The Martyrmade Podcast

We’re halfway through Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem, the history of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (If you haven’t listened to the first two episodes, you might want to do that for background, but this episode is an exploratory aside that can stand on its own as well.) I decided to throw something together to answer a few questions and get down in the weeds to talk about Arab tribal dynamics, honor culture, religion, and the mutual incomprehension that helped construct the Middle Eastern mousetrap a century ago, and remains an obstacle to progress in the region today. Check it out on iTunes! Check it out on Stitcher!

The Arabs and the Zionists in Palestine struggle to get their bearings in a ruined world. The smell of gunsmoke still lays thick over the landscape, and the ink is still wet on the Balfour Declaration and the several new international agreements. The First World War is over, and people around the world are demanding their independence in the new world order. But building a national identity takes more than just drawing lines on a map or running a rag up a flagpole. (Catch up on Episode #1 here.) Click here to listen on iTunes! Click here to listen on Stitcher!

The conflict between Israel and Palestine can often seem like a permanent feature of the global order. The wars, intifadas, refugees camps, suicide vests, UN resolutions, and peace talks have been painfully burned into our collective consciousness. But how could this have happened? Was it always this way? That’s what we’ll seek to find out in this three-part series on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Episode #1, nations are rallying to throw off the yoke of the Great Powers, and demanding the sovereign right to rule their homelands. A group calling themselves Zionists puts out a call to awaken the oppressed Jews of Europe from their thousand-year slumber. The time had come, after two thousand years of homeless wandering, to return to Palestine, the land longed for in so many psalms and lamentations. But there was a problem. While the Jews were in exile, another people had moved into the land, and they had been living there for 1300 years. Click here to listen on iTunes Or here for Stitcher! Oh, and a review would be appreciated! Thanks for listening. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section or via e-mail. Part Two of this series will be along shortly, and I encourage you to subscribe so you’ll be the first to know. Enjoy!