PALESTINE - ISRAEL - JORDAN - SINAI

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The Occupation is Over – Isn’t it?

By Fred Schlomka –First published in Mondoweiss – The term ‘Occupation’ has become almost a cliché in describing Israel’s presence in the territories conquered in 1967. Within Israeli society, the word is little used anymore ( Hebrew: כיבוש).  Many maps published in Israeli school textbooks no longer show the ‘Green Line’, but through various graphical techniques, […]

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Israel – The State for the Jews

by Marc Goldberg –At the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth the Jews of Europe found themselves standing on a precipice. Persecution, both state sanctioned and otherwise, was making life intolerable. Simultaneously advances in technology, most notably in transport and mass communications ensured that there were escape routes available such as […]

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A Brief History of the Ascent of the National-Religious Movements in Israel

By Miri –  During the last Israeli elections in 2013, for the first time in many years, the ultra-orthodox parties, for a long time celebrated as the kingmakers of Israeli politics, did not succeed in forming part of the new government. While many devoted secularists in Israel celebrated the end of the orthodox influence on national […]

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More than just a Relic of the Past – Yiddish in Israel

By Miri –  Yiddish refers to a primarily Germanic language containing elements of Romance, Slavic, as well as a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, which is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The language is thought of as having originated in the tenth century in the German Rhineland and from there spread through Bavaria towards the […]

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Anti-Semitism in the Middle East

By Miri –  There is a common saying that Arab people by definition cannot be perpetrators of anti-Semitism for they are Semites themselves. If we look at the etymology of the word this is obviously true, as the term “Semitic” actually only refers to a language group, that includes among others also Arabic. If we […]

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Back to Buber – Thoughts on Binationalism

By Miri –   In light of unhalted settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem, by now housing almost 5% of the overall Israeli population, the two state solution has increasingly been declared as dead. As a consequence voices advocating a binational state as the only viable alternative are getting louder. This does […]

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A Community of Its Own? Russian Speaking Jews in Israel

By Miri –  Russian speaking Jews constitute about 20% of Israel’s total population today. Notwithstanding their large numbers, the fact that they have been calling Israel their home for quite a few decades by now, and that especially many of the younger generations perceive of themselves as Israelis, the veteran Israeli population still refers to […]

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The Role of Zionist Terrorism in the Foundation of the State of Israel – the Case of the Irgun Zvai Leumi

By Miri –  During the years between World War II and the establishment of Israel in 1948, three Jewish para-military organisations were operating in Palestine. The first one to emerge was the “Jewish Defense Organisation”, the Haganah, which was founded when the tensions between the Palestinian and the Jewish population started rising. Until 1929, the […]

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Rising from the Margins: Musika Mizrahit

By Miri – In a previous article on this blog we already outlined the historical roots of the socio-economic marginalisation of the Mizrahi (lit. “Eastern” Jews, stemming from Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus) communities by the dominant Ashkenazi (usually understood as European Jews) elite. The subordination of the Mizrahim also included the forced erasure […]

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A View at the Recent History of the City of Nazareth

By Miri – The city of Nazareth hardly needs much of an introduction. According to the New Testament it is the site of the Annunciation, i.e. the place where the Angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus Christ, the son of god, and it is thus […]

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The Christian Zionist Movement – Friends or Enemies of Israel?

By Miri –  As with most terms, the inflationary use of the word “Zionism” renders its actual meaning(s) more and more obscure. A good example for this is the surprise that the term “Christian Zionism” evokes: “How can Christians be Zionists?” “Don’t you have to be a Jew in order to be a Zionist?”. In […]

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“We See, We Hear, We Refuse” – Israeli Conscientious Objectors

By Miri –  General, your tank is a powerful vehicleIt tramples the forest, it crushes a hundred men.But it has one flaw:It requires a driver.General, your bomber is strong.It flies faster than the storm, it loads more than an elephant.But it has one flaw:It requires a mechanic.General, man is very useful.He knows how to fly, […]

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