#history#reference / Peretz, Dekel. 2022. Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine. De Gruyter.
Introducion: Zionism for the Diaspora: Bridging the Gap between German
and Zionist Historical Narratives [p. 6]
An important step towards interlinking these narratives is to contextualize Oppenheimer and like-minded Zionists in a period when Germany’s colonial and imperial aspirations were peaking. It seems to go without saying that historical research needs to consider contemporaneous geographical, political and intellectual conditions. Yet this basic staple of the historian has been often neglected by researchers of German colonialism and of German Zionism in respect to the correlation between these two coetaneous affairs. It is not the purpose of this book to examine the causes of this neglect. Nevertheless, I would like to make some hypothetical suggestions.
First, Germany did not have a long-established colonial apparatus of the size and quality of France and England. There were certainly fewer Jews active within the German colonial service and, apart from a few prominent protagonists mentioned in this book, research into this matter is sparse. However, the lack of active service within the colonial bureaucracy alone is not indicative of the level of enthusiasm and advocacy of German colonial ambitions among German Jewry. There were other spheres in which support for colonial undertakings could manifest themselves
Second, due to the racialist and outright racist aspects of colonialism as well as the ultimate devastation that German colonial and imperial ambitions brought on the Jews during the Second World War and the Holocaust, it retroactively seems unfathomable that Jews could have ever been involved in any way with
German colonialism.
Third, the Zionist narrative is shaped by a teleological perspective. The focus of Zionist historiography on the contributions made to building the state of Israel, together with the ideology of diaspora negation¹⁷ – preaching total separation and distancing from Europe – blurred out conceptions of Zionism in which the establishment of Jewish sovereignty did not contradict a continued Jewish life in Europe or even envisioned realizing this sovereignty in places other than Palestine. During the First World War, Oppenheimer and his Zionist contemporaries proposed the establishment of Jewish cultural sovereignty or autonomy within (Eastern) Europe, in remarkable affinity with the anti-Zionist Bundism prevalent in Eastern Europe, revealing the diversity of opinions within early German Zionism. Furthermore, the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent British endorsement of Zionism overshadowed earlier attempts by German Zionists to integrate
Zionism into a broader German colonial scheme.
Fourth, further clouding the vision is the tension in Zionist historiography between the depiction of the intellectual origins of the Zionist movement within the context of European nationalism on the one hand, and the conceptualizing of Zionism as an anomaly of nationalism with independent roots in the ethnic, messianic character of Judaism on the other. The international nature of the movement makes it from the start a difficult object for comprehensive study.¹⁸ Finally, and probably most importantly, the negative association of colonialism with violent subjugation, foreign transgression, and unjustifiable occupation made it an unlikely candidate for integration by a Zionist historiography charged with constructing the national narrative of a Jewish state in a long-running conflict with indigenous and neighboring populations.
#hisotry#reference / Between Prague and Jerusalem : the idea of a binational state in Palestine. Dimitry Shumsky (2010). [Hebrew; German edition 2013]
Prof. Dimitri Shumsky, a Russian-born historian at Hebrew University, argues that the Zionist vision prior to 1948 was for a bi-national political entity in Israel/Palestine, not an ethnic Jewish nation-state as exists today.
Most early Zionist thinkers and leaders, across ideological camps, advocated some form of bi-national framework that would provide collective rights for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs. This view changed drastically after 1948.
Shumsky says the bi-national vision broke down due to the Holocaust, World War II, and the 1948 war, which led to Jewish sovereignty and control rather than a power-sharing agreement.
He sees reviving the civic currents in Zionist thought as a way to "re-Zionize" and make more inclusive the Israeli state today, though he recognizes the challenges given dominant Zionist nationalism that resists such change.
Shumsky situates himself as trying to uncover suppressed Zionist intellectual streams that were responsive to the reality of a land shared by two peoples, not just idealistic notions. Bringing these to light can impact views today.
#hisotry#reference / Between Prague and Jerusalem : the idea of a binational state in Palestine. Dimitry Shumsky (2010). [Hebrew; German edition 2013]
Prof. Dimitri Shumsky, a Russian-born historian at Hebrew University, argues that the Zionist vision prior to 1948 was for a bi-national political entity in Israel/Palestine, not an ethnic Jewish nation-state as exists today.
Most early Zionist thinkers and leaders, across ideological camps, advocated some form of bi-national framework that would provide collective rights for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs. This view changed drastically after 1948.
Shumsky says the bi-national vision broke down due to the Holocaust, World War II, and the 1948 war, which led to Jewish sovereignty and control rather than a power-sharing agreement.
He sees reviving the civic currents in Zionist thought as a way to "re-Zionize" and make more inclusive the Israeli state today, though he recognizes the challenges given dominant Zionist nationalism that resists such change.
Shumsky situates himself as trying to uncover suppressed Zionist intellectual streams that were responsive to the reality of a land shared by two peoples, not just idealistic notions. Bringing these to light can impact views today.
#reference#intifada The Palestinian Intifada -- December 9, 1987-December 8, 1988: A Record of Israeli Repression. 1989.
" ... how can a people whose statehood was claimed by reason of history's worst human calamity, the #Holocaust, engage in policies and practices which are reminiscent of what they suffered at the hands of others?" (p.ix)
Note on the word intifada (انتفاضة): “a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement” in contemporary Arabic.
[…] There are many who self-censor because they got advice from senior colleagues or from administrators not to say anything that might be interpreted offensively by people, and it wouldn't be good for their careers, particularly assistant professors and graduate students.
[…] We had a lot of colleagues who said they were not invited when the university held events on their very issue of expertise because they were worried that their views may not conform to what is needed on campus.
I've checked the intertubes, but as far as I can tell there has never been a punishment again Jewish organisations on US campuses for calling for a one-state solution, blindly supporting Zionism, more settlements on the West Bank, or refugee concentration camps.
Even though right-wing Jewish groups have done just that.
"..our universities in Australia must be places where we have the courage to take up our responsibilities as ethical researchers and teachers: our classrooms must be spaces of historical truth-telling that seek to explain why and how this is happening and support students to express their truths, including through student activism."
"As educators and researchers, we pay our deep respect to Palestinian scholars, writers, artists, and activists, including Palestinians based in Australia. We commit to continuing to learn from long histories of Palestinian description, critique, and analysis. Our colleagues in Palestine have called on us again and again to take action, and so we must. Telling the truth in history – as we know from our experiences in this settler-colony of Australia – is an important act of resistance, and we commit to undertaking this task."
“As historians who study – amongst other things – settler-colonialism, genocide, apartheid, gendered and sexed violence, Jewish history, Palestinian history, Israeli history, and more, we say that this breathtaking and heartbreaking violence is unacceptable and must be opposed entirely. We know that the violence did not begin on October 7th, and is a result of long transnational histories of imperialism, colonialism, state violence, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism. The story does not begin on October 7th, and longer histories – involving European colonisation of Palestine, the mandate system and British rule, the 75 years since the establishment of the State of Israel, the 56 year occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and the 16 year blockade on Gaza – must be held at the forefront of our minds. “
The All-Palestine Government of September/October 1948 was a messy affair: a last ditch effort by the Arab League and then de facto Palestinian national leader, Hajj Amin al-Husseini (AHE), to form a government, that will give some semblance of sovereignty and insert the Palestinian voice into the discussions about the future of Palestine at the UN General Assembly, which was about to discuss Bernadotte's recommendations (annex the Palestinian territories to Trans-Jordan).
United States Department of State
501.BB Palestine/10–248: Circular telegram
“[…] Among those practicing self-censorship since the Israel-Hamas war began, 81 percent said they were withholding criticism of Israel, compared with 11 percent withholding criticism of the Palestinians. Concerns about offending students and pressure from external advocacy groups were cited as the top reasons.
The terrible human toll in Gaza has many causes.
A chilling investigation by +972 highlights efficiency:
An engineer: “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed.”
An AI outputs "100 targets a day". Like a factory with murder delivery:
"According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”"
"The third is “power targets,” which includes high-rises and residential towers in the heart of cities, and public buildings such as universities, banks, and government offices."
Lt.-Col. Nurit Cohen Inger has overseen #Data at the Israeli #military’s Computer Service Directorate. She showed her enthusiasm on #AIWar to JNS.org in 2017:
“The top level in this field of big data is to have a system that makes recommendations on what to do, based on the data. We are there.”
In theory, this could figure out where to direct strikes, to achieve maximum damage.
Inger said AI “can influence every step and small decision in a conflict, and the entire conflict itself.”
“For this system to work, it has to function at a very high level,” she added. “AI is a machine that has the intelligence characteristics of a person—in this case, by giving recommendations.”
Human commanders will still make the final decisions, Inger said, but they will receive “very precise and relevant recommendations. This is happening, and it will happen much more.”
"In this episode we talked with Sefi Cohen, head of Data Science squad in the IDF. He tells us about the different projects they're doing and how he started a Data Science team with very little knowledge of Machine Learning and Data Science techniques, how he chose the right people for this team and how they all learned the craft together."
"In this episode we talked with Sefi Cohen, head of Data Science squad in the IDF. He tells us about the different projects they're doing and how he started a Data Science team with very little knowledge of Machine Learning and Data Science techniques, how he chose the right people for this team and how they all learned the craft together."
#antisemitism vs #apartheid "The academic world is rising up against us": Hidden boycott threatens Israeli scientific research
Last week, a Zoom meeting was held with senior members of Israel's academia and young researchers. The senior academics expressed concern about what is happening and conveyed a sense of emergency. The President of the University of Haifa, Prof. Ron Rubin, recounted in a conversation that he visited the US during the war and felt manifestations of antisemitism "seeping into places where they have never been before. There is a hostile attitude towards Israelis even in places like medical schools. It is terrifying to the nth degree. In the past, the problem was focused on faculties for the humanities and social sciences, but the phenomenon is spreading to additional fields."
The missing word in this article must be #aprtheid... I do see #BDS and antisemitism mentioned, many times, but not a word about the fact the USA and European boycott of Israeli academia is a refusal to cooperate with a perceived apartheid regime.
Rubin assumes that "a hostile attitude towards Israelis" is due to antisemitism, (because Israelis are - mostly - 80% - Jews).
But might it be because they are Israelis, and due to the fact that the state of Israel is committing war crimes and genocide on top of practicing apartheid?
I am constantly (& correctly) warned NOT to conflate Jewishness, Zionism, and Israel. The distinction seems less clear cut now. That is dangerous.
The story of one woman who Israel calls terrorist and prisoner. This is not the exception, it's the norm. She was released in the hostage deal. She was moving furniture, her car malfunctioned, caught fire. Instead of helping her get medical care, Israeli soldiers watched her burn, accused her of terrorism & arrested, interrogated & tortured her.
I've just ordered it - but it seems an important book to learn about a massive injustice. Israelis are taken as hostage for a few weeks & ppl are rightly upset. BUT when Palestinians are accused of terrorism for waving a flag, for being a 12 year old boy, for saying on social media they mourn for gaza, or a car breaking down - suffer torture in Israeli jail - fingers cut off - those people SAY NOTHING.
University teachers suspended, employees sacked: in #israelPalestine, the authorities punish the slightest expression of support for Palestine on social media. In the course of a week, at least 170 people have been arrested for their online activities. https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-war-political-persecution/