Journal: Israeli Affairs

This issue addresses Israeli-Arab relations, including the relations with the United Arab Emirates, the Arab Maghreb, Egypt, and Syria. The primary motive behind the issue is, of course, recently increasing normalisation and impact on the future of the question of Palestine.

This issue is released shortly after the most weird US elections and ahead of the fourth Israeli elections, to be held in two years. Though uncertain, this election is at least likely. While an outgoing US President does not admit defeat, a stranded Israeli prime minister is looking for a new victory. It seems that endeavours of normalisation with many and multiple, old and new, Arab states are nothing but stratagems in the accounts of both leaders. A necessary and careful analysis of the landscape unfolding before our own eyes must be put on hold a little while until some issues are visible and the path is clear. We will get back to this topic very soon.

Much water has flowed in the river since the historic announcement by the Jewish Rabbinical Council in Germany, in 1897, that is, prior to the founding Zionist Conference in Basel, an announcement which condemned the Zionist idea of establishing a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. Among the reasons cited by those Orthodox circles was that the Zionist project provides a new understanding of Judaism, enabling a person to be a religious atheist and a good Jew at the same time, as Judaism was no longer merely a religion but had become, through the Zionist understanding of it, a nation, as well, one which conceptually permits the existence of non-religious Jews who do not adhere to religious teachings. Those circles thought that this posed a threat to Judaism, and that the Jewish existence could only be maintained by considering Judaism as a religion, not a nation,

Anti-Semitism, Zionism and the Question of Palestine

Since the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a new definition of anti-Semitism, the question of Palestine has entered a new phase, both morally and politically. As applicable, the new definition transforms the whole Palestinian narrative into one that can be characterised as anti-Semitic. It is of the view that the right of return and demand for a state of citizens in Israel seek to abolish Jewish privileges over Palestinian citizens, making both anti-Semitic claims. So is the case of anyone who dreams of a binational state in Historic Palestine or of one secular, liberal and egalitarian state. This ushers in a new stage of the war on Palestine’s narrative and just claims. It is true that these claims could not be realised so far. From now on, however, these mere claims become unlawful and anti-Semitic.

A new issue of Qadaya Israeliya
A special issue on Violence and Crime among Palestinians in Israel

Ramallah: The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (MADAR) has recently released Issue 77 of Qadaya Israeliya (Israeli Affairs). Titled “Palestinians in Israel: Violence, Crime and Organised Crime”, this issue monitors the scale and reflections of violence and crime in Israel, provides an analysis of the relevant socio-political and educational context, and unveils the role the confused relationship with the Police and state institutions play in nurturing this phenomenon.