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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 10h

Strongly recommend this extended discussion on Palestine Deep Dive in which 4 articulate Palestinian intellectuals discuss if Zionism is Racism (spoiler: they all think it is) podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

podcasts.apple.com

The Zionism Conversation BBC Won't Have

Podcast Episode · Palestine Deep Dive · 8 October · 1hr 40min

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 22h

Another great 🧵 from Annie - we have talked about starting a radical Jewish history podcast together - hopefully we’ll get round to it one day!

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

When she was little my kid used to say ‘oh cheeses’ as a curse

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I’d say 33%, up 22% in a safe Labour seat, during the Burnham bounce is a good result for the Greens. I don’t think the motion made much difference. Zack is surely the most effective leader the party has had. He’s not going anywhere.

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Reposted by Joseph Finlay

elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

As others pointed out, Farage lost multiple times before having a single victory. And every loss was accompanied with a media discourse playing up his influence. They kept that up until he actually won.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Compulsory nationalisation of Taylor & Francis at zero cost

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Listening to the News Agents say that nobody is calling for the dismantling of other settler colonies such as the USA and Australia. Many people are. Abolish all settler colonies and transform them into states of all their citizens which honour the cultures and history of the indegenous population

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The JC gets the heir of Mosley and Enoch Powell to write about antisemitism. Do not take this fascist ghoul of a newspaper seriously any more.

=
THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
By Nigel Farage
Opinion
October 7 revealed a darkness in Britain: rising antisemitism amid calls for Israel's destruction

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Kings Cross: a reference to the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. British Jews and Muslims are attempting to build bridges (music symbolises social harmony) while the Green part is dividing them by passing the motion. Not saying it’s good but that’s what it means.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This is an old draft of the motion, it wasn’t in the motion passed at the Green conference, thankfully

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I wrote this short piece 2 years ago, 7th October 2024, and I think it still stands up www.toratalbion.org.uk/zakhor/

toratalbion.org.uk

Zakhor

Remembering All the Victims of the Last Year

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Reposted by Joseph Finlay

Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Every life stolen was an entire world. The point is not to pretend that all we need is shared mourning, or to equate the suffering on both sides. Reckoning and accountability are required.

bradlander.substack.com

Three Years Later, We Still Haven't Figured Out How to Mourn:

On October 7th, resisting the flattening of empathy.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Great panel on legacies of Cable Street at @bisa-bkk.bsky.social last night - was wonderful to speak alongside @liamliburd.bsky.social and Nadia Valman. In one of my favourite ever slipups, I was talking about the groups Stop the Hate and Our Fight but actually said 'Stop the Fight' and 'Our Hate'.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The protagonists of the former are still in their posts and fuming about the latter. It’s true that they are on the back foot but it’s going to be messy for a good while

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I hear you but I still think it wasn’t done well. Heard from a couple of Jewish members that they didn’t vote for it for that reason

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yes that’s the bit I thought was confusing, and made it harder to pass. I think people are usually angry with Zionists / supporters of Israel, whether Jewish or not

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The actual text of the Zionism is Racism motion, so people can see what is and isn’t in it greens4palestine.uk/assets/motio...

greens4palestine.uk

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don’t love the motion, I think it’s tactically bad, but it just isn’t going to do the things people are claiming

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This is not right. Nothing in the motion talks about expelling people who belong to Zionist institutions. It doesn’t even talk of Zionists, only Zionism, clearly in the context of the Israeli state. It wasn’t a disciplinary motion. The amendment fell in part because it was poorly worded.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I think then the analogy would be between Zionism and Afrikaner nationalism. Afrikaners didn't self-identity as proponents of apartheid, it was a policy through which they sought to maintain their nationalism. The Zionist equivalent would be hafrada - separation.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Do come to this - it's going to be great

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And I think it’s worth emphasising to Zionists and Jews that the situation in 1947 - a thriving Hebrew-speaking Jewish society in Palestine without mass ethnic cleansing - did represent Zionism at that point, and is a model we should seek to draw upon.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yes, it was certainly a process. Nur Masalha has traced the transfer idea in earlier Zionist thought. But I think it’s worth showing that things were very different pre 1948, the nakba couldn’t have occurred without Britain’s criminal decision to cut and run without leaving anything in place

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

BDS focuses on key targets, the big companies funding occupation and genocide. There’s no obligation to boycott every individual Israel company or cultural initiative

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Of course. I just mean that pre 48 it was possible to be a Zionist without being racist in a way that it wasn’t after the nakba

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Right, I said since 1948 to cover those groups (who were a minority but still important). After 1948 those currents pretty much disappeared

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And many Jews pre-state supported immigration and settlement without supporting political Zionism (the non-Zionists). Totalising and trans-historical definitions are unhelpful. The aim has to be to change the reality on the ground in I/P from a situation of domination to one of equality.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The most problematic word in Zionism is Racism is the ‘is’. Most people can see that since 1948 Zionism has necessarily involved racism towards Palestinians and still does. But that isn’t the sum total of what Zionism has meant. For Jews it was a nationalist movement, especially pre-48.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Great to hear. And would be good to publicise this fact. One poor motion drains publicity from many good ones

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Ah. Sad that people didn’t get behind it

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

There will be many wild statements calling the Green Party antisemitic; these are a predictable consequence of a motion that focused on language and ideology rather than the material practices of occupation and apartheid. A motion committing the Green Party to BDS would have been far better.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Not a member so didn’t get to read it but I gather that amendment was very confusingly worded and I know some Jewish members who opposed it for that reason.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Again, I think the ZiR motion is pretty silly, doesn't help Palestinians, and won't amount to much. But this statement from the Movement for Progressive Judaism (I belong to a synagogue affiliated to it) is completely ridiculous progressivejudaism.org.uk/statement-co...

progressivejudaism.org.uk

Statement condemning Green Party 'Zionism is Racism' motion - The Movement for Progressive Judaism

By Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy Co-Leads, The Movement for Progressive Judaism The Movement for Progressive Judaism condemns the Green Party’s adoption of the motion ‘Zionism is Racism’....

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Given that most of the Jews on the official Cable Street 90th anniversary march today were associated with the Jewish Bloc for Palestine and broadly support the ideas of the motion, whether or not they think it was smart politics / tactical, no it isn't actually

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Nothing in the motion mentions sanctioning 'racist organisations'. It clearly distinguishes Judaism from Zionism, saying 'As with any ethnicity or faith group, no single political ideology should be ascribed to an entire people.' I'm no fan of it but it's not going to sanction shul membership.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and not in the Green Party.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The proposers were clear that they won’t since this was an E motion, under the party’s constitution these do not affect disciplinary matters. You’d need another motion to do that. Of course some people may choose to leave but I really don’t see anyone being forced out.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I wasn’t there but the proposers treated all amendments as hostile (a bad move in my book) so I would imagine it was part of that

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

So it passed. As I said, not a disaster. It’s a piece of untactical performative politics but let’s not make it out to be the new Nuremberg laws. The proposers of the motion were very clear that it couldn’t lead to sanctions against members. No Zionists will be expelled from the party.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I’m not a great fan of the motion but that Jonathan Freedland Guardian article is really bad. Totally misreads Judaism, particularly the way Zionism cynically appropriated religious concepts and ideas for the sake of nationalism

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It will not be a disaster if the Zionism is Racism motion passes or if it falls. It’s just a conference motion. Everyone needs to calm down. It was UNGA policy between 1975 and 1991 and didn’t lead to the liberation of Palestine or the sky falling in.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Simon Schama has lost the right to lecture anyone on anything, or to be considered a good historian

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I wrote one for my daughter on regular paper. Wondered about papyrus for next time

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