The Metaphysics and Poesis of Israel

Author(s):  
Lucille Cairns

‘The Metaphysics and Poesis of Israel’ discusses the potency and ambivalence of Jerusalem as an aporetic ideal. It analyses the many connections relating to Israel, including those between the state of Israel and the Arab-Muslim world; Israelis and Palestinians; diasporic Jews and Israelis; religious and secular Israelis; and finally Ashkenazi and Sephardi/Mizrahi Israelis. The chapter also considers the image of Israel as marked by madness as well as the significance of the Hebrew language. Cairns concludes with a consideration on the frontier between Israelis living within internationally recognized Israeli boundaries and those living in the Occupied Territories.

AJS Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Omri Ben-Yehuda

In its first season, Israeli television thriller Fauda proclaimed an utter symmetry between Israel “proper” and its Occupied Territories, by humanizing Hamas militants and treating them as equals to the Israeli characters. Throughout the story the Jewish warrior's body becomes a site for the detonation of explosives and a potential vehicle for suicide bombings, in a false but intriguing reenactment of the trauma of the second intifada, which has been repressed in Israeli consciousness. In this unwitting manifestation of Jewish martyrdom, the façade of the rule of law in the State of Israel is dismantled in what seems like a religious battle between clans. The discourse of pain in the series suggests a stream of constant retribution in a vicious circle that can never historicize the allegedly eternal conflict and work through its traumatic residues. Nonetheless, this dynamic of retribution and martyrdom also informs a multilayered structure whereby the secular, modern Jew returns to his roots by engaging with Arabness in the theatre of mistaʿaravim: in becoming Arab he also becomes, finally, a Jew.


Author(s):  
Ryan Shaffer

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim’s and Or Honig’s chapter focuses on the lynching and mob violence between Jews and Arabs in the area known as mandatory Palestine, and later as the State of Israel and the occupied territories. Ben-Ephraim and Honig seek to answer two questions: when and why has lynching and mob violence occurred, and how has it affected the development of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. The chapter focuses on two periods of intercommunal conflict in which lynching and mob violence took place: the British Mandate period (1920-1948), and the period following the eruption of the first Palestinian Uprising “Intifada” (1987) until today. Ben-Ephraim and Honig find that the main variable determining the use of lynching attacks was the level of institutionalization of national political movements. When there are organized institutions and society is more organized, organized forms of violence such as uprisings or terrorism tend to be more prevalent since society or elements of it can be mobilized to act in a more systematic fashion. Lynching and mob violence reflect a lack of political institutionalization because the leadership possesses the ability to incite, yet lacks the tools to restrain or guide, the violence it inspires. By contrast, when the national movements are well institutionalized, Ben-Ephraim and Honig argue, more spontaneous acts of violence tend instead to take the form of sporadic acts of vengeance.


2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Regan

With increasing frequency comparisons are being drawn between the situation of the Palestinian people both in the Occupied Territories and inside Israel with the system of Apartheid imposed on the indigenous peoples of South Africa by the Nationalist Government in 1948. The object of this essay is to explore the analogy and test its merits and shortcomings. The essay explores the legal structure of the Apartheid system and compares it to that of the state of Israel and the legal framework under which Palestinians live in the occupied territories. It concludes that whilst the term Apartheid might seem attractive and adequate for descriptive purposes rendering the plight of the Palestinians more familiar ultimately there is a gap between the appearance and reality of the two experiences.


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian S. Lustick

Zionist claims to rightful rule of most or all of Palestine/the Land of Israel ultimately depend on naturalizing those claims into common sense, for Jews, of course, but also for the international community. Following the 1967 war, Israelis in favor of withdrawing from occupied territories have relied on distinguishing between the justice of the 1949 Armistice Lines, and the process that led to the State of Israel within those lines, versus the injustice of the occupation of territories conquered in 1967 and of their settlement and gradual absorption. But as the truth of the expulsions and forced dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 becomes accepted by wider swaths of both Israeli-Jewish and international public opinion, the traditional narrative distinguishing the justice of 1948 and the injustice of 1967 breaks down. Ari Shavit's book, My Promised Land, can be understood as a response by Israeli two-staters to accusations of hypocrisy by the extreme right.


2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 519-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merav Katz-Kimchi

From 1968 on, the state of Israel deployed television as a tool in the service of its ongoing project of reproducing the nation and as a propaganda tool that targeted the population of the newly occupied territories and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. With the collaboration of the scientific elite, the televising of original popular science programs, aired on the sole government-controlled channel at prime time, contributed immensely to these projects. Through these programs, the state disseminated a specific image of the nation’s scientific prowess for popular consumption in the euphoric aftermath of the Six Day War. This article examines the first 20 years of the state’s projects, during which the grip of Zionist collectivism was still strong, the monopoly of the government-controlled channel was not yet challenged, and the programs enjoyed astonishingly high ratings. My examination focuses on the ideology and motivations of the producers; the ways in which the communication elite and the scientific elite, enjoying a position of hegemony, collaborated by disseminating the nation’s accomplishments in both the Arabic and Hebrew programs; and the actual content of the programs at large and specifically that of four episodes of Tazpit, the popular science program of the 1980s.


Open Theology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eran Shuali

AbstractAfter offering a short overview of the history of Hebrew translations of the New Testament from the Middle Ages to our time, this article focuses on the purposes of the different translations as reflected in what has been written and said about them by the translators themselves and by other people involved in their dissemination. Five such purposes are identified: 1. Jewish polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages. 2. Christian study of the Hebrew language. 3. The quest for the Hebrew “original” of the New Testament. 4. The mission to the Jews. 5. The needs of the Christian communities in the State of Israel. Concluding remarks are then made regarding the way in which Hebrew translations of the New Testament were perceived throughout the ages and regarding the role they played.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Rafał Soroczyński

The territory to which the State of Israel had a title as a newly-created state corresponded to the areas allotted to Jews by the provisions of the resolution 181(II) adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 29, 1947, which had recommended the partition of Palestine and creation of the Arab state, the Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum. As this territorial regime had been modified during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 and Israel’s government has recognized the areas seized by it during the war as part of its territorial domain, the problem arose as to Israel’s title to those additional territories situated between the 1947 partition lines and the lines established in accordance with the armistice agreements of 1949. Due to important characteristics of the legal status of former mandatory Palestine and to the fact that considerable parts thereof became occupied territories, the process of consolidation of the title thereto required the consent of the international community as a whole. This consent has in fact been granted, both by the international community and by representatives of Palestinian Arabs, in respect of large parts of territories situated between the 1947 partition lines and the 1949 armistice lines. There are no doubts that the State of Israel has sovereign, uncontested rights to these areas. As it constitutes important departure from the generally accepted principle that the use of force in any form cannot serve as a root of title to territory, this situation is of particular interest, providing support for the view that this principle cannot be analyzed without due regard paid to those exceptional situations where the international community decided to depart from its strict application in order to safeguard stability of territorial solutions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Ran Greenstein

The term Apartheid was coined to describe the system of segregation, practiced for many years in South Africa. However the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court omitted all references to South Africa in its definition of ‘the crime of apartheid’ and the term is now defined globally as a crime against humanity. This article explores the similarities and differences between the now abandoned practice of apartheid in South Africa and the current apartheid policies of Israel, highlighting the need to differentiate between Israel proper (within its pre-1967 boundaries), Greater Israel (within the post-1967 boundaries), and Greater Palestine. Whereas Israel claims it offers democratic rights for all its citizens, all seven pillars of apartheid can be shown to exist in the occupied territories, where the Israeli regime is the sole authority, leaving the Palestinian Authority powerless. The article details how the influx of the different immigrant communities to Israel has disenfranchised the Palestinians from their land. It provides a new definition for the policies practiced, and the many ways in which Israel dictates to the lives of the Palestinians, as “Apartheid of a special type”. It concludes with a proposal to support the policy of bi-nationalism, as stated in in the Haifa Declaration of 2007, which calls for a “change in the definition of the State of Israel from a Jewish state to a democratic state established on national and civil equality between the two national groups, and enshrining the principles of banning discrimination and of equality between all of its citizens and residents.”


Author(s):  
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim ◽  
Or Honig

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim’s and Or Honig’s chapter focuses on the lynching and mob violence between Jews and Arabs in the area known as mandatory Palestine, and later as the State of Israel and the occupied territories. Ben-Ephraim and Honig seek to answer two questions: when and why has lynching and mob violence occurred, and how has it affected the development of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. The chapter focuses on two periods of intercommunal conflict in which lynching and mob violence took place: the British Mandate period (1920-1948), and the period following the eruption of the first Palestinian Uprising “Intifada” (1987) until today. Ben-Ephraim and Honig find that the main variable determining the use of lynching attacks was the level of institutionalization of national political movements. When there are organized institutions and society is more organized, organized forms of violence such as uprisings or terrorism tend to be more prevalent since society or elements of it can be mobilized to act in a more systematic fashion. Lynching and mob violence reflect a lack of political institutionalization because the leadership possesses the ability to incite, yet lacks the tools to restrain or guide, the violence it inspires. By contrast, when the national movements are well institutionalized, Ben-Ephraim and Honig argue, more spontaneous acts of violence tend instead to take the form of sporadic acts of vengeance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuks Okpaluba

‘Accountability’ is one of the democratic values entrenched in the Constitution of South Africa, 1996. It is a value recognised throughout the Constitution and imposed upon the law-making organs of state, the Executive, the Judiciary and all public functionaries. This constitutional imperative is given pride of place among the other founding values: equality before the law, the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution. This study therefore sets out to investigate how the courts have grappled with the interpretation and application of the principle of accountability, the starting point being the relationship between accountability and judicial review. Therefore, in the exercise of its judicial review power, a court may enquire whether the failure of a public functionary to comply with a constitutional duty of accountability renders the decision made illegal, irrational or unreasonable. One of the many facets of the principle of accountability upon which this article dwells is to ascertain how the courts have deployed that expression in making the state and its agencies liable for the delictual wrongs committed against an individual in vindication of a breach of the individual’s constitutional right in the course of performing a public duty. Here, accountability and breach of public duty; the liability of the state for detaining illegal immigrants contrary to the prescripts of the law; the vicarious liability of the state for the criminal acts of the police and other law-enforcement officers (as in police rape cases and misuse of official firearms by police officers), and the liability of the state for delictual conduct in the context of public procurement are discussed. Having carefully analysed the available case law, this article concludes that no public functionary can brush aside the duty of accountability wherever it is imposed without being in breach of a vital constitutional mandate. Further, it is the constitutional duty of the courts, when called upon, to declare such act or conduct an infringement of the Constitution.


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