Thawra

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the third and final part of the epilogue to Thawra (Revolution), our epic series on the history of revolutionary Arab politics. This episode takes us from Hamas’s victory in the 2006 legislative elections, through the siege on Gaza, to October 7, the Gaza genocide, the Axis of Resistance, and Israel’s attempt to draw Iran into a massive regional war with the US.Share Thawra with a friend thedigradio.com/ThawraSupport The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigBuy The Wannabe Fascists at UCPress.eduBuy Visualizing Palestine at haymarketbooks.org

Abdel Razzaq Takriti, historian of Arab and Palestinian revolutionary movements and Rice University academic, offers a sweeping historical tour. He traces Oslo's fallout, Camp David and the Second Intifada. He connects 9/11, the War on Terror, and the US dismantling of Iraq to regional sectarian violence, the Arab Spring, Syria's descent into war, and the rise of ISIS.

Abdel Razzaq Takriti, historian of the modern Arab East and scholar of Arab and Palestinian revolutionary movements, guides a wide-ranging review. He traces the fallout from Beirut and the PLO’s relocations. He unpacks the Iran 1979 revolution’s regional ripple effects, the Iran–Iraq War, Gulf wars, rising political Islam, and how new Palestinian groups filled the post-Oslo vacuum.

Today’s installment traces a massive defeat for the Palestinian Revolution: Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and brutal siege of Beirut. Under severe pressure and isolated in the wake of Egypt’s normalization with Israel, the PLO evacuated its headquarters. What followed was a giant massacre of Palestinian civilians and the end of the decades-long era of Arab revolutionary politics to which this series has been dedicated. A substantial epilogue is coming soon.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comSpread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/ThawraCheck out the Palestinian Revolution website! learnpalestine.qeh.ox.ac.uk/teachTake 25% off a subscription to n+1 at nplusonemag.com/thedig. Enter THEDIG for discount.

Today’s installment addresses the Palestinian Revolution’s project in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan—leading up to the 1970 conflict with the Jordanian state and the violent expulsion of PLO guerrillas during Black September. Then, Egypt and Syria checked Israel’s power in the October War of 1973—only for Anwar Sadat to lead Egypt into Kissinger’s plan to pacify Arab revolution.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comSpread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/ThawraThe Palestinian Revolution website is live! learnpalestine.qeh.ox.ac.uk/teachBuy tickets for live Dig with Corbyn in London unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khaliliThe Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 – Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.orgSubscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobin

Today’s installment covers the rise of the Palestinian Revolution and then its explosion after the Arab defeat in the June War of 1967 with Israel. Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation and Palestine, and other factions launched an armed guerrilla struggle against Israel, engaging the Palestinian people in a full-scale mobilization for their liberation. Also: Ba’athists Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, as did Muammar Gaddafi’s Free Officers in Libya.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comSpread the word about Thawra thedigradio.com/ThawraBuy Happy Apocalypse at versobooks.comBuy Love in the Time of Self-Publishing at princeton.press/love

Today’s installment covers the armed left-wing revolutionary movements that challenged British imperial power across Southern Arabia, with the National Liberation Front taking over South Yemen and Dhufari rebels in Oman waging a liberation war against the Sultan. Today’s alliance of reactionary Gulf monarchies was not inevitable; they were made by colonial power, and Arab revolutionaries in the 1960s and 70s mounted a major effort to overthrow them.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comBuy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khaliliBuy The Last Human Job at Princeton.press/jobBuy How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement against Imprisonment at haymarketbooks.org

Today’s installment tells the story of Saudi Arabia, a country whose reactionary, US-aligned trajectory was throughout the 1950s and 60s challenged by labor strikes, dissident currents, rebellious princes, and an anticolonial oil minister. But Saudi royal conservatism asserted itself and a friendship with Nasser’s Egypt turned into conflict. Ultimately both countries got drawn into North Yemen’s civil war, which sapped Egypt’s military strength ahead of the 1967 war with Israel. Plus: radical politics against British colonial power in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Trucial States.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comBuy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khaliliBuy Twilight Prisoners at haymarketbooks.comBuy Automatic Fetish at versobooks.com

Today’s installment tells the story of the destruction of the two giant revolutionary projects of 1958: the union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser’s United Arab Republic and Iraq’s July Revolution that brought Qasim alongside communist allies to power. The rival radical projects of pan-Arabism and communism suffered huge blows. So did Nasser and Qasim, the era’s most significant Arab anti-imperialist leaders. Meanwhile, the Ba’ath, once ideological and idealistic, became increasingly dominated by military men who made the party into an instrument for raw domination.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comBuy tickets for live Dig with Jeremy Corbyn in London:unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khaliliBuy Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom at Versobooks.comSubscribe to Dissent magazine in print or online at dissentmagazine.org/subscribe

Today’s installment tells the story of Iraq’s 1958 July Revolution: a Free Officers’ coup overthrew the imperialist-aligned Hashemite monarchy and brought nationalist Abdul-Karim Qasim to power alongside a surging Communist Party. Revolutionary currents soon turned against one another, however, as did Qasim and Nasser. Conflict stemmed from serious political and strategic differences, but also petty rivalries and bitter feuds. And in Iraq, class conflict often appeared dressed up in the sectarian and ethnic modalities through which class was lived.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comSubscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a special offer for Dig listeners! bit.ly/digjacobinBuy The Black Antifascist Tradition at haymarketbooks.org