[ICSS 20250406] Weaponizing Antisemitism by Project Esther - Seth Morrison

Project Esther is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap to destroy the pro-Palestine movement in the US. This McCarthy era-like project falsely conflates anti-zionism with antisemitism and then deceptively accuses pro-Palestine activists of antisemitism. Our speaker, Seth Morrison, is a leader in the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an articulate advocate to peace in West Asia, and a campaigner against the criminalization of pro- Palestinian speech. He has been active in Jewish organizations throughout his life. He was formerly a leader in J Street and other Jewish organizations, before joining JVP and becoming a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist and an anti-zionist. He is on the national board of JVP Action and a leader in the Bay Area chapter of JVP. Professionally he is retired from a career in marketing and product development in the cable television industry. An interview with our speaker on this subject was recently published in Counterpunch: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/27/the-persecution-of-anti-zionist-jews/ On a related issues, he and a colleague recently published “Can Palestinians and Israelis coexist in a single democratic state? (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241221-can-palestinians-and-israelis-coexist-in-a-single-democratic-state/) Additional Resources: Seth Morrison’s “From AIPAC to JVP: My Evolution on Zionism and Israel” in https://interlinkbooks.com/product/reclaiming-judaism-from-zionism/ Online Videos: JVP animated overview of the situation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y58njT2oXfE&t=28s Alhaq, a Palestinian version of the ACLU, has many short online videos of interviews with Palestinians about their experience. https://www.alhaq.org/monitoring-documentation/testimonies - click on Palestinian voices. Zochrot, an organization that documents Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948 has short video testimonials with English subtitles. https://www.zochrot.org/videos/all/en?Videos Breaking the Silence - an organization that gathers testimonies from current and former IDF soldiers telling what they as soldiers, https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/videos “It’s What We Do” is a 52 minute docudrama based on Breaking the Silence testimonies https://www.iwwdplay.org The website also has a lot of resources for further exploration ICHAD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE3qdC65Qgc 13 minute overview of Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes. YAS- videos of settlers moving into the Palestinian city of Hebron. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgug2Je7jCT3yKLkL_V3M9Q JVP Boston has a free film library with many titles, some available online. https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/JVP-Film-LIbrary-2018-.pdf Short Articles: Israeli planes spray pesticides along the border fence in the Gaza Strip, https://www.alhaq.org/monitoring-documentation/16446.html Human Rights Watch 2022 Report on Israel and Palestine https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/israel/palestine Israel-Gaza violence: The conflict explained https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396 includes links to multiple BBC reports Carnegie Endowment - Approaching Peace: Centering Rights in Israel-Palestine Conflict Resolution https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/04/29/approaching-peace-centering-rights-in-israel-palestine-conflict-resolution-pub-84397 Books: Karcher, Carolyn Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism, Olive Branch Press, 2019 Pappe, Ilan, Ten Myths About Israel, Verso Books, 2017 Bennis, Phyllis, Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Olive Branch Press, 2019 Masalah, Nur Palestine a Four Thousand Year History, Zed, 2018 Kuttab Beyond the Two -State Solution, Nonviolence International 2020