podcast friday

[sabotabby]

 Today's featured episode is from Bad Hasbara. "Scar Tours With Noy Katsman" is an interview with a student and activist whose brother, Hayim, was murdered in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. It probably goes without saying why I think this is important to listen to. For all the rhetoric about returning the hostages, obviously the current tactic of genociding the entire Gaza Strip is not working well to that end. But of course, it's not about the hostages, nor about people like Hayim, who would not have wanted 30,000 people and counting murdered in his name. Noy is clear-eyed and admirable in turning their own very personal and visceral tragedy into a cogent call for peace and justice.

I should add, if you haven't heard of scar tours, it's nothing new. When I was in my early 20s, there was a "suicide bus" that some of my extended family were involved in transporting to Canada—basically the bombed-out wreckage of a bus that a suicide bomber had attacked, and you could go in and see how horrific the damage was and imagine the dead bodies and so on. I thought this was ghoulish at the time*, just as I see now tours of a kibbutz where massacres took place on Oct. 7 advertised to teachers to visit on March Break (yes, really) are not only about dispossession of the living, but desecrations of the dead. 

Anyway, everyone should hear what Noy has to say.


* See also: Why my mother and I are not invited to family events anymore.

Comments

[oracne]

Thanks for that link.

[sabotabby]

You're welcome. All of the episodes have been really good so far, but so far this one has been the most holyshitwow.