Theodor Herzl's dream of a national homeland for the Jewish people was realized when Israel declared its independence in 1948. Yet it was made possible through the deaths of millions of European Jews and at the expense of Palestinian society -- a people who would never forget what they saw as a grave injustice. Herzl's dream would prove illusory. This important new study from the former Australian ambassador to Israel shows how little the dynamics of the conflict have actually changed; how eerily reminiscent today's antagonisms and falsehoods are of yesteryear's; and how much today's self-righteous intransigence -- on both sides -- owes to what went before.
Theodor Herzl's dream of a national homeland for the Jewish people was a triumph achieved in little more than half a century. Yet it was made possible through the deaths of millions of European Jews and the fragmentation of Palestinian society. Whatever their historical or emotional attachment to the land they came to rule, the Jews of Israel had supplanted another people, another people who would not forget. Herzl's dream of ending Jewish insecurity, once and for all, would prove illusory.This important new study shows how little the dynamics of the conflict have actually changed; how eerily reminiscent today's antagonisms and falsehoods are of yesteryear's; how 'modern' leadership is anything but; and how much today's self-righteous intransigence owes to what went before. It poses the vital question: have the nationalist dreams of both peoples been doomed by the determined refusal of Jew and Palestinian to contemplate what life must be like for the other?While the story of the conflict between Jew and Palestinian in the past century has its share of both political and military and human triumphs, too often the recurring themes are those of lies and hypocrisy, myth-making and mutual demonisation and of a determined, energetic refusal to contemplate and acknowledge the other's history and point of view. Peter Rodgers brings a rare understanding of the recent history of the region to explain with fair-minded clarity the nightmare of modern Israel and Palestine.
Antony’s Loewenstein’s My Israel Question was a bestseller when first published and generated a storm of controversy, critical praise and robust public debate. Loewenstein’s forensic discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues here in a fully updated and expanded new edition, examining the prospects of the Middle East peace process in the new geo-political context. The election of Barack Obama brought hope to millions around the world and has seen renewed diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. Yet the Israel–Palestine conflict remains mired in brutality and occupation. The election of a far-right Israeli government, the indiscriminate war on Gaza and the illegal expansion of West Bank colonies suggest a bleak future for both Israelis and Palestinians. However, public debate about the issue, in the USA, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, is suggesting alternative ways of tackling the crisis. Now, Antony Loewenstein maps the way in which the conflict is ferociously discussed and where the hope lies for resolution to the brutal impasse.
In 2004 the one-hundredth anniversary of Theodor Herzl’s death was commemorated throughout the world. The myth of Herzl, as it has developed over the last century, has perhaps become more important than the historical figure. This volume contains revised and expanded essays, which were originally delivered as lectures at international Herzl centennial conferences in Antwerp, London, and Jerusalem. Topics treated include the Herzl myth, Herzl’s nationalism and Zionism, his self-understanding and image, his authorship of comedies and philosophical tales, Herzl and Africa, as well as his reception in Israeli and other literature. Zweig films are also considered within this same context.
This book develops “emotional state theory” as a new contribution to international relations theory (IR). The text addresses the State of Israel vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The rationale for this research perspective stems from the trajectory of Israeli state-building since its foundation in May 1948 to the present date. This trajectory is constructed reflecting the trauma of the past and dreams about the future. Both contribute decisively to a better understanding of the current image and position of the state of Israel. The reference builds on two great Jewish thinkers’ works,Theodor Herzl and his book The Jewish State and Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. The author argues that despite the fact that both never met, taken together their ideas lend themselves to shed light on and offer an explanation for Israel’s troubled and uncertain position in current international relations. The resulting question underlying this work on the emotionality of states and its impact on international relations is therefore “whether Israel is still in a process of dreaming” and whether it is therefore to be understood a “state which has not yet woken from the trauma of the Jewish past. Not a dream’s fulfilment of an end of the Diaspora, but a nightmare based on this experience.” Drawing on these two parallel and rather influential texts, Schilling rephrases the leading questions of this book as this: “Has Israel developed an understanding of itself which sees the country as a modern state among the nations, which is dealing with its neighbors, or rather, does Israel understand itself more as being like a ghetto that is still surrounded by a hostile world? Has Israel become a strong, self-confident country, or has it continued with the nervousness of the Diaspora Jews to become a state with an emotional problem?”.
Martin Buber's Life and Work is a complete reprint of Maurice Friedman's monumental three-volume biography. Friedman covers Buber's life from his work on I and Thou to the challenges of Nazi Germany and prewar Palestine. He charts Buber's activities on behalf of Jewish-Arab rapprochement, his dialogue with Dag Hammarskjold, and comments on the philosopher's last years, his death, and his legacy to world Jewry.
As the Lonely Fly is a profoundly moving novel from one of Australia’s most gifted storytellers. Shining a light on the dispersal of peoples and the intertwined fates of Jews and Palestinians, it is a story with deep contemporary resonance. Three remarkable women — an American immigrant, an ardent Israeli and a fearless revolutionary — lend three very different perspectives on the creation of Israel and its impact on Palestinians. In 1967, the American actor Marion Arkin visits her niece Zipporah, three months after the Six Day War in which Israel seized the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Marion has never visited Israel before, but she has ties there that are neither easy to break nor which she fully comprehends. Years before, when Marion migrated to America, her older sister Clara left for British Palestine. Reborn as Chava, the Hebrew word for life, she joins a group of pioneer Zionists. But Chava is soon uneasy about Jews taking work from Arabs and usurping their land. With her closest comrades, she finds herself at odds with Zionism, imprisoned for supporting the Arab riots and deported back to Russia. Unlike Clara, Zipporah remains a devoted Zionist. She has smuggled in refugees from Europe and seen Israel become a nation. Proud of that struggle, she shows Marion all that she can of the victorious new country. But the memory of Clara, who may be still alive somewhere, hovers between them, leaving Marion to reconsider her uncritical allegiance to the Jewish state.
Tied by history, politics, and faith to all corners of the globe, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fascinates and infuriates people across the world. Based on new archive research and original interviews, Headlines from the Holy Land explains why this fiercely contested region exerts such a pull over leading correspondents and diplomats.
"Refugee" is a commonplace term that obscures myriad personal stories, many contradictions and a more complex history than most people imagine, as William Maley demonstrates.
On November 2, 1917, Arthur Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, wrote to Lord Rothschild to say that the British Government viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The consequences of this statement have reverberated throughout the world in a crescendo of bitterness and violence ever since. It interposed a European (mainly Russian) Jewish cultural idea in an Arab land and it led eventually to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eleven years before his declaration, Balfour had met the passionate Zionist and émigré chemist Chaim Weizmann while electioneering in Manchester. At the centre of Geoffrey Lewis's compelling book is the story of this encounter and the developing relationship between these two men: the Zionist and the Zealot, so different from each other, yet drawn together by forces that neither quite understood, with consequences that were to have a profound effect on the modern world.
