This week, we hear from researcher and activist Dr. Sadia Agsous-Bienstein, recorded at a teach-in hosted at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies in Naarm/Melbourne.

Sadia speaks on the erased histories of Arab–Jewish solidarities and their meaning in the current moment of genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by Israel and its Zionist footsoldiers — including descendants of Jewish communities of North Africa and the Middle East.

From anti-fascist resistance in colonial Algeria, to Arab solidarities against European antisemitism, to shared struggles against colonial rule in the Maghreb and Mashreq, Sadia traces how Western colonial divide-and-rule and Zionist settler-colonialism fractured and erased attempts at common life and joint struggle between Jews, Arab-Muslims, and Palestinians.

In the second half of the show, Tasnim Sammak joins Sadia in conversation to reflect on what these histories mean in the current moment of genocide in Gaza — and how remembering solidarities is itself an act of resistance.

Sadia mentions the following authors in her talk:

• Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew. London: Oneworld Publications, 2019.
• Ella Shohat, On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements. London: Pluto Press, 2017.
• Rashid Hussein, Selected Poems. Edited by Adina Hoffman, translated by Sasson Somekh. Jerusalem: Ibis Editions, 2002.
• Sadia Agsous, Le dialogue culturel entre Palestiniens et Israéliens dans les années 1950 : Rashed Hussein et Sasson Somekh, histoire d’un rendez-vous manqué, dossier spécial,  L’histoire culturelle des relations entre Juifs et Arabes en Palestine/Israël de la fin du XIXe siècle au début du XXIe siècle, Revue d’histoire culturelle XVIIIe-XXIe siècles, 2021.
• Mahmoud Darwish, interview cited in Elia J. Ayoub, The Jewish and Arab Questions and European Fascism, eliaayoub.com, 22 May 2021.

Please note the guest lecture was co-organised by Tasnim Sammak and this week's presenter, Scheherazade Bloul.