Sumaya Awad, brian bean, Khury Petersen-Smith, and Jehad Abusalim have a timely discussion about Palestine, socialism, and anti-imperialist solidarity across borders, marking the release of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction.

Winning freedom in Palestine necessitates contending with the forces of capitalism, just as the struggle for socialism will have to take on US imperialism. A broadening movement of workers and activists see the injustices they oppose as common expressions of a cruel and irrational system—capitalism, and understand the need to posit a humane alternative: socialism. At the same time, the centrality of the Palestinian liberation struggle is becoming more and more apparent to leftists who see the relationship between liberation within the US and beyond its borders. As the US socialist movement continues to grow, it is critical that it embraces anti-imperialism, and the cause of Palestinian liberation in particular. Just as significantly, it is crucial that the growing Palestine movement orients toward socialist politics, as the only plausible means to achieve justice regionally and internationally.

Sumaya Awad and brian bean, editors of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, are joined for a discussion about these themes by contributors Khury Petersen-Smith and Jehad Abusalim.

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction systematically tackles a number of important aspects of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, contextualizing it in an increasingly polarized world and offering a socialist perspective on how full liberation can be won. Contributors include: Jehad Abusalim, Shireen Akram-Boshar, Omar Barghouti, Nada Elia, Toufic Haddad, Omar Hassan, Remi Kanazi, Annie Levin, Mostafa Omar, Khury Petersen-Smith, and Daphna Thier.

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Speakers:

Sumaya Awad is a Palestinian writer, analyst, and socialist organizer based in New York City. Her writings focus on Palestinian liberation, anti-imperialism, Islamophobia, and immigration, and have been featured in the Feminist Wire, In These Times, Open City, the Middle East Solidarity magazine, and Slate, among others. She is co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction.

brian bean is a Chicago-based socialist activist, writer, and speaker originally from North Carolina. He is one of the founding editors of Rampant magazine. His work has been published in Jacobin, Socialist Worker, Red Flag, International Viewpoint, Bel Ahmar بالأحمر) ) and other publications. He is co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction.

Khury Petersen-Smith researches, writes, and organizes about US empire, Palestine, solidarity, and resistance. He is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is a cofounder of Black 4 Palestine, an organization of Black people in the US building solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle.

Jehad Abusalim is a PhD candidate in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. He studies Arab intellectual writings on Zionism from the first half of the twentieth century. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and Hebrew from Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He has been published in +972 Magazine, Al Jazeera, Palestine Square, Journal for Palestine Studies, and Vox.