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Alternative Radio for September 27, 2010
1:00 PM - 1:58 PM
[Program Website]
Today's Highlight: Zachary Lockman - "A Brief History of Zionism"
Zion is the name of a hill in ancient Jerusalem where King David had his palace. The term Zionism was coined in the early 1890s and applied to the Jewish national political movement. Zionism got the big power backing it was looking for when Britain issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917. Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary stated: ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This declaration became a major legal cornerstone for Zionist claims to Palestine. There were a couple of issues that complicated things. At the time, 90% of the population was Arab Muslim and Christian and 10% Jewish. And the British were signing away land that was not theirs.
Zachary Lockman is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies and History at New York University. He is the author of “Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948” and “Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism.”
Alternative Radio is a weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International.
Established in 1986, AR is dedicated to the founding principles of public broadcasting, which urge that programming serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," be diverse and "provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." The project is entirely independent, sustained solely by individuals who buy transcripts and tapes of programs.
Its "headquarters" is situated to correspond with its position in the mainstream mass media: down an alley, behind a house, on top of a garage in Boulder, Colorado. From this rarefied location, AR's programs manage to reach over 125 radio stations and millions of listeners. AR is part of the non-profit Institute for Social and Cultural Change.
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