Israel-Palestine, Gaza & Hamas

The stories that teach it

the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page

example · in 2 of its talks

Heydrich 1936 letter on Jewish emigration to Palestine

Reinhard Heydrich wrote approvingly of helping Jews emigrate to Palestine, seeing it as consistent with antisemitic goals of removing Jews from Germany, showing that the current far-right celebration of Netanyahu's call for diaspora Jews to move to Israel reproduces this same …

example · in 1 of its talks

Arab Spring and Sisi

In Egypt and Algeria, middle-class protesters demanded democracy, but when Muslim fundamentalists won elections, they begrudgingly accepted military takeovers (like Sisi) to stop them.

example · in 1 of its talks

The Knesset Debate

A Knesset supporter defends the torture, asking if inserting a stick into a rectum is legitimate, only to be shouted down, illustrating shamelessness.

anecdote · in 1 of its talks

Frankfurt Book Fair attack

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, with Slovenia as guest of honour, Žižek gave a careful speech condemning Hamas and adding only that Palestinians also suffer; a commissioner for anti-Semitism and two politicians stood up and shouted that he was anti-Semitic and 'contextualizing', a…

example · in 1 of its talks

the atheist Zionist claiming God's promise

In debates with pro-Netanyahu Jewish intellectuals, Žižek asks why the land is theirs; they cite the Bible, then, asked if they believe in God, answer 'of course not, I'm an atheist', yet they hold that God gave them the land.

example · in 1 of its talks

Amiri Baraka's anti-Semitism

Žižek discusses black Marxist poet Amiri Baraka, whose film was blocked in America under the guise of being 'anti-Semitic,' illustrating how anti-Semitism is used to silence progressive Jewish and leftist voices.

Where it comes up 9

12 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

Slavoj Žižek explains in depth the conflict between I/s/r/a/e/l & H/a/m/a/s2025-06-29 · 29:34

6:32 fundamentalist messianic state

… -state solution, as we have public statements from Smotrich, from Netanyahu and so on where they clearly said we need Hamas, mentality of a fundamentalist messianic state.

~10:02 Gaza as gentrification

world it should also be going on, what they call gentrification. How does gentrification proceed? I know when I was in New York on the Lower East Side, area around so-called Tompkins Square was gentrified. How? They first cleared the area around so that all …

20:25 Palestinians are Ukraine

… Palestinians are Ukraine, attacked by a, don't be seduced by this Israeli smallness.

Slavoj Žižek on how Israel internalized Hitler's logic2025-10-15 · 20:29

6:10 Peace Trump and Netanyahu want

… If there will be some kind of peace, it will be the peace Trump and Netanyahu want to impose on Gaza by way of totally destroying it.

4:28 Hamas works for Israel

… Objectively, Hamas works for Israel in this sense.

Why Radical Politics Needs Philosophy? A Masterclass With Slavoj Zizek. Day 12023-11-21 · 2:21:23

1:07:21 Hamas has no context

… me in German I mean I was for one week a star there you know the big daily zeitungen newspapers attacking me one had a big title I loved it Hamas-Attacke hat keinen Kontext has no contexts as if the mentioning of context is already I claim no not only it has context but the shock of the Hamas context can only b …

Slavoj Zizek - Figures of the end of the world - part 012024-03 · 2:03:09

1:28:27 Hamas has no context

… It's almost it almost acquired a metaphysical status as an absolutely abyssal act of evil which grounds then everything that comes afterwards.

Deluge Gaza -- Norman Finkelstein, Slavoj Zizek, Mouin Rabbani, Razia Iqbal, Colter Louwerse2024-04-18 · 1:46:42

22:28 Hamas has no context

… hamas has no context.