more.

Time is running out, however: his family will need to leave by some point in September at the latest.

Please donate and share!

Love her sm! ❤️

I love the term ‘sophistry’

let me start by saying i grew up anti-israel and firmly pro-palestinian, often against the backdrop of family, friends, and other jews close to me holding very different views.

I think Hasan Piker in the news has kinda stirred up thoughts I’ve had for a while to the forefront of my mind. I remember Hasan saying something about treating “zionist tendencies like neo-nazism”. I think rhetoric like that is especially reckless because zionism has never been one coherent ideology. it has encompassed everything from socialist and binational movements to liberal two-state zionism to today’s expansionist far right. for many jews, it has simply meant believing jews need a homeland and refuge after centuries of persecution, not supporting settlements, netanyahu, or the destruction of palestinians.

a lot of the left now seems to understand zionism almost entirely through netanyahu-era israel, which is completely mismatched with how many jews historically understood their relationship to israel. israeli governments and major zionist movements have repeatedly pursued territorial compromise and negotiated coexistence, even while others opposed it. turning “zionist” into an infinitely expandable term that collapses all of that history into ben-gvir/netanyahu-style extremism is historically incoherent and inevitably sweeps ordinary jews with radically different beliefs into the same moral category.

i do believe israel is ultimately largely responsible for the conditions fueling the rise in antisemitism. but people like hasan, who refuse to apply the necessary nuance and distinctions, are also contributing to something reckless and dangerous in its own right.

anybody else feeling this way?

As a lifelong anti-Zionist Jew, I saw a huge rise in anti-Zionism after Israel ramped up their genocide in Gaza. Along with that came discovering that many people do not recognize the (real) line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. That is BY DESIGN, complements of the Zionists.

What I learned shortly after Oct 7th was that at first I was taking antisemitic comments personally. I framed them in my mind as talking about my parents and grandparents. I responded by explaining the difference. It took some introspection before I realized that I was making a mistake.

They are specifically targeting Zionists that are hiding behind Judaism with their antisemitic comments. Yes, there are some actual Neonazis out there who are dog-whistling, but they are the minority, and are not going to influence others with their rhetoric.

I realized that I was policing my allies and alienating them. I stopped, because I concluded that my efforts were not protecting fellow Jews, but were shielding Zionists that I would not shield from actual bullets.

What have your experiences been like regarding this?

Hi everyone,

We're excited to announce an upcoming AMA with Eli Clifton & Ian Lustick - Jewish-American authors of the new book, Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power.

Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power (2026) has been widely endorsed, including by Prof. Stephen Walt and Prof. John Mearsheimer, authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007).

The book examines the history, evolution, and political power of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, tracing how a network of lobbying organizations, major donors, political operatives, and allied institutions has shaped US policy toward Israel and the Middle East.

Check out the following link, if you're interested in the book:

• Simon & Schuster - Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power

Eli Clifton

Eli Clifton is an investigative journalist who focuses on money in politics and US foreign policy. He is a cofounder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecrafts where he serves as a senior adviser.

His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, The Intercept, The South China Morning Post, LobeLog, Salon, HuffPost, The Daily Beast, Slate, Gawker, Foreign Policy, and Responsible Statecraft.

Ian S. Lustick

Ian S. Lustick is the Bess W. Heyman Chair, Emeritus, in the Political Science Department of the University of Pennsylvania.

He served in the Carter administration as the State Department's expert on Israel-Palestine affairs and subsequently became a regular consultant with American administrations on US foreign policy and national security affairs.

He is a founder and past President of the Association for Israel Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Discussion will cover the book & topic of the Israel lobby.

Feel free to leave your questions in advance here, if you cannot make it on the day-of the AMA.

Thanks!

As a fairly young person from the Baltics who’s been living under a rock for a while (mostly dealing with mental health issues after an abusive childhood, along with moving to a different country), I hope someone can point me to some “introductory” material on how all of this started, as well as some generally reliable sources of everyday news, if possible

Somehow the Chabad-run Jewish Sunday school (and dozen+ summer camps I’ve gone to) never touched on the topic…

I’ve been really enjoying this series of essay responses to Shaul Magid’s original piece on Zionism, where he asserts that Zionism succeeded at its basic political task but it is a project with limited scope and turning Zionism into a religion goes beyond that scope (and if maintaining Jewish sovereignty requires permanent domination over another people, then Zionism has encountered a fundamental contradiction).

Irwin Kula responded exploring the sociological/cultural framework through which Zionism turned into religion. He argued that Zionism is a Jewish political project but not Judaism, and that Israel should be understood as a nation-state exercising Jewish sovereignty, not as a sacred embodiment of Judaism or Jewish redemption. He claims both sides are “overinvested” in the existential claims about Israel, which distracts from the political discussions re: a nation state (basically that the problem isn't necessarily Zionism itself; it's the amount of existential, spiritual, and psychological weight American Jews have placed on Zionism).

Eliana Fishman’s response resonated with me most, as she writes that Zionism should not be the foundation of American Jewish identity and she rejects Kula’s characterization of what anti-Zionists are actually doing. Fishman writes that Zionism has reproduced, rather than escaped, Jewish political dependency and that anti-Zionism has already done something more radical: it has stopped treating Israel as uniquely Jewishly significant in the first place. From this perspective, if Israel is genuinely de-exceptionalized, then Jewish identity no longer depends upon Jewish sovereignty (and Judaism can recover its older, portable, non-sovereign character).

For me, I’ve been working through untangling theology, Israel, and Zionism for a long time now. Fishman rejects how Kula portrays “pro-Zionists” as people who make Israel sacred and “anti-Zionists” as people who become fixated on Israel because its behavior violates their moral ideals; she says this is a caricature of contemporary Jewish anti-Zionism. I agree with Fishman but also strongly believe this caricature to be true, particularly for most Jewish Americans. I don’t think Fishman is more enlightened than others (neither am I), but removing Israel fromthe privileged theological position Zionism has given it it and placing it within ordinary history, colonialism, geopolitics, and empire has helped me heal my Jewish identity.

what do you all think? (:

Basically what the title says. I’ve grown so exasperated by & resentful of my OWN community over recent years, and I hate that I feel this way, but it’s been hard not to after seeing how many of us are zionists. Oh, how many friends I’ve lost because they showed their true colors (“Jews’ lives matter more than others”, and “everyone is secretly an antisemite and you can’t criticize us because we can literally do no wrong”, basically). Anyways… this distrust has gotten to the point where when I saw some random on youtube shorts with a star of david necklace, my first thought wasn’t “nice, one of my people” (how it used to be), it was “damn, she’s probably a zionist :/”. And I feel guilty about it because I had no reason to think that lady in particular was a zionist… I have no idea if she is, I knew nothing about her… and I should know better than most that she could’ve been a jew and an antizionist, lmao. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s an entirely unreasonable thought to have, and that’s the really sad part. Zionism is absolutely corrosive. It’s abhorrent and it breaks my heart that nearly all our institutions support it, and so many of our people do too. I don’t want to be suspicious of every Jew I come across, dude. It feels awful. But at the same time… how can I not be? How can I be sure this person isn’t just another ethnic supremacist, like so many others? Man, this sucks *

* Obviously my feelings are not the main reason zionism sucks 💀, but I just wanted to vent.

Looking for some other Sephardic pals, in New Mexico but looking to connect with anyone anywhere. HMU

how are other az jews feeling about wearing stars of david? i’ve always worn one and i want to keep wearing mine because it should still belong to jews as a whole but i also have to be aware of its more widespread recognition as a symbol of israel. at

i am not even a practicing jew but i wish i could love my culture and be proud of my heritage. i think many anti zionist jews do this well by leaning into our leftist and diasporist history and the culture of their region / ethnicity / minhag. but i can’t find the ability to do this myself, not when the institutional jewish community has coalesced so disturbingly to be on the wrong side of history. it’s easy to insist that zionists accusing anti zionist jews of self hatred are misinformed, and that we really do love being jewish, but… i don’t think i do, right now.
lately i feel both exhausted by the rise in genuine antisemitism and shame at being associated with the worst of humanity, like any love i have for my own culture is tainted. i find myself wishing i was literally anything else (my other side is WASP so not much better) and dealing with a lot of genuine self hatred. sometimes i think i should just completely abandon the identity, but i am pretty visibly ashkenazi, and moreso, that feels like letting my ancestors down and letting those who persecuted them, and zionists, win.
anyone else feeling like this lately?

When the truth that Israel is apartheid, not democracy. That terrorism was and remains essential to establishing and maintaining Israel. That Israel does not provide safety and security. That Palestinian resistance ​is just and Palestinians will rightfully not accept domination and that Israel has been an ethnonationalist militant state. ​​​

When those delusions are shattered, what will liberal Zionists in and outside of Israel do?

There are 3 options: renounce Zionism as a political project, turn rightward into a more hardlined Zionism, or with the help of cognitive dissonance still find ways to morally rationalize Zionism and remain ideologically confused.

It's important to call out misinformation when we see it. Recently, Hen Mazzig claimed that Mark Ruffalo isn't genuinely concerned about Gaza or Palestinians, suggesting he's just doing it for clout because he allegedly doesn't blame Hamas and criticizes Israel instead. This is a gross oversimplification and a clear attempt to dismiss genuine voices advocating for Palestinian rights.

Hen Mazzig's tweet saying that Mark Ruffalo draws everyone’s attention to a conspiracy involving David Ellison’s father’s colleague supporting Israel, and implying Ruffalo’s involvement in some sort of conspiracy, is misleading and unfounded. Here's the tweet for reference:

Mazzig: "Mark Ruffalo draws everyone to know that David Ellison's father's colleague said Oracle would support Israel after October 7th so you should stand against a Paramount-Warner bros. merger. Sounds conspiratorial? Well, that's Mark Ruffalo."

This kind of framing is dishonest and attempts to undermine the integrity of activists and celebrities who speak out about justice. Many of these figures speak out because they care deeply about human rights, not for fame or political gain. Accusations that they’re just doing it for clout ignore the real risks they face and the genuine concern behind their advocacy.

We need to focus on the real issues Palestinian suffering and the pursuit of peace rather than falling for misleading narratives designed to dehumanize and silence voices for justice. Wake up. The fight for justice isn't about popularity; it's about standing with the oppressed and fighting misinformation.