In recent years there has been a powerful resurgence of settler colonialism as an interpretive framework through which to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Attached to the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies, this so-called ‘turn’ to settler colonialism has seen Israel-Palestine increasingly compared alongside New World white settler societies like Australia, Canada and the United States. In seeking to undercut the lens of exceptionalism through which the conflict has conventionally been viewed, the settler colonial paradigm has some important counter-hegemonic (...) implications for reframing Israel-Palestine, not least of which is its prescription for decolonization. However, it is paradoxically in the context of decolonization that the limits of the settler colonial paradigm become most apparent. I argue that these limitations are connected to the dominance of Patrick Wolfe’s structural account of settler colonialism, which leaves very little room for transformation, and to the particular connotations settler colonial studies has acquired from the New World contexts in which it is most often articulated. This is particularly the case in Israel-Palestine, where these connotations preclude engagement with the national aspects of the conflict and leave under-examined the unique resonances of the settler/native distinction, which need reckoning with in any serious account of decolonization. (shrink)

This reflection on Palestine’s political impasses in relation to the experiences of other colonized places and peoples was inspired by the current ferment in critical indigenous and native studies, and now Palestinian studies, about settler colonialism. Tracing the promises and pitfalls of new imaginations of sovereignty and self-determination emerging through indigenous activism, the essay reflects on museums and contested rituals of liberal recognition in North America and Australia to highlight both the stark differences in the situations of Palestinians under (...) Israeli rule and the radical significance of the recent efflorescence of Palestinian cultural projects. Focusing particularly on the history of the Palestinian Museum (that opened in Birzeit in 2016), the article argues that the productivity of the settler-colonial framework lies less in the way it maps directly onto the situation on the ground than in the new solidarities it engenders and its potential to burst open the Palestinian political imagination. (shrink)

In his influential history of the post-1967 history of the Palestinian Occupation, radical Israeli architect Eyal Weizman show how even well-meaning decolonial efforts from privileged allies can be coopted by the colonizers, in what I call “de-decolonizing.” Here I focus on one of his examples, namely IDF (Israeli Defense Force) military professors repurposing the anarcho-communist philosophy of French postmodernist Gilles Deleuze into a weapon against Palestinian guerrilla resistance. My conclusion is that attempted decolonizing via (inevitably complicit) privileged allies must include (...) what Weizman calls “co-resistance,” and I call “reconstruction.” In other words, when a Deleuzian “line of flight” to “escape” is impossible, as arguably for Palestinians today, then one should follow the heroic example of the Bedouins, who (as Weizman acknowledges) are the only Arabs who have never stopped rebuilding their Palestine. (shrink)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s French philosopher Gilles Deleuze authored a series of articles in which he reflected on the formation of the state of Israel and its subsequent dispossession and colonisation of Palestine and the Palestinian people. Naming the state of Israel as a colonial state, Deleuze’s under-discussed texts connect Israel’s programme of colonisation to that of the United States and the persisting dispossession of indigenous peoples. In so doing, this article argues, Deleuze offers an analysis (...) of the development of capitalism that takes seriously its relation to colonial violence. Having called attention to Deleuze’s writings on Palestine, the conclusion of this article asks why these texts have been marginalised by Deleuze scholars. It asks how we might think of this marginalisation as contributing to the subjugation of Palestinian life, and as indicative of how relations of colonialism structure western social theory. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 This article explores the contemporary politics of global violence through an examination of the particular challenges and possibilities facing Palestinians who seek to defend their communities against an ongoing settler-colonial project (Zionism) that is approaching a crisis point. As the colonial dynamic in Israel/Palestine returns to its most elemental level – land, trees, homes – it also continues to be a laboratory for new forms of accelerated violence whose global impact (...) is hard to overestimate. In such a context, Palestinians and international solidarity activists find themselves confronting a quintessential 21 st century activist dilemma: how to craft a strategy of what Paul Virilio calls “popular defense” at a time when everyone seems to be implicated in the machinery of global violence? I argue that while this dilemma represents a formidable challenge for Palestinians, it also helps explain why the Palestinian struggle is increasingly able to build bridges with wider struggles for global justice, ecological sustainability, and indigenous rights. (shrink)

« La solidarité est un verbe. » Ainsi la philosophe Sara Ahmed désigne-t-elle le travail de créer des ponts entre les luttes. La guerre en cours en Palestine, depuis les attentats terroristes du Hamas en octobre 2023 jusqu’aux représailles meurtrières et incessantes des Forces de Défense Israéliennes, a soulevé de nombreux gestes de solidarité transnationale : de la part des mouvements juifs pour la paix (Women Wage Peace, Standing Together, Tsedek!, Union juive pour la paix…), mais aussi de la (...) part de mouvements pour la justice sociale qui se sont efforcés de construire des solidarités précises, avec les Palestinien·nes comme avec les Israélien·nes qui résistent au colonialisme (des mouvements autochtones aux États-Unis à Black Lives Matter et aux mouvements queers en Europe et ailleurs). Quelles leçons tirer de ces solidarités décoloniales? (shrink)

The Assyrian presence in Palestine from the ninth through the seventh century B.C.E. represents a case of intercultural contact against the background of an expansionist imperial process. The “Assyrianization” of Israel and Judah, as well as that of the whole Levant, has often been posited. This term, which evokes “Romanization,” would indicate enforced cultural adaptation to Assyrian values and customs within the framework of a process of assimilation. An alleged “Assyrianization” of Ancient Israel would be congruent with that interpretation (...) of Assyrian imperialism postulating programmatic measures to impose the Assyrian way of life upon the whole empire. However, a study of the cuneiform and archaeological sources leads to an alternative interpretation of Assyrian imperial policy in the West. (shrink)

The "delegitimation," which is progressing rapidly, was carried forward in December by a Human Rights Watch call on the U.S."to suspend financing to Israel in an amount equivalent to the costs of Israel's spending in support of settlements," and to monitor contributions to Israel from tax-exempt U.S. organizations that violate international law, "including prohibitions against discrimination" -- which would cast a wide net. Amnesty International had already called for an arms embargo on Israel. The legitimation process also took a long (...) step forward in December, when Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil recognized the State of Palestine, bringing the number of supporting nations to more than 100. (shrink)

This is a new discussion in the philosophy of terrorism of the morality of Humanity, Palestine and Israel, right and wrong, liberalism, free riders, narratives, definitions of terrorism, objections to definitions not mentioning innocents, the question of who the innocents are, intentional action, objections having to do with definitions, inquiry, prejudice, pure inquiry, and advocacy, and other innocents. The discussion was prompted by a forthcoming paper by Tamar Meisels of Tel Aviv University 'Can Terrorism Ever Be Justified?', which paper (...) and the final reply to it by Ted Honderich will appear in a book edited by Stuart Gottlieb, Debating Terrorism and Counter Terrorism. Tamar Meisels' book, The Trouble With Terror, has lately been published by Cambridge University Press. She also has a paper in the collection Israel, Palestine and Terror edited by Stephen Law and containing various replies to Honderich. Another Meisels paper to which you can turn, The Trouble With Terror: The Apologetics of Terrorism -- A Refutatio n. There is also a Honderich reply to other objections, in this case by the German philosopher Georg Meggle. (shrink)

The Middle East Summit is the unofficial name for a series of meetings between several key figures from the Middle Eastern art world and it was proposed here that a Picasso from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum be brought to Palestine. The meaning of Picasso’s Buste de femme crossing this non-place, is here brought to light.

ArgumentWe examine the creation and functioning of the “Pasteur Institute in Palestine” focusing on the relationship between biological science, health policy, and the creation of a “new society” within the framework of Zionism. Similar to other bacteriological institutes founded by colonial powers, this laboratory was developed in response to public health needs. But it also had a political role. Dr. Leo Böhm, a Zionist physician, strived to establish his institution along the lines of the Zionist aspiration to develop a (...) national entity based on strong scientific foundations. Even though the institute enjoyed several fruitful years of operation, mainly during World War I, it achieved no lasting national or scientific importance in the country. Böhm failed to adapt to new ways of knowledge production, scientifically and socially. The case study of the “Pasteur Institute in Palestine” serves as a prism to view the role of the public health laboratory in the history of Palestine with its ongoing changes of scientific, organizational, and political context. (shrink)

Joseph Agassi One Palestine, Two Nations Many are the problems that beset the tragically war-torn and forlorn Palestine. The extant proposed solutions to them all are few. They all relate to the framework of the establishment or the re-establishment of one, two, or three states. Let me list them first regardless of their value.

The present paper offers a reflection on school textbooks produced and introduced by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the year 2000 onward. The aim is to examine the debates over these textbooks, by situating them over the backdrop of larger geopolitical dynamics and intra-Palestinian social and political struggles.

An academic history book has to be unusually successful to get through to a fourth edition. This one has done so not only because the continuing Israel–Palestine conflict is a subject of heated con...

De longues années après sa création, l’État d’Israël a bénéficié d’une réputation flatteuse : des images récurrentes de femmes labourant la terre, pavant des routes, effectuant des travaux de maçonnerie ou montant la garde dans les colonies agricoles créées par les pionniers juifs à partir des années 1880 ont laissé croire à l’émergence d’une société où hommes et femmes vivraient en parfaite égalité. Pourtant, lettres, journaux intimes, mémoires, récits de toutes sortes laissés par des femmes restées anonymes ou au contraire (...) devenues célèbres viennent renverser cette image idyllique ; la Palestine juive n’y apparaît nullement comme un havre d’harmonie entre hommes et femmes. Bien plus, le pays supposé du lait et du miel est une terre hostile, où la vie est difficile pour tous et que beaucoup quittent, par l’émigration ou le suicide… À travers ces textes, l’imagerie qui entoure l’expérience sioniste en Palestine se trouve profondément ébranlée. Et c’est une nouvelle histoire qui peut s’écrire…. (shrink)

The long war between Israel and the Palestinians is not the root cause of all conflicts between Islam and the West, but it exacerbates every such conflict. From Northern Europe through North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and down to Australia, there are violent opponents of “the West” motivated, in part, by indignation at the..

This new book, published in the United Kingdom under the first title above and in the United States and Canada under the second, consists in argument about what makes for right or wrong in general, and then argument about right or wrong with respect to Palestine, 9/11, the Iraq War, 7/7, and what is to come. Hence, with respect to the latter connected things, it also makes judgements as to shares of moral responsibility. Six of its 29 sections appear (...) below. The first two are 'Our Questions' and 'A Division of Labour, Philosophy's Part'. The next one is one of three in the book on judging right and wrong by democracy. The fourth is one of several in the book about understanding, judging, and inciting terrorism. The last two sections are about the Iraq War. To locate this thinking in the context of the book as a whole, which justifies Zionism but not neo-Zionism, have a look at the table of contents at the end. There is also a German translation of the first half of the book. Have a look too if you want at a review of the book by Tam Dalyell, lately M.P. for Linlithgow and Father of the House of Commons, and a review by Steve Poole, author of Unthink, and at Italian and Belgian interviews on the subject. There is also a video of a 40-minute television programme made from the book. (shrink)

Recent events in the Middle East once again focused attention on the Israel/Palestine issue. In the following article, adapted from his recent book, Ted Honderich controversially defends the Palestinians' moral right to engage in terrorism.

This is a reply to objections by the distinguished German philosopher Georg Meggle to Honderich's moral defence of Palestinian terrorism. It has to do with (1) the Principle of Humanity, (2) Zionism, Neo Zionism, a Palestinian moral right to terrorism within historic Palestine, (3) Just War theory and the Principle of Humanity, (4) terrorism in general defined as causing fear, (5) terrorism in general defined as the killing of innocents, (6) objections to the Palestinian moral right, (7) the case (...) of Palestine and the Principle of Humanity, (8) anti semitism, Meggle, Jurgen Habermas, and the publisher Abraham Melzer. There is also another reply to objections , in this case by Tamara Meisels, of Tel Aviv University. (shrink)

The "surrogate colonization" of Palestine had a foreign power giving to a nonnative group rights over land occupied by an indigenous people. It thus brought into play the complementary and conflicting agendas of three culturally distinguishable parties: British, Jews and Arabs. Each party had both "externalist" [those with no sustained practical experience of day to day life in Palestine] and "internalist" representatives. The surrogate idea was based on a "strategic consensus" involving each party's externalist camp: the British ruling (...) elite, the leadership of the World Zionist Organization and the Hashemite Dynasty of Arabia. The collapse of this triangular consensus, which put an end to the policy but not the process of surrogate colonization, resulted from irreconcilable antagonisms within and between the major currents of each internalist camp. A focus on the land problem in Palestine highlights contradictions in each party's internalist agenda, which forestalled a rift between the Jewish and British sides of the consensus long enough for the Zionist settlement in Palestine to acquire territory and to develop a largely self-sufficient economic, cultural, political and military infrastructure. (shrink)

Résumé Le sort des femmes dans les guerres a toujours souffert du non-dit, il se trouvait en quelque sorte enfoui, banalisé dans le sort général des civils puisqu’elles n’étaient pas combattantes. Mais on peut dire que dans les derniers conflits, les femmes ne font plus partie d’un « arrière », par opposition aux combattants du front, car en fait il n’y a plus d’arrière, elles se retrouvent désormais de plein pied dans la guerre (en Algérie et en Bosnie, notamment).

ExcerptI remember it well. It was in the spring of 1987 when I commenced my lecture in Osnabrück on the German left with these remarks: “So that we understand each other: Regardless of my heavy criticisms and profound objections to many facets of its current affairs, I fully accept the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany and do not want its destruction!” People looked at me as if I had lost my mind!

This article is an effort to register the archival surge among Palestinians in Palestine and beyond. It is focused not on the collection of archives but on the mulitmedia practice of archiving as political practice. It is not the work in and on archives that redefines the terms of engagement but the practice of archiving itself. The challenge is directed at what constitutes custodial control, access, rubrics of order, and a pedagogy of use. Academics, artists, and activists are challenging (...) the aesthetics of dissent and the work of aesthetics in redefining what constitutes the political in oppressive colonial regimes today. Countermovements of documentation are efforts to displace rather than only disprove colonial truth. The conceits of what counts as archival labor—and who can do it—are poised to implode. (shrink)

This article is the first in a series in which I propose to draw on the emergent and poly/trans disciplinary field of Food Studies in order to pursue questions of national identity, political struggle, cultural resistance and psychological survival in Palestine. There are several perspectives from which this connection between food and territoriality may be theorised. At first instance, for the purposes of this paper, I ask whether it is appropriate to draw on the cultural property paradigm in order (...) to spotlight the possibilities and significance of claiming their cuisine as the intangible cultural heritage of Palestinians. This essay is a rhetorical cry for the repatriation and rehabilitation of regional specialties. The need to acknowledge, safeguard and celebrate Palestinian culture, its distinctive genius and the abundance and refinement of its traditions is part of the struggle for meaningful political change. The Palestinian ethnographic research included in this paper was conducted in collaboration with Bait al Karama, a local NGO founded and run entirely by women, for local women. My methodology is rooted in the relationship between activism and academia. (shrink)