Zionism

2025-04-07

Hard to post right now

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

It is hard to bring oneself to blog about new things (in historical and biblical studies) that I am learning all the time when every day the news is recallibrating my identity as a citizen of the West.

As a little child I wowed the grownups when I naively asked why everyone was so sad that my great grandfather was dying. Isn’t he going to heaven, I asked. Shouldn’t we be happy? Aww — so innocent!

As a teenager school student I felt it safer not to ask my war veteran elders why it was “us” who declared war on the Axis powers and not the Axis powers on us. And why the fire-bombing of Germany and Japan and snuffing out two cities with atomic bombs? I sometimes wondered if a future generation would look back and see WW2 as a titanic struggle for domination between great powers. Our identity as the liberators of democracy and crushers of fascism was at risk if such questions were taken too far.

Now today we see nothing has changed in the project to control the Middle East. Mass murder is brought into our phones and tv sets daily. The only thing that has changed is the removal of the pretence. It was easier to be deceived when the powers said they were looking for peace and that the ongoing military build up and daily occupation was all about security. Now that pretence is gone and we can see it in all its mind-numbing reality. So our leaders remain silent and criminalize those who attempt to speak out.

We are the bad guys. World War 2 was a contest to see who would dominate the world. We won. The world lost. Yes, there was welcome progress in some areas, and despite the gap between rich and poor increasing that was a good thing. But even Hitler before the war did good things for the German economy and youth welfare. Now I feel like I understand a little how anti-fascists felt living in Germany under Hitler. The difference is the propaganda. Nazi and Soviet propaganda was crude by comparison. In this post I linked to a discussion about the attempt to silence journalists. That was old hat. Today at home they are being hauled before the courts while in the Middle East they are being murdered at scale.

It’s a heavy time. Apologies.

…..

P.S. — added later….

A few days ago there was a great kerfuffle in media, in talk shows, in comedy sessions, among government and political representatives — about a lapse in security involving talk about bombing Yemen. I strained in vain to hear from those talk-fests a word of outrage over the murder of innocent human beings in an apartment building. I can no longer bring myself to listen to some of those programs ever again.

2025-02-10

The “Miracle” of the Arab “Exodus” — 1948

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by Neil Godfrey

Masalha’s sources: primarily the official archives (e.g. the Central Zionist Archives, Israeli State Archives, the London Public Record Office) and diaries and other writings of leading Zionist pioneers (e.g. of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann).

Here I continue a series I began in July 2010 — a history of the Zionist movement as documented from official archives and personal diaries by the Palestinian historian Nur Masalha.

I have long held off from completing that task, most especially since recent events in Gaza and now the West Bank and Lebanon left me feeling that the current traumas are too suffocating to allow anyone to think of the past. But the past is important for understanding what is happening today.

The following account makes it clear why current events did not begin with the Hamas attack on October 7 2024. It will all sound so horrifyingly familiar that you that you may find yourself wondering if you are reading history or today’s news stories.

“What did the world do to prevent the genocide of the Jews? Why now should there be such excitement about the plight of the Arab refugees?“

The “Miracle” of the “Arab Exodus”

We may have heard that Arabs fled wholesale of their own free will when the state of Israel was declared in May 1948.

The plight of these Arab refugees and the problem they posed deserve attention . . . A huge and pitiful multitude, uprooted, exploited and helpless, they numbered at their height approximately 750,000. . . .

Superstitious and uneducated, the Arab masses succumbed to the panic and fled. . . .

Weizmann (left) and US ambassador MacDonald

Certainly, [the big three — Weizmann, Ben-Gurion or Sharett] had been quite unprepared for the Arab exodus; no responsible Zionist leader had anticipated such a “miraculous” clearing of the land. Dr. Weizmann, despite his ingrained rationalism, spoke to me emotionally of this “miraculous simplification of Israel’s tasks,” and cited the vaster tragedy of six million Jews murdered during World War II. He would ask, “What did the world do to prevent this genocide? Why now should there be such excitement in the UN and the Western capitals about the plight of the Arab refugees?” — First United States Ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald, p. 174ff

Such a carefully worded narrative positions the Arab “exodus” of 1948 as a sadly inferior foil to the biblical Jewish exodus, even a matter of divinely ordained compensation for one party at the “tragic” expense of “pitiful, superstitious, cowardly masses”. MacDonald does elsewhere express some pity for the Arabs along with regret that the Israeli approach was not “more humane”. But the purpose of these posts is to cite what the Israeli leadership were in fact thinking and planning — how the Zionist program planned for and enforced the Arab evacuations.

Events leading to the 1948 Exodus

Let’s back up a few months and into the year before Israel declared its actual birth.

2 November 1947: A vote by the United Nations General Assembly was imminent. The UN was scheduled to declare that Palestine should be partitioned between Jews and Arabs and that the Jewish state would contain a large Arab population (42%). The leading Zionist organization, the Jewish Agency Executive, met and agreed that citizenship should not be granted to the Arabs in the soon-to-be-established Jewish state. The reason was stated by Ben-Gurion:

In the event of war between the two Palestine states, said Ben-Gurion, the Arab minority in the Jewish State would be ‘“‘a Fifth Column.”’ Hence, it was best that they be citizens of the Palestine Arab State so that, if hostile, they “‘could be expelled”’ to the Palestine Arab State. But if they were citizens of the Jewish State, “‘it would only be possible to imprison them, and it would be better to expel them than to imprison them.”’ (Benny Morris, 28, citing the minutes of the Jewish Agency Executive meeting)

29 November 1947: The United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 181 endorsing the partition of Palestine into 2 states: Arab and Jewish, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem forming an international zone. The boundaries drawn up meant the Jewish state would consist of a 42% Arab population.

30 December 1947: Ben Gurion addressed the Histadrut and declared that the Zionist settlers of Palestine would need to learn to think “like a state”:

There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent.

This, Ben-Gurion added, made necessary the adoption of “a new approach…new habits of mind to suit our new future. We must think like a state.” (Masalha, 176; Morris, 28)

But what kind of state should Israel “think like”?

The kind of state in Ben-Gurion’s mind was Turkey which had ethnically cleansed (or “transferred”) their Greek population. Eleven years earlier he had made it clear that there was “nothing morally wrong in the idea” but that it was the kind of thing only a state should carry out.

Two non-Zionists — Senator (left) and Hexter — vehemently opposed the transfer idea: ’there are Arabs in this country. The more we take them in consideration, the more we will succeed . . . .’ — but were overruled by the Zionists

[Two non-Zionists, Senator and Hexter] vehemently opposed the transfer idea: ’there are Arabs in this country. The more we take them in consideration, the more we will succeed . . . .’ Senator considered transfer as fraught with danger: ‘We can’t say that we want to live with the Arabs and at the same time transfer them to Transjordan.’ In summing up the debate, Ben-Gurion stated that . . . the population exchange between Greece and Turkey could not serve as a precedent since it was a pursuant to voluntary agreement between two states: ‘We are not a state and Britain will not do it for us . . In Ben-Gurion’s view, the proposal would alienate public opinion, including Jewish public opinion, but there is nothing morally wrong in the idea’. (Flapan, 261)

We have encountered Turkey’s expulsion of the Greeks before as a debated model among early Zionists: Zionist Plans (1936); Pushing for Mass Transfer (1937); Compulsory Arab Transfer (1937); Caution and Discretion (1941).

Conflict Begins Before Israel’s Foundation in May 1948:

Within weeks of the UN partition resolution, the country was plunged into what soon became a full-scale civil war. By mid-December, “spontaneous and unorganized” Palestinian outbreaks of violence were being met by the full weight of the Yishuv’s armed forces, the Haganah, in what the British high commissioner called “indiscriminate action against the Arabs,”³ coupled with measures aimed at economic strangulation. Ben-Gurion advised on 19 December that “we adopt the system of aggressive defense; with every Arab attack we must respond with a decisive blow: the destruction of the place or the expulsion of the residents along with the seizure of the place.”⁴ On 30 December, a British intelligence observer reported that the Haganah was moving fast to exploit Palestinian weaknesses and disorganization, especially in Haifa and Jaffa, and to render them “completely powerless” so as to force them into flight.

The Palestinians were completely unprepared for war, their leadership still in disarray and largely unarmed as a result of the 1936-39 rebellion. The Yishuv’s defense force, the Haganah (to say nothing of the dissident Irgun Tzvai Leumi and Lehi groups), was fully armed and on the offensive. As early as February 1945, before World War II had even ended, the first of a series of master military plans adopted by the Haganah (which in turn was under the jurisdiction of the Jewish Agency) was in place in anticipation of the war for statehood. (Masalha, 176f. Note 3 = Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College Archives, Oxford, Cunningham Papers, 1/3/147, “Weekly intelligence Appreciation.” A three-day general strike started on 2 December in protest of the United Nations resolution. Note 4, see quote from Flapan p 90 following…)

Flapan was an Israeli historian and, despite his searingly critical account, himself remained a supporter of the Zionist project, albeit “more humane and liberal”. This kind of support for Zionism has been common among Israeli historians despite their acknowledgement of Zionist history. Another example is Benny Morris.

I flip over from Nur Masalha’s account to that of Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, beginning from page 88 (with my highlighting and formatting):

Records are available from archives and diaries, however, and while not revealing a specific plan or precise orders for expulsion, they provide overwhelming circumstantial evidence to show that a design was being implemented by the Haganah, and later by the IDF, to reduce the number of Arabs in the Jewish state to a minimum, and to make use of most of their lands, properties, and habitats to absorb the masses of Jewish immigrants.

It is true, of course, that many Palestinians left of their own accord. Tens of thousands of community leaders, businessmen, landowners, and members of the intellectual elite who had the means for removing their families from the scene of fighting did so. Thousands of others — government officials, professionals, and skilled workers chose to immigrate to Arab areas rather than live in a Jewish state, where they feared unemployment and discrimination. Nearly half the Arab population of Haifa moved to Nazareth, Acre, Nablus, and Jenin before their city was captured by the Haganah on April 23, 1948. The Arab quarters of Wadi Nisnas and Karmel were almost completely emptied out. . . .

But hundreds of thousands of others, intimidated and terrorized, fled in panic, and still others were driven out by the Jewish army, which, under the leadership of Ben-Gurion, planned and executed the expulsion in the wake of the UN Partition Resolution.

The balance is clear in IDF intelligence estimates. As of June 1, 1948, 370,000 Arabs had left the country, from both the Jewish parts and the Arab parts conquered by the Jews.

- - Jewish attacks on Arab centers, particularly large villages, townlets, or cities, accounted for about 55 percent of those who left;
  - terrorist acts of the Irgun and LEHI, 15 percent;
  - whispering campaigns (psychological warfare), about 2 percent;
  - evacuation ordered by the IDF, another 2 percent;
  - and general fear, about 10 percent.

Therefore, 84 percent left in direct response to Israeli actions, while only 5 percent left on orders from Arab bands. The remaining 11 percent are not accounted for in this estimate and may refer to those who left voluntarily. (The total reflects only about 50 percent of the entire exodus since a similar number were to leave the country within the next six months.)

Again, it is obvious that no specific orders for expulsion could have been issued. All of the Zionist movements’ official pronouncements as well as those of the provisional government and, after January 1949, the Israeli government — and Ben-Gurion was prominent in these bodies — promised, as noted, fair treatment for the Arab minority. Moreover, in the face of the often brutal destruction and evacuation of villages, Ben-Gurion — along with other cabinet ministers — publicly criticized the brutality, looting, rape, and indiscriminate killing.

In private, however, Ben-Gurion was not averse to making his real views clear. Thus, on December 19, 1947, he demanded that “we adopt the system of aggressive defense; with every Arab attack we must respond with a decisive blow: the destruction of the place or the expulsion of the residents along with the seizure of the place.” He declared: “When in action we . . . must fight strongly and cruelly, letting nothing stop us.’’ Even without direct orders, the goal and spirit of real policy were understood and accepted by the army. That Ben-Gurions’ ultimate aim was to evacuate as much of the Arab population as possible from the Jewish state can hardly be doubted, if only from the variety of means he employed to achieve this purpose:

- - an economic war aimed at destroying Arab transport, commerce, and the supply of foods and raw materials to the urban population;
  - psychological warfare, ranging from “friendly warnings” to outright intimidation and exploitation of panic caused by dissident underground terrorism;
  - and finally, and most decisively, the destruction of whole villages and the eviction of their inhabitants by the army.

Ben-Gurion took note of the combined effects of economic, military, and psychological warfare in a diary entry from December 11, 1947:

Arabs are fleeing from Jaffa and Haifa. Bedouin are fleeing from the Sharon. Most are seeking refuge with members of their family. Villagers are returning to their villages. Leaders are also in flight, most of them are taking their families to Nablus, Nazareth. The Bedouin are moving to Arab areas. According to our “friends” [advisers], every response to our dealing a hard blow at the Arabs with many casualties is a blessing. This will increase the Arabs’ fear and external help for the Arabs will be ineffective. . . . Josh Palmon [an adviser to Ben-Gurion on Arab affairs] thinks that Haifa and Jaffa will be evacuated [by the Arabs] because of hunger. There was almost famine in Jaffa during the disturbances of 1936-1939.

In a letter to Sharett a few days later, Ben-Gurion focused on economic issues, observing that “the important difference with [the riots of] 1937 is the increased vulnerability of the Arab urban economy. Haifa and Jaffa are at our mercy. We can ‘starve them out.’ Motorized transport, which has also become an important factor in their life, is to a large extent at our mercy.”

The destruction of the Palestinian urban bases, along with the conquest and evacuation (willing or unwilling) of nearby villages, undermined the whole structure of Palestinian life in many parts of the country, especially in the towns. Ben-Gurion’s advisers urged closing stores, barring raw materials from factories, and various other measures.

- - Yadin, the army’s head of operations, advised that “we must paralyze Arab transportation and commerce, and harass them in country and town. This is the way to lower their morale.”
  - And Sasson proposed “damaging Arab commerce — even if Jewish commerce will be damaged. We can tolerate it, they cannot. . . we must not hit here and there, but at all transportation at once, all commerce and so on.”
  - Ezra Danin spoke of “a crushing blow” to be dealt by destroying “transportation (buses, trucks transporting agricultural produce, and private cars) . . . [and] economic facilities — Jaffa port (boats to be sunk); the closing down of stores; cutting off their contact with neighboring countries; the closing down of Arab factories through blockage of raw materials and cement.” Later, he added that “Jaffa must be put under a state of siege.” . . . .
  - Yigal Allon, commander in chief of the Haganah’s Palmach shock troops, also advised economic measures: “It is not always possible to discern between opponents and nonopponents. . . . It is impossible to refrain from injuring children — because it is impossible to separate them from the others when one has to enter every house. The Arabs are defending themselves now, and there are weapons in every house. Now only extreme punitive measures are possible. The call for peace will appear as a sign of weakness. Only after inflicting a major blow can calls to peace work. We must strike at their economy.”

Clearly, significant numbers of Arabs without food, work, or the most elementary security would choose to leave, especially given that almost all of their official leadership had left even before the fighting began.

On January 5, 1948, Ben-Gurion was able to review in his diary some of the effects of economic warfare on the Arabs of Haifa: “[Their] commerce has for the most part been destroyed, many stores are closed . . . prices are rising among the Arabs.” He noted that up to twenty thousand Arabs had left, including many of the wealthier people, whose businesses were no doubt among those destroyed.

Ben-Gurion’s belief in the efficacy of the policy of destroying the Arab economy led him to monitor its results constantly. Thus, on January 11, 1948, he noted in his diary a telephone conversation between Hussein al-Khalidi, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee and former mayor of Jerusalem, and the banker Farid Bey, in Haifa. Farid Bey told Khalidi of the desperate situation in Jerusalem and Haifa. “You have no idea how hard it is outside,” Khalidi replied, referring to the Arab leadership abroad. Farid Bey responded, “And here [Arabs] are dying day by day.” “It is even worse in Jaffa,” said Khalidi. “Everyone is leaving.”

That same day, Sasson reported to King Abdallah that the Palestinians in Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem were facing “hunger, poverty, unemployment, fear, terror.” Two days later, on January 13, Khalidi informed the mufti of the crisis: “The position here is very difficult,” he reported from Jerusalem. “There are no people, no discipline, no arms, and no ammunition. Over and above this, there is no tinned food and no foodstuffs. The black market is flourishing. The economy is destroyed. . . . This is the real situation, there is no flour, no food. . . . Jerusalem is emptying out.”

The urban disintegration of the Palestinian Arabs was a fait accompli. Ben-Gurion’s tactics had succeeded. As he explained it:

The strategic objective [of the Jewish forces] was to destroy the urban communities, which were the most organized and politically conscious sections of the Palestinian people. This was not done by house-to-house fighting inside the cities and towns, but by the conquest and destruction of the rural areas surrounding most of the towns. This technique led to the collapse and surrender of Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberias, Safed, Acre, Beit-Shan, Lydda, Ramleh, Majdal, and Beersheba. Deprived of transportation, food, and raw materials, the urban communities underwent a process of disintegration, chaos, and hunger, which forced them to surrender.

The military campaign against the Arabs, including the “conquest and destruction of the rural areas,” was set forth in the Haganah’s Plan Dalet [which I will outline in my next post]. Plan D, formulated and put into operation in March 1948, went into effect “officially” only on May 14, when the state was declared. The tenets of the plan were clear and unequivocal: The Haganah must carry out “activities against enemy settlements which are situated within or near to our Haganah installations, with the aim of preventing their use by active [Arab] armed forces.” These activities included the destruction of villages, the destruction of the armed enemy, and, in case of opposition during searches, the expulsion of the population to points outside the borders of the state.

Also targeted were transport and communication routes that might be used by the Arab forces. According to an interview with Yadin some twenty-five years later, “The plan intended to secure the territory of the state as far as the Palestinian Arabs were concerned, communication routes, and the strongholds required.” Yadin and his assistants outlined nine courses of operation that included “blocking the access roads of the enemy from their bases to targets inside the Jewish state,” and the “domination of the main arteries of transportation that are vital to the Jews, and destruction of the Arab villages near them, so that they shall not serve as bases for attacks on the traffic.”

The plan also referred to the “temporary” conquest of Arab bases outside Israeli borders. It included detailed guidelines for taking over Arab neighborhoods in mixed towns, particularly those overlooking transport routes, and the expulsion of their populations to the nearest urban center.

The psychological aspect of warfare was not neglected either. The day after the plan went into effect, the Lebanese paper Al-Hayat quoted a leaflet that was dropped from the air and signed by the Haganah command in Galilee:

We have no wish to fight ordinary people who want to live in peace, but only the army and forces which are preparing to invade Palestine. Therefore . . . all people who do not want this war must leave together with their women and children in order to be safe. This is going to be a cruel war, with no mercy or compassion. There is no reason why you should endanger yourselves.

Exactly how cruel and merciless was already clear from the example of the Dir Yassin massacre. The village of Dir Yassin was located in a largely Jewish area in the vicinity of Jerusalem and, as already noted, had signed a nonaggression pact with its Jewish neighbors as early as 1942. As a result, its inhabitants had not asked the Arab Higher Committee for protection when the fighting broke out. Yet for the entire day of April 9, 1948, Irgun and LEHI soldiers carried out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion. In a 1979 article dealing with the later forced evacuation of Lydda and Ramleh, New York Times reporter David Shipler cites Red Cross and British documents to the effect that the attackers “lined men, women and children up against walls and shot them,” so that Dir Yassin “remains a name of infamy in the world.” When they had finished, they looted the village and fled.

The ruthlessness of the attack on Dir Yassin shocked Jewish and world public opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the country.

I have jumped ahead a little. I need to backtrack to clarify a little more in the next post what the Zionist Plan D (Dalet) was all about.

Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York: Pantheon Books, 1987.

Flapan, Simha. Zionism and the Palestinians. London: Harper & Row, 1979.

Masalha, Nur. Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. Washington, D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992.

Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. https://archive.org/details/birthofpalestini00morr/mode/2up

McDonald, James G. My Mission In Israel 1948-1951. Simon And Schuster, 1951. http://archive.org/details/mymissioninisrae002443mbp

Nur MASALHA: Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Posts covering Nur Masalha’s book, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948: . . .

. . .

2024-10-07

“They are Messianic Jewish supremacists, racists, of the worst kind”

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by Neil Godfrey

Former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, speaking on Australia’s national current affairs program, 7.30, about the reason for the government of Israel refusing to declare a truce to free the hostages and for continuing the war (“if someone would have said we would still be stuck in Gaza after a year no-one would have believed it” @ 28:40) and even expanding it into the West Bank and Lebanon. The specific question Barak was responding to was whether “right wing elements within [Netanyahu’s] cabinet” ride their “successes” in the current war to continue to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank….

Oh sure. For sure they will do it. They do it even without this. They want a settlement… And if we wait for too long they might raise some idea that we had some promise from some corner of the Bible to get some part of Lebanon. They are Messianic Jewish supremacists, racists, of the worst kind. I compare them to the Proud Boys of America, those who were behind the 6 January event. So, think of the American President, who would nominate one of these leaders from the program to be secretary of treasury with certain formal roles and the other one to be in charge of national security, of homeland security. That’s crazy but that’s exactly what Netanyahu did because he needs tight control for the survival of the government. If there is even a ceasefire, in order to exchange the hostages and a ceasefire for four months, immediately it will become a day of reckoning because people will demand to establish a national investigation, a committee led by a Supreme Court judge, to find who is responsible for the worst day in our history. (@ 26 mins 55 secs)

(Of course, Barak is introduced as “having come very close to securing peace with the Palestinians” when he was Prime Minister. We are rarely reminded that the “best deal” the Palestinians were ever offered was a “state” divided into four island-regions, each surrounded by Israeli settlements or territory. The above quotation is not meant to imply agreement with every other view Barak expressed in the 7.30 interview. — No thought, of course, that there might be “a day of reckoning” to investigate responsibility for expulsions and killings of Palestinians since 1948.)

2024-06-23

The Collapse of Zionism & Hope in a New Generation

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by Neil Godfrey

* The anthropologist’s work I have just completed is fully in line with similar kinds of analyses of the causes of radicalization and extremist, even suicidal, acts of mayhem — Scott Atran, Jason Burke, Robert Pape, William McCants, Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, Bruce Hoffman, Anne Speckhard, Raffaello Pantucci, Riaz Hassan, Loretta Napoleoni, Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan (sic), Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, Peter Neumann, Ghassan Hage, Thomas Hegghammer, Richard Jackson, Ed Husain, Mohammed M. Hafez, Lorne L. Dawson, Quintan Wiktorowicz, Nate Rosenblatt — along with specialist studies of Hamas itself. The point being that the arguments are supported by mountains of research studies.

— I have posted on the research of the above (and others) on this blog. Search under the tags “radicalization” and “terrorism”.

Among the initiators of the The Palestine History and Heritage Project (PaHH) (that I spoke about recently in Imagine Palestine) was Dr Ilan Pappé. Pappé has written a sobering article in which he sees some hope for both Jews and Arabs beyond the current horrors. I’ve read in past years opinions by various hopefuls that “this time” we will see the beginning of the demise of an aggressive power only to have such thoughts wisp away into nothingness. But one thing is certainly clear as day — and this comes just after I have finished reading the latest work by a prominent anthropologist* in which he addresses the nature of “band of brothers” type bonding and willingness to sacrifice one’s life in resistance to an overwhelming force — and in that light it is clearer than ever that even if Israel manages to kill every current Hamas fighter it will inherit only more waves of like minded resistance fighters to battle.

Pappé draws comparisons with the last days of South Africa’s apartheid regime. Some of us will recall how SA’s use of horrific violence to maintain its system only convinced us that it would never change.

. . . Hamas’s assault of October 7 can be likened to an earthquake that strikes an old building. The cracks were already beginning to show, but they are now visible in its very foundations. More than 120 years since its inception, could the Zionist project in Palestine – the idea of imposing a Jewish state on an Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern country – be facing the prospect of collapse? . . .

. . . Here, I will argue that [the early indicators] are clearer than ever in the case of Israel. We are witnessing a historical process – or, more accurately, the beginnings of one – that is likely to culminate in the downfall of Zionism. And, if my diagnosis is correct, then we are also entering a particularly dangerous conjuncture. For once Israel realizes the magnitude of the crisis, it will unleash ferocious and uninhibited force to try to contain it, as did the South African apartheid regime during its final days.

A first indicator is the fracturing of Israeli Jewish society. At present it is composed of two rival camps which are unable to find common ground. . . .

— Time capsule – Vridar’s 2007 post on Gaza (Watch this to understand the background to October 7): Gaza (the reality behind the myth of “God’s will” for modern Israel)

One camp can be termed the ‘State of Israel’. It comprises more secular, liberal and mostly but not exclusively middle-class European Jews and their descendants, who were instrumental in establishing the state in 1948 . . . .

The other camp is the ‘State of Judea’, which developed among the settlers of the occupied West Bank. It enjoys increasing levels of support within the country and constitutes the electoral base that secured Netanyahu’s victory . . . .

. . . . More than half a million Israelis, representing the State of Israel, have left the country since October, an indication that the country is being engulfed by the State of Judea. This is a political project that the Arab world, and perhaps even the world at large, will not tolerate in the long term.

One often hears through mainstream channels that the problem is “very complicated”. I recently listened to an academic excuse himself from commenting on the current conflict because Israel-Palestine is “not my area of expertise”. Nonsense. It is as “complicated” as the European dispossessions and ultimate genocides of the indigenous peoples in North and South America and Australia. I posted an overview of the planning and implementation of the Zionist project under Masalha: Expulsion of the Palestinians

The second indicator is Israel’s economic crisis. . . . The conflict between the State of Israel and the State of Judea, along with the events of October 7, is meanwhile causing some of the economic and financial elite to move their capital outside the state. Those who are considering relocating their investments make up a significant part of the 20% of Israelis who pay 80% of the taxes.

The third indicator is Israel’s growing international isolation, as it gradually becomes a pariah state. This process began before October 7 but has intensified since the onset of the genocide. It is reflected by the unprecedented positions adopted by the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. . . .

The fourth … indicator is the sea-change among young Jews around the world. Following the events of the last nine months, many now seem willing to jettison their connection to Israel and Zionism and actively participate in the Palestinian solidarity movement. . . .

The fifth indicator is the weakness of the Israeli army. There is no doubt that the IDF remains a powerful force with cutting-edge weaponry at its disposal. Yet its limitations were exposed on October 7. . . .

The final indicator is the renewal of energy among the younger generation of Palestinians. It is far more united, organically connected and clear about its prospects than the Palestinian political elite. Given the population of Gaza and the West Bank is among the youngest in the world, this new cohort will have an immense influence over the course of the liberation struggle. The discussions taking place among young Palestinian groups show that they are preoccupied with establishing a genuinely democratic organization – either a renewed PLO, or a new one altogether – that will pursue a vision of emancipation which is antithetical to the Palestinian Authority’s campaign for recognition as a state. They seem to favour a one-state solution to a discredited two-state model. . . .

Pappé, Ilan. “The Collapse of Zionism.” NLR/Sidecar, June 21, 2024. https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-collapse-of-zionism?pc=1610.

To refer back to my latest reading, Inheritance by Harvey Whitehouse: The best we might dare hope for is the emergence of a boundary-crossing leadership, of which Nelson Mandela was a clear example. Two key works cited:

Cowan, Michael. “Inclusiveness, Foresight, and Decisiveness: The Practical Wisdom of Barrier-Crossing Leaders.” New England Journal of Public Policy 29, no. 1 (March 20, 2017). https://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol29/iss1/14.
Buhrmester, Michael, Michael Cowan, and Harvey Whitehouse. “What Motivates Barrier-Crossing Leadership?” New England Journal of Public Policy 34, no. 2 (October 19, 2022). https://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol34/iss2/7.

We have seen young Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians working together for justice and assistance for many years now (though their efforts have not made headlines) — so the possibility of that kind of leadership after the slaughter has ended is not out of the question. Though an acceleration of violence in the meantime seems inevitable.

2024-03-27

Messiah Mode – understanding Israel today

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

There was a time when I felt reasonably confident that the views of the Zionist extremist Meir Kahane would never become dominant in Israel. Surely, they would always be confined to the margins.

Then Netanyahu formed government with the religious extremists. How on earth did it turn out this way?

I failed to understand that Kahane was as much against the idea of Diaspora Jews as he was against anything else, and how propaganda and activism towards this end would play out.

David Sheen explains it well. His presentation in 2019 effectively predicted the events unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank today, including scenes captured in videos that I had naively believed the West had buried in 1945.

Sheen begins with the views that have been preached by government appointed rabbis to Israel’s military. Those views even openly align with the racist and genocidal proclamations of Hitler — with the only difference being that Hitler was mistaken in identifying the master race with the Aryans.

The video explains “the four types” of Jews as they are aligned with the Jewish sacred books, the Torah and Talmud.

Liberal (Reformist)
Torah = Holy	Torah ≠ Just Torah laws need reform to align it with modern values.
Nationalist (Opportunist)
Torah ≠ Holy	Torah = Just God gave Jews the land of Palestine, therefore they have an obligation to take it.
Religious (Supremacists)
Torah = Holy	Torah = Just Traditionally held that God would give Jews the land and make the gentiles willing slaves of the Jews; not for Jews to act but to wait for God to do it.
Socialist (Humanist)
Torah ≠ Holy	Torah ≠ Just

The video explains how the middle two, the nationalist and the religious (supremacist) have joined forces under Netanyahu.

2024-02-23

The Idol of Zionism, the Negation of Judaism — 1904

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Fortunately, I am not the only one raising my voice against the current, entirely misguided and long obsolete way of training rabbis. Protests are already being heard in rabbinic circles. However, not from the circles of the very youngest rabbis, who, trained in our days of chaplaincy, out of complete ignorance of the true essence of Judaism and despairing of its inner strength and future potential, throw themselves into the arms of the most recent day’s idol adorned with journalistic tinsel, called Zionism, which was recently aptly characterized by a perceptive scholar as the negation of Judaism. . . .

Original text:

Zum Glück bin ich nicht der einzige, der gegen die heutige, ganz verkehrte und längst verlebte Art, Rabbiner heranzubilden, seine Stimme erhebt. Es werden gegen dieselbe bereits in Rabbinerkreisen Proteste laut.Allerdings nicht in den Kreisen der allerjüngsten Rabbiner, die, herangebildet in unsern Tagen der Kaplanokratie, aus völliger Unkenntnis des wahren Wesens des Judentums und verzweifelnd an dessen innerer Kraft und Zukunftsstärke, sich dem jüngsten, mit journalistischem Flitter verbrämten Tagesgötzen, Zionismus genannt, den letzthin ein tiefblickender Gelehrter treffend als die Negation des Judentums charakterisierte, in die Arme werfen . . .

Friedländer, Moriz. Griechische Philosophie im alten Testament. Berlin: Reimer, 1904. http://archive.org/details/griechischephilo00frie. p. xvii

2023-12-11

Statement of Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

It’s hard to turn one’s mind to biblical studies at this time. Here is a copy of a statement that can be found on a Keough School of Global Affairs site at the University of Notre Dame. The scholars warn that the record of history indicates that we are witnessing evidence unfolding that much, much worse is still to come in Israel’s “war” on Gaza and with the coinciding actions in the West Bank and towards Palestinian citizens inside Israel. An introductory statement explains the purpose of the statement:

Contending Modernities presents the statement of scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies sounding the alarm regarding further escalation of the crimes against civilians underway in Gaza. In the introduction, Raz Segal highlights the melding of apocalyptic religious symbolism with an exclusionary modern nation state project by Israeli leadership to justify and drum up support for unprecedented rates of Palestinian death and destruction.

Here is Raz Segal’s Introduction to the Statement of the scholars:

Dr. Raz Segal is Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University. Dr. Segal has held a Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and was recently a Senior Fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (March-July 2023). His publications include Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914-1945 (2016); Days of Ruin: The Jews of Munkács during the Holocaust (2013); and he was guest editor of the Hebrew-language special issue on Genocide: Mass Violence and Cultural Erasure of Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly (2018). In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Segal has published op-eds, book reviews, and larger articles on genocide, state violence, and memory politics in Hebrew, English, and German in The Guardian, LA Times, The Nation, Jewish Currents, Haaretz, +972 Magazine, and Berliner Zeitung, and he has appeared on Democracy Now! and ABC News.

In the following statement, over 55 scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence deplore the atrocity crimes against civilians committed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on 7 October and by Israeli forces since then. The starvation, mass killing, and forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is ongoing, raising the question of genocide, especially in view of the intentions expressed by Israeli leaders. Israeli President Isaac Herzog used particularly loaded language in an interview on MSNBC just a few days ago, on 5 December: “This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas. It’s a war that is intended, really, truly, to save western civilization. … We are attacked by [a] Jihadist network, an empire of evil. … and this empire wants to conquer the entire Middle East, and if it weren’t for us, Europe would be next, and the United States follows.” Herzog builds on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s association of Israel’s attack on Gaza with the Biblical evil of Amalek, but he places it on a modern scale as the last stand against global apocalypse and the demise of “western civilization.” Both Herzog and Netanyahu are secular Jews. Their use of religious language and symbolism in this case reflects a dangerous intersection in the case of Israel of the exclusionary modern nation state with a settler colonial project in a place infused with multiple religious histories and meanings. The scholars who have signed the statement are signaling their alarm about the mass violence underway in Gaza and the inflammatory language that threatens to escalate it further. They call for urgent action to stop Israel’s attack on Gaza and to work towards a future that will guarantee the equality, freedom, dignity, and security of all the people who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

RAZ SEGAL
December 9, 2023

Statement of Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Mass Violence in Israel and Palestine since 7 October

https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-currents/statement-of-scholars-7-october/

December 9, 2023

We, scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, feel compelled to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza. We also note that, should the Israeli attack continue and escalate, Palestinians under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel face grave danger as well.

We are deeply saddened and concerned by the mass murder of over 1,200 Israelis and migrant workers by Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and others on 7 October, with more than 830 civilians among them. We also note the evidence of gender-based and sexual violence during the attack, the wounding of thousands of Israelis, the destruction of Israeli kibbutzim and towns, and the abduction of more than 240 hostages into the Gaza Strip. These acts constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. We recognize that violence in Israel and Palestine did not begin on 7 October. If we are to try to understand the mass murder of 7 October, we should place it within the context of Israeli settler colonialism, Israeli military occupation violence against Palestinians since 1967, the sixteen-year siege on the Gaza Strip since 2007, and the rise to power in Israel in the last year of a government made up of politicians who speak proudly about Jewish supremacy and exclusionary nationalism. Explaining is not justifying, and this context in no way excuses the targeting of Israeli civilians and migrant workers by Palestinians on 7 October.

We are also deeply saddened and concerned by the Israeli attack on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack. Israel’s assault has caused death and destruction on an unprecedented level, according to a New York Times article on 26 November. In two months, the Israeli assault has killed more than 16,000 Palestinians (with thousands more buried under the rubble)—nearly half of them children and youth, with a Palestinian child killed every ten minutes on average before the ceasefire—and wounded over 40,000. Considering that the total population of Gaza stands at 2.3 million people, the killing rate so far is about 0.7 percent in less than two months. The killing rate of civilians in Russia’s bombing and invasion of Ukraine in the areas most affected by the violence are probably similar—but over a longer period of time. A number of experts have therefore described Israel’s attack on Gaza as the most intense and deadliest of its kind since World War II, but while Russia’s attack on Ukraine has, for very good reason, prompted western leaders to support the people under attack, the same western leaders now support the violence of the Israeli state rather than the Palestinians under attack.

Israel has also forcibly displaced more than 1.8 million Palestinians within the Gaza Strip, while destroying almost half of all buildings and leaving the northern part of the Strip an “uninhabitable moonscape.” Indeed, the Israeli army has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza since 7 October, which is equivalent to two Hiroshima bombs, and according to Human Rights Watch, deployed white phosphorous bombs. It has systematically targeted hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches, bakeries, and agricultural fields. The state has also killed many essential professionals, including more than 220 healthcare workers, over 100 UN personnel, and dozens of journalists. The forced displacement has, furthermore, created in the southern part of the Strip severe overcrowding, with the risk of outbreak of infectious diseases, exacerbated by shortages of food, clean water, fuel, and medical supplies, due to Israel’s “total siege” measures since 7 October.

The unprecedented level of destruction and killing points to large-scale war crimes in Israel’s attack on Gaza. There is also evidence of a “widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack” that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines as a crime against humanity. Moreover, dozens of statements of Israeli leaders, ministers in the war cabinet, and senior army officers since 7 October—that is, people with command authority—suggest an “intent to destroy” Palestinians “as such,” in the language of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The statements include depictions of all Palestinians in Gaza as responsible for the Hamas attack on 7 October and therefore legitimate military targets, as expressed by Israeli President Herzog on 13 October and by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu when he invoked, on 29 October, the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, just as Israel began its ground invasion. Casting an entire civilian population as enemies marks the history of modern genocide, with the Armenian genocide (1915-1918) and the Rwanda genocide (1994) as well-known examples. The statements also include dehumanizing language, such as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s reference to “human animals” when he proclaimed “total siege” on Gaza on 9 October. The slippage between seeing Hamas as “human animals” to seeing all Palestinians in Gaza in this way is evident in what Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian promised to people in Gaza the next day: “Hamas has turned into ISIS, and the residents of Gaza, instead of being appalled, are celebrating. … Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

These expressions of intent need to be understood also in relation to the widespread incitement to genocide in Israeli media since 7 October. Israeli journalist David Mizrachi Wertheim, for instance, wrote on social media on 7 October that “If all the captives are not returned immediately, then turn the [Gaza] Strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls from their head – execute security prisoners. Violate all norms on the way to victory.” He also added, “we are facing human animals.” Four days later, another Israeli journalist, Roy Sharon, commented on social media “that if, in order to finally eliminate the military capabilities of Hamas, including Sinwar and Deif, we need a million bodies, then let there be a million bodies.” Annihilatory language now also appears in public spaces, such as banners on bridges in Tel Aviv that call “to annihilate Gaza” and explain that “the picture of triumph is 0 people in Gaza.” There are dozens of examples of incitement in Israeli media, which recalls the incitement to genocide in Rwanda as genocide was unfolding there in 1994.

This incitement points to the grave danger that Palestinians everywhere under Israeli rule now face. Israeli army and settler violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which has intensified markedly from the beginning of 2023, has entered a new stage of brutality after 7 October. Sixteen Palestinian communities—over a thousand people—have been forcibly displaced in their entirety, continuing the policy of “ethnic cleansing” in Area C that comprises 60 percent of the West Bank. Israeli soldiers and settlers have furthermore killed more than 220 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, while arresting thousands. The violence against Palestinians also includes acts of torture.

Palestinian citizens of Israel—almost 2 million people—are also facing a state assault against them, with hundreds of arrests since 7 October for any expression of identification with Palestinians in Gaza. There is widespread intimidation and silencing of Palestinian students, faculty, and staff in Israeli universities, and the Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai threatened to expel to Gaza Israeli Palestinians identifying with Palestinians in Gaza. These alarming developments and measures build on a view of Palestinian citizens of Israel as potential enemies that stretches back to the military rule imposed on the 156,000 Palestinians who survived the Nakba and remained within the territory that became Israel in 1948. This iteration of military rule lasted until 1966, but the image of Israeli Palestinians as a threat has persisted. In May 2021, as many Israeli Palestinians came out to protest an attack on Palestinians in East Jerusalem and another attack on Gaza, the Israeli police responded with massive repression and violence, arresting hundreds. The situation deteriorated quickly, as Jewish and Palestinian citizens clashed across Israel—in some places, as in Haifa, with Jewish citizens attacking Palestinian citizens on the streets and breaking into houses of Palestinian citizens. And now, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right settler who serves as Israeli minister of national security, has put Israeli Palestinians in even more danger by the distribution of thousands of weapons to Israeli civilians who have formed hundreds of self-defense units after 7 October.

The escalating violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the exclusion and violence against Palestinian citizens of Israel are particularly worrying in the context of calls in Israel after 7 October for a “second Nakba.” The reference is to the massacres and “ethnic cleansing” of more than 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of hundreds of villages and towns by Israeli forces in the 1948 war, when Israel was established. The language that member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) Ariel Kallner from the ruling Likud party used in a social media post on 7 October is instructive: “Nakba to the enemy now. … Now, only one goal: Nakba! Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to whoever dares to join [them].” We know that genocide is a process, and we recognize that the stage is thus set for violence more severe than the Nakba and not spatially limited to Gaza.

Thus, the time for concerted action to prevent genocide is now. We call on governments to uphold their legal obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to intervene and prevent genocide (Article 1) by (1) implementing an arms embargo on Israel; (2) working to end Israel’s military assault on Gaza; (3) pressuring the Israeli government to stop immediately the intensifying army and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which constitute clear violations of international law; (4) demanding the continued release of all hostages held in Gaza and all Palestinians imprisoned unlawfully in Israel, without charges or trial; (5) calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate and issue arrest warrants against all perpetrators of mass violence on 7 October and since then, both Palestinians and Israelis; and (6) initiating a political process in Israel and Palestine based on a truthful reckoning with Israeli mass violence against Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba and a future that will guarantee the equality, freedom, dignity, and security of all the people who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

We also call on businesses and labor unions to ensure that they do not aid and abet Israeli mass violence, but rather follow the example of workers in Belgium transport unions who refused in late October to handle flights that ship arms to Israel.

Finally, we call on scholars, programs, centers, and institutes in Holocaust and Genocide Studies to take a clear stance against Israeli mass violence and join us in efforts to stop it and prevent its further escalation.

Mohamed Adhikari, University of Cape Town

Taner Akçam, Director, Armenian Genocide Research Program, The Promise Armenian Institute, UCLA

Ayhan Aktar, Professor of Sociology (Retired), Istanbul Bilgi University

Yassin Al Haj Saleh, Syrian Writer, Berlin

Sebouh David Aslanian, Professor of History and Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, UCLA

Karyn Ball, Professor of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton

Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, Professorial Research Associate, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Cathie Carmichael, Professor Emerita, School of History, University of East Anglia

Daniele Conversi, Professor, Department of Contemporary History, University of the Basque Country

Catherine Coquio, Professeure de littérature comparée à Université Paris Cité, France

John Cox, Associate Professor of History and Global Studies and Director of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Martin Crook, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of the West of England

Ann Curthoys, Honorary Professor, School of Humanities, The University of Sydney

Sarah K. Danielsson, Professor of History, Queensborough, CUNY

John Docker, Sydney, Australia

John Duncan, affiliated with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Didier Fassin, Professor at the Collège de France and the Institute for Advanced Study

Joanne Smith Finley, Reader in Chinese Studies, Newcastle University, UK

Shannon Fyfe, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, George Mason University; Faculty Fellow, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy

William Gallois, Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean, University of Exeter

Fatma Muge Gocek, Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Svenja Goltermann, Professor of Modern History, University of Zurich

Andrei Gómez-Suarez, Senior Research Fellow, Centre of Religion, Reconciliation and Peace, University of Winchester

Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalisation and Director of the International State Crime Initiative, Queen Mary University of London

John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta

Marianne Hirschberg, Professor, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Kassel, Germany

Anna Holian, Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Arizona State University

Rachel Ibreck, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Department of Politics and International Relations, Goldsmiths, University of London

Adam Jones, Professor, Political Science, University of British Columbia Okanagan

Rachel Killean, Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney Law School

Brian Klug, Hon. Fellow in Social Philosophy, Campion Hall, University of Oxford, and Hon. Fellow, Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton

Mark Levene, Emeritus Fellow, University of Southampton

Yosefa Loshitzky, Professorial Research Associate, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Thomas MacManus, Senior Lecturer in State Crime, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London

Zachariah Mampilly, Professor, Baruch College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

Benjamin Meiches, Associate Professor of Security Studies and Conflict Resolution, University of Washington-Tacoma

Dirk Moses, Professor of International Relations, City College of New York, CUNY

Eva Nanopoulos, Senior Lecturer in Law, Queen Mary University of London

Jeffrey Ostler, Professor of History Emeritus, University of Oregon

Thomas Earl Porter, Professor of History, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC

Colin Samson, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex

Victoria Sanford, Lehman Professor of Excellence, Lehman College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide, Stockton University

Elyse Semerdjian, Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair of Armenian Genocide Studies, Clark University

Martin Shaw, University of Sussex/Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals

Damien Short, Co-Director of the Human Rights Consortium and Professor of Human Rights and Environmental Justice at the School of Advanced Study, University of London

Ronald Grigor Suny, William H. Sewell, Jr. Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of History and Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan

Adam Sutcliffe, Professor of European History, King’s College London

Barry Trachtenberg, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University

Enzo Traverso, Professor in the Humanities, Cornell University

Jeremy Varon, Professor of History, The New School, New York

Johanna Ray Vollhardt, Associate Professor of Psychology, Clark University

Pauline Wakeham, Associate Professor, Department of English, Western University (Canada)

Keith David Watenpaugh, Professor and Director, Human Rights Studies, University of California, Davis

Andrew Woolford, Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of Manitoba

Ran Zwigenberg, Associate Professor of Asian Studies, History, and Jewish Studies, Pennsylvania State University

“Bombing Kids Is Not Self Defense” by Becker1999, Flickr.com, CC BY 2.0 DEED. — image included in the University of Notre Dame/Contending Modernities post of the statement.

I have read and studied about the Zionist movement and history of Palestine-Israel since the late nineteenth century in some depth and (I mean I have studied the history that has happened since that time, not that I have studied since that time the history of …) and can only hope against all hope that Noam Chomsky’s unfathomable optimism is valid when he says that at last there might be some hope for the salvation of the Palestinians — see from the 3 minutes 50 seconds his remarks on

2023-12-06

Biblical Israel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Prominent Rabbi explains war on #Gaza and the people of the region - this is Zionism, the core of #Israel

Must watch. pic.twitter.com/1u8oHnaRrE
— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) October 8, 2023

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2023-10-29

Gaza in Context

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

For the background to what is happening now in Gaza, see the series of posts on Nur Masalha’s book, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. I see that I never did complete that series. I stopped at the beginning of 1948. I shall have to rectify that — but for a serious understanding of today one does need to look at the roots — before 1948 — to understand what Zionism is really all about, and to understand how we could be witnessing the beginning of the final chapter of that movement.

–o0o–

For those interested in the “longue durée” picture, here is my overview of Keith Whitelam discussion of the “rhythms” of Palestinian History —

- The Rhythms of Palestine’s History — originally posted February 2015

Palestine lost its history first to the European imperial powers and then to a Zionist construction of the past which rapidly became its national narrative.

The Palestinians themselves have been written out of history. So much so that many even claim that they had no roots in the land and belong back in the desert with the other Arabs….

If the Palestinians do not possess a past, they cannot possess a national consciousness or be a people. Therefore, they have no right to a land or a state.

2020-11-21

“In the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Yusuf Diya’ al-Khalidi was an outspoken liberal member of the first Ottoman Parliament, three times Mayor of Jerusalem, an Ottoman diplomat, an instructor and then a professor at the Imperial-Royal Oriental Academy in Vienna, and author of several scholarly works, including the first Kurdish-Arabic dictionary (and one of the first examinations of the Kurdish language on modern linguistic principles). — Khalidi 2009, 68

March 1, 1899, Yusuf Diya, scholar, mayor and diplomat, wrote a letter to Theodor Herzl, leader of the Zionist movement.

Background to that letter:

As a result of his wide reading, as well as his time in Vienna and other European countries, and from his encounters with Christian missionaries, Yusuf Diya was fully conscious of the pervasiveness of Western anti-Semitism. He had also gained impressive knowledge of the intellectual origins of Zionism, specifically its nature as a response to Christian Europe’s virulent anti-Semitism. He was undoubtedly familiar with Der Judenstaat by the Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl, published in 1896, and was aware of the first two Zionist congresses in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 and 1898. (Indeed, it seems clear that Yusuf Diya knew of Herzl from his own time in Vienna.) He knew of the debates and the views of the different Zionist leaders and tendencies, including Herzl’s explicit call for a state for the Jews, with the “sovereign right” to control immigration. Moreover, as mayor of Jerusalem he had witnessed the friction with the local population prompted by the first years of proto-Zionist activity, starting with the arrival of the earliest European Jewish settlers in the late 1870s and early 1880s.

Herzl, the acknowledged leader of the growing movement he had founded, had paid his sole visit to Palestine in 1898, timing it to coincide with that of the German kaiser Wilhelm II. He had already begun to give thought to some of the issues involved in the colonization of Palestine, writing in his diary in 1895:

We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.

Yusuf Diya would have been more aware than most of his compatriots in Palestine of the ambition of the nascent Zionist movement, as well as its strength, resources, and appeal. He knew perfectly well that there was no way to reconcile Zionism’s claims on Palestine and its explicit aim of Jewish statehood and sovereignty there with the rights and well-being of the country’s indigenous inhabitants. It is for these reasons, presumably, that on March 1, 1899, Yusuf Diya sent a prescient seven-page letter to the French chief rabbi, Zadoc Kahn, with the intention that it be passed on to the founder of modern Zionism.

The letter:

The letter began with an expression of Yusuf Diya’s admiration for Herzl, whom he esteemed “as a man, as a writer of talent, and as a true Jewish patriot,” and of his respect for Judaism and for Jews, who he said were “our cousins,” referring to the Patriarch Abraham, revered as their common forefather by both Jews and Muslims. He understood the motivations for Zionism, just as he deplored the persecution to which Jews were subject in Europe. In light of this, he wrote, Zionism in principle was “natural, beautiful and just,” and, “who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine? My God, historically it is your country!”

This sentence is sometimes cited, in isolation from the rest of the letter, to represent Yusuf Diya’s enthusiastic acceptance of the entire Zionist program in Palestine. However, the former mayor and deputy of Jerusalem went on to warn of the dangers he foresaw as a consequence of the implementation of the Zionist project for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine. The Zionist idea would sow dissension among Christians, Muslims, and Jews there. It would imperil the status and security that Jews had always enjoyed throughout the Ottoman domains. Coming to his main purpose, Yusuf Diya said soberly that whatever the merits of Zionism, the “brutal force of circumstances had to be taken into account.” The most important of them were that “Palestine is an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, and more gravely, it is inhabited by others.” Palestine already had an indigenous population that would never accept being superseded. Yusuf Diya spoke “with full knowledge of the facts,” asserting that it was “pure folly” for Zionism to plan to take over Palestine. “Nothing could be more just and equitable,” than for “the unhappy Jewish nation” to find a refuge elsewhere. But, he concluded with a heartfelt plea, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.”

Herzl’s reply: Continue reading ““In the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.””

2020-02-11

Jewish Zionism . . . an Old Testament Project (for the USA, too)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Alastair Crooke

From an article by British diplomat Alastair Crooke, Israel in the Middle East — A Civilisational and Metaphysical War. Crooke essentially links the recent Trump “Deal of the Century” Peace Plan to the historical visions of both American “manifest destiny” and Israeli Zionism.

* Mr President … you became the first world leader to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over areas in Judea and Samaria that are vital to our security and central to our heritage. . . . For too long — far too long — the very heart of the Land of Israel where our patriarchs prayed, our prophets preached, and our kings ruled, has been outrageously branded as illegally occupied territory. Well, today, Mr. President, you are puncturing this big lie. (Applause.) . . . . These, as the distinguished pastors who are here know very well — these are places inscribed in the pages of the Bible. These are places carved into the bedrock of our common civilization: the sacred tomb in Hebron where the fathers and mothers of the Jewish people are buried; Bethel, where Jacob dreamed of a ladder ascending to the heavens; Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant that held the Ten Commandments … for centuries. That’s what happened in Shiloh. — Netanyahu’s speech (Times of Israel)

Jewish Zionism, as expressed by Netanyahu this week*, though ostensibly secular, is not just a political construct: It is, too, as it were, an Old Testament project. Laurent Guyénot observes [link is to Zionism, Crypto-Judaism, and the Biblical Hoax by author of From Yahweh to Zion], that when it is asserted that Zionism is biblical, that doesn’t necessarily mean it to be religious. It can, and does, serve as key leitmotiv for secular Jews too. For secular Zionists, the Bible is on the one hand, a ‘national narrative’, but on the other, a particular civilizational vision, bound around a modern state (Israel).

Ben-Gurion was not religious; he never went to the synagogue, and ate pork for breakfast, yet he could declare: “I believe in our moral and intellectual superiority, in our capacity to serve as a model for the redemption of the human race”. Dan Kurzman, in his biography (Ben-Gurion, Prophet of Fire, 1983) writes that “[Ben Gurion] was, in a modern sense, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, a messiah, who felt he was destined to create an exemplary Jewish state, a ‘light unto the nations’ that would help to redeem all mankind”. This is the inner Universalist vision (tied to a state). These backstage, half acknowledged, convictions – of being ‘elect’, as an example – clearly do condition political actions, (such as disregarding legal norms).

If you don’t have a subscription to Haaretz (your library may have an online subscription) you may not be able to read what Alastair Crooke means by “disregarding legal norms”. I’ll quote pieces from the Haaretz link. It is an opinion piece by Gideon Levy discussing the recent Trump-Netanyahu “peace plan”. Levy begins with “the good news”: the plan puts a decisive end to any hopes for a two-state solution. That was never a serious option, Levy writes, it was never going to be allowed by Israel. Levy calls this “good news” because it forces the world to acknowledge that the only positive option available is to work towards a single democratic state “between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.” That, of course, also implies the end of the “Jewish state”. The alternative is the acceptance of a new apartheid state.

Disregarding legal norms

So Levy writes of what the “peace plan” means for legal norms:

With the Jordan Valley and most of the West Bank settlements under Israeli sovereignty, the Palestinians are guaranteed not to have a state, half-state, city government or neighborhood. Nothing but a penal colony. With the Jordan Valley and most of the settlements annexed, Donald Trump makes official the establishment of the apartheid state to be known as the State of Israel. What Herzl began in Basel, Trump finished in Washington. . . . Trump’s news and the world’s capitulation, however, is much more portentous. Trump is creating not only a new Israel, but a new world. A world without international law, without honoring international resolutions, without even the appearance of justice. A world in which the U.S. president’s son-in-law is more powerful than the UN General Assembly. If the settlements are permitted, everything is permitted.

Levy, Gideon. 2020. “Opinion One Person, One Vote for Israel-Palestine.” Haaretz, January 26, 2020. (Highlighting is my own in all quotations)

Ben-Gurion was not a special case

Continuing Crooke’s article:

Ben-Gurion was in no way a special case. His immersion in the Bible was shared by almost every Zionist leader of his generation, and the next. And the Israel of today, is no longer as secular as it once was, but rather, is in transit back towards Yahweyism — which is to say, away from the law of a secular state founded by the Zionists, towards traditional Hebraic law as revealed in the Tanakh (the Old Testament of the Christians). Netanyahu implicitly reverts to Hebraic tradition (from secular norms), when he states flatly that as ‘leader’, he should not be removed from power. In other words, Israel is becoming more, not less, ‘biblical’.

Securing “Israel’s destiny” … as outlined in the Bible

Continue reading “Jewish Zionism . . . an Old Testament Project (for the USA, too)”

2019-01-21

It needs to be said (anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Matthew Rozsa has an article in Salon.com and repeated in Alternet:

Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism: But disentangling them can be tricky

Rep. Rashida Tlaib has been unfairly accused of anti-Semitism, but there’s a reason why these issues get confused

Some extracts:

Yes, it is fair to be suspicious of anyone who drags up anti-Semitic myths like the idea that Jews have dual loyalties, or that Jews have too much power, or that Jews are somehow to blame for racist violence in other parts of the world. It is obvious bigotry to blame “Jews” as a group for the actions of Israeli officials, or to invoke greed and other anti-Semitic stereotypes when describing Israel, or to disproportionately focus on the atrocities in Israel while being conveniently silent about human rights violations committed by Arab or Muslim nations. Whether or not a Jewish state should have been created in the Middle East, it has now been there for 70 years — denying its right to exist is also, de facto, anti-Semitic.

Those who employ such rhetoric speak in the language of anti-Semitism.

. . . . .

At the same time, the truth is that Israel does commit human rights violations. The fact that many wrongs have been done to Jews in the past — and I say this as a Jew who personally experienced a hate crime — does not excuse the suffering that the Israeli government and individual Israelis, have inflicted against the Palestinian people. This explanation by Human Rights Watch from 2017, the 50-year anniversary of the Six Day War, summarizes the problem all too well:

Fifty years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it controls these areas through repression, institutionalized discrimination, and systematic abuses of the Palestinian population’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today.

At least five categories of major violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law characterize the occupation: unlawful killings; forced displacement; abusive detention; the closure of the Gaza Strip and other unjustified restrictions on movement; and the development of settlements, along with the accompanying discriminatory policies that disadvantage Palestinians.

. . . . ..

Many people of good will look at these offenses and are rightly horrified, and it is both cheap and wrong to seek to use the label of “anti-Semite” to shame them into silence. Similarly, if individuals choose not to do business with the State of Israel because they disapprove of its actions, they have a right to do that without being automatically labeled as bigots.

Yes, to wish for a democratic state of Israel with equal rights for all ethnicities and religions is surely a noble dream. I side with those who think it is now too late for a two-state solution and the best option for human rights and dignity for all is for Israel and the West Bank and Gaza to form a single state. (Oh, and those still stuck in refugee camps be allowed to return.) That does in effect mean the “end of Israel as a Jewish state” in the same sense that we speak of the end of South Africa as a white/Boer state. I think what is holding the parties back from going that far is racism, both anti-Jewish and anti-Arab racism. But I do see evidence of non-racists on both sides, the Jewish and the Arab. (But that sounds cruel .. “both sides” .. as if they are both equally to blame: they are not equally to blame, not by a long stretch). Now if only those persons could take the lead….

But I dream.

2018-11-01

The Myth of Jewish Pining for Return to Palestine

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

For readers interested in a few notes from The Pity of It All by historian Amos Elon.

Herzl envisaged a modern Exodus organized on a “scientific” basis. He would go to the kaiser and say, “Let us depart! We are strangers here. We are not allowed to merge with the Germans, nor are we able to. Let my people go!” The kaiser would understand him; he was trained to understand great things. The Jews would depart, taking the German language with them; it would flourish in the new land, wherever that would be. Herzl was neither sentimental nor nostalgic when it came to the choice of a suitable territory: the homeland could be Argentina or elsewhere, preferably far from the imperial rivalries of the European powers. The place would be chosen by a committee of rational, scientific geographers and economists; the mass of Jews, however, would settle for whatever place they were offered. The new national home would not be “Jewish” but a multicultural, multilingual state like Switzerland, even though most citizens would probably con tinue to speak German. (285-86)

And the reaction to Herzl’s plan?

Bismarck never answered Herzl’s letter. Herzl was not surprised. . . . The reaction of most German and Austrian Jews to Herzl’s plan was hardly more forth coming. A Lovers of Zion movement of a few small, loosely organized proto-Zionist groups had existed, mostly in Russia and Romania, since the pogroms of 1882. In the West it counted no more than a dozen or so sympathizers in Cologne and a few romantically inclined Viennese Jews of Eastern European origin whose purpose was to help settle Russian and Romanian Jews as farmers in Palestine on a nonpolitical basis. . . . Nevertheless, in the fifteen years since its inception the project had attracted few candidates and was an economic failure. (286)

The reaction among Jews to Herzl’s plan ranged from ridicule to ignoring it to outright hostility.

Opposition to Herzl’s Zionism seemed more vehement in Germany than elsewhere in Europe. It was certainly more shrill. His program seemed to threaten German Jews to their very core, and German Zionists remained few and isolated for many years. Herzl tried in vain to interest Walther Rathenau in his cause. “The Jews are no longer a nation and will never become one,” Rathenau responded. German Jews were now a German tribe like Saxonians and Bavarians. “Zionist aspirations are atavistic.” (288)

The myth of an empty land waiting for a people without a land had not yet been born.

In Cohen’s opinion, the Jews’ task was “to go on living among the nations as the God-sent dew, to remain with them and be fruitful for them.” The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums reproached the Zionists for assuming that the Arabs of Palestine would welcome an influx of Jews — one of the earliest warnings against the widespread assumption that Palestine had, in effect, no politically conscious native population; as a land with out people it was thought to be ideally suited for a people without a land. (289)

Up till 1909 nothing really changed.

With few exceptions, even those who were registered Zionists were “third-party Zionists,” that is, one Jew soliciting funds from a second so that a third might be able to settle in Palestine. German Zionists continued to be ardent German patriots. Their love of the fatherland was only “enhanced,” they proclaimed, by their love of the ancient Palestinian homeland: what they had lost there they had found again in Germany. The noted economist Franz Oppenheimer joined the Zionists despite the fact that his emotional and intellectual makeup, as he put it, was “ 99% Kant and Goethe and 1%Old Testament via Spinoza and Luther’s translation of the Bible.” In sum, few were touched personally by the cause, and even when they were, it was primarily as an activity “German Jews would lead and direct but in which the Jews of Eastern Europe must be the actors. (289-90)

From 1909 a new Jewish generation reacted differently to an evolving social situation in Germany but that’s another story.

Elon, Amos. 2002. The Pity of It All a Portrait of Jews in Germany 1743-1933. New York: Picador.

This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
"Vridar is consistently thought-provoking, well-informed, and asking the right questions. There are intelligent, thoughtful comments and commenters regularly offering productive discussion. Books and publications are covered with a range of perspectives with attempts at fair and accurate representation of others’ arguments and content (where there are occasional and inevitable missteps on that I notice Neil making corrections and apologies where warranted, which wins points with me). Please carry on."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
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— R. Joseph Hoffmann, – June 2014
Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

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Raphael Lataster - August 2019
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— April DeConick, – November 2007
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010
"I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!"

— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

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— James McGrath, – June 2009
"Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

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— Russell Gmirkin, – October 2016
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"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015
"Neil, You’ve done a clean job in your posting on ‘Jesus the Healer’. It reflects well on you. Best, John"

— John Moles, September 2011 (personal email)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
"I have found your website really valuable as an interpretive filter for Biblical scholarship, especially the origins of Christianity and historicity of Jesus issue. Your clarity of expression, fair comments and personal insights are much valued. I refer to your site frequently as yet more names and publications pop up requiring an academic critique and helpful recommendations for book purchases. So, please continue to delve deeply and share this intellectual sustenance with your grateful readers."

— Mary Booker, – February 2020 (personal email)
It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

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-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

— Richard Carrier, – March 2014
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-- Emanuel Pfoh - August 2020
"Here I give an admittedly subjective short list, in random order, of useful, high level and regularly updated weblogs on the study of the Old Testament . . . ‘Vridar: Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science’ (http://vridar.org/) by Neil Godfrey"

-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016

Gordon Rouse on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “There is some great video content from Owen Jones that also covers the moral bankruptcy of western civilization. A less…” May 15, 23:52
Stephen on Did Josephus Fabricate the Origins of the Jewish Rebellion Against Rome?: “The Jesus of Mark’s Gospel was not created as a counter to Judas, because the Jesus of the Gospel still…” May 15, 23:40
Andrew Dabrowski on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “Oh, I see. Well faith in the exceptionalism of one’s own nation extends far beyond America; but within America it’s…” May 15, 15:24
Neil Godfrey on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “I would have thought that notions of American exceptionalism and faith in capitalism extend beyond Trump supporters. Some of us…” May 15, 02:27
Andrew Dabrowski on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “OK, but I think you’re giving way too much credit to the power of media. Trump got just under 50%…” May 14, 14:55
Neil Godfrey on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “The implication is not that US Presidents have the power to control minds — in some sort of direct opposition…” May 14, 04:17
Neil Godfrey on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “Not at all — I suggest you have misread Dabishi’s article (my quotes are attempts to invite readers to turn…” May 14, 04:04
Andrew Dabrowski on Trump Is the True Face of American “Democracy”: “As a far left American I’m entirely sympathetic and largely in agreement – but sometimes you’ve let emotion get the…” May 13, 15:07
Neil Godfrey on Does the Tel Dan Inscription ‘Prove’ David to Be a Historical Person?: “However much we may dislike religion, nothing can be gained by ad hominem arguments. If faith guides the scholarship, the…” May 13, 07:12

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The “Miracle” of the “Arab Exodus”

Events leading to the 1948 Exodus

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Statement of Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Mass Violence in Israel and Palestine since 7 October

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Disregarding legal norms

Ben-Gurion was not a special case

Securing “Israel’s destiny” … as outlined in the Bible

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