Jacobin Radio: Elections in Chicago and Israel

<font color="#000000">Our guest Yoav Peled argues that Netanyahu i</font>s the only issue in the April 9 election. <font color="#000000">Netanyahu is under indictment for one case of bribery and two cases of fraud, but Yoav says </font><font color="#000000">he is likely to win even though his party and their bloc </font>—<font color="#000000"> with far-right, racist and religious parties </font>—<font color="#000000"> is more or less tied with the anti-Bibi “Blue an</font>d White” coalition or bloc. Yoav also discusses his new book, The Religionization of Israeli Society— <font color="#000000">which sheds light on how the country has moved from secular Zionism to an increasingly far-right expansionist religious Zionism, and how that helps us understand the election, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict </font>—<font color="#000000"> and the relation between culture, politics, nationalism, secularization, and new social movements. </font>

<font color="#000000">Suzi then talks to</font>Micah Uetricht in Chicago, where 5–6 socialists <font color="#000000">were just elected to the City Council. Micah argues they will have outsize influence in determining the political issues </font>— <font color="#000000">much as we have seen nationally with the election of democratic socialists to Congress. In his aptly titled article in</font> the Guardian<font color="#000000">“America's socialist surge is going strong in Chicago” Micah writes that the socialist victories in Chicago were not a fluke, people are miserable with the status quo of austerity </font>— and if Chicago’s elections are any indication, it just may be that people are ready to try socialism.