Before we begin today’s episode of This Week in Palestine, we must pause to mark a political moment that reverberates far beyond city limits. Zohran Mamdani has just been elected mayor of New York City—a victory that defies precedent, expectation, and the machinery of power itself.
He didn’t just win an election.
He dismantled a narrative.
Mamdani defeated billionaires, lobbyists, and even the sitting president’s preferred candidate. He did so not by softening his stance, but by sharpening it. He refused to be silent on Palestine. He refused to visit Israel. He refused to play the game of appeasement. And for that, he was smeared, accused, and targeted. But the people of New York chose principle over propaganda. They chose clarity over compromise.
His victory is more than symbolic. It signals a shift in American political discourse—a shift that centers justice, affordability, and international accountability. It tells us that being pro-Palestine is no longer political suicide. It is political courage.
And that courage brings us to the heart of today’s episode.
We turn now to a clip titled “Professor Exposes Secret Origins of the Israel Project,” featuring Dr. Yakov M. Rabkin—a historian whose work challenges the very foundation of Zionism. Rabkin, professor emeritus at the University of Montreal, argues that Zionism was not born in the Holy Land, but imported from Europe as a colonial ideology.
He writes that Zionism is “a radical break from Jewish tradition,” rooted not in theology but in 19th-century European nationalism.
He reveals how early Zionists formed alliances with antisemites—not out of shared values, but shared goals: to remove Jews from Europe.
And he documents how traditional Jewish communities overwhelmingly rejected Zionism, seeing it as a betrayal of spiritual identity and ethical responsibility.
Rabkin’s critique is not anti-Jewish. It is deeply Jewish.
It is rooted in exile, humility, and the belief that justice cannot be built on dispossession.
So as we reflect on Mamdani’s win—a mayor who centers Palestine in his politics—we also reflect on the deeper history that brought us here.
A history of ideas imported from Europe.
A history of resistance erased.
A history that demands to be retold.