Israel

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  1/12/2021
  

  Israeli Rights Group: Nation Isn't a Democracy but an "Apartheid Regime"

  B'Tselem declared that "the traditional view of Israel as a democracy operating side-by-side with a temporary Israeli occupation in the territories 'imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects ... has grown divorced from reality'." The Israeli embassy in London dismissed the finding.

• 
• 12/20/2020
  

  Peace is Good. But are More Peace Deals Necessarily Better?

  by Catherine Baylin Duryea

  The recent normalization of relations between Israel and Morocco extends longstanding covert cooperation between the two nations, but troublingly reflects Mideast politics that are increasingly aimed at isolating Iran. It also includes concessions that  contribute to the marginalization of the people of Western Sahara.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/12/2020
  

  An Epic Israeli TV Drama Exposes War Wounds Old and New

  A new Israeli television series represents one of the nation's few high-profile examinations of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and examines the toll of trauma on veterans. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/28/2020
  

  Israel’s Pick to Head Holocaust Memorial Stirs International Uproar

  “You don’t play politics with the Shoah, and this is playing politics with the Shoah,” Professor [Deborah] Lipstadt said. She is one of 750 historians, Jewish studies experts and cultural figures who signed a petition protesting the appointment of Effie Eitam to head Israel's national Holocaust memorial.

• 
• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  11/24/2020
  

  Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case

  The National Security Archive is republishing its trove of declassified documents related to Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s. Pollard's parole recently ended. 

• 
• SOURCE: Discover
  11/29/2020
  

  The Complicated History of Religion and Archaeology

  Modern archaeology has largely succeeded in instituting professionalization and historical rigor to the study of sites of theological significance, but the discipline has a long and continuing historical entanglement with efforts to find proof of religious doctrines.

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  11/19/2020
  

  Effi Eitam Leading Yad Vashem Disgraces the Memory of the 6 Million

  by Derek Penslar and Susannah Heschel

  "The politicization and radicalization of the institution will rob it of its legitimacy. Yad Vashem cannot fulfill its responsibilities with Effi Eitam at its helm."

• 
• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  11/15/2020
  

  Dozens Of Academics Oppose New Controversial Yad Vashem Chair

  Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt is among the academics criticizing the appointment of a right-wing politician to head the Israeli Holocaust memorial and educational center, arguing that his remarks toward Palestinians and Arab Israelis are disqualifying. 

• 
• SOURCE: Haaretz
  11/8/2020
  

  Revered Polish Jew, Holocaust Survivor Joins Protests Over Top Appointment at Yad Vashem

  A prominent Polish Holocaust survivor has objected to the appointment of Effi Eitam, an Israeli politician and former military commander, to chair the directorate of the Holocaust memorial because of inflammatory statements calling for the deportation of Palestinans from the West Bank and calling Arab Israelis a "fifth column." 

• 
• 11/1/2020
  

  Mythologies Without End: The U.S., Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020

  by Jerome Slater

  The author of a new history of the Israel-Palestine conflict argues that a myth of national innocence crafted by Israel and embraced by the United States impedes pragmatic compromise and costs lives through ongoing violence. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/24/2020
  

  1,100-Year-Old Treasure Is Unearthed by Teenagers in Israel

  The discovery offers clues to the relations between different empires that controlled the region centuries ago.

• 
• SOURCE: Salon
  8/17/2020
  

  Trump's Dodgy Israel-UAE "Peace Deal" Smells like the Work of Henry Kissinger

  by Jim Sleeper

  Is the Israel-UAE agreement to open diplomatic relations an effort to marginalize the Palestinian Authority? Jim Sleeper argues it's the sort of thing Henry Kissinger would do. 

• 
• 7/3/2020
  

  New Novel "The Collaborator" Explores the Moral Ambiguities of a Holocaust Rescuer

  by Diane Armstrong

  Do we have the right to judge the actions of people in life and death situations? Are we honour-bound to keep promises, no matter to whom they were made, and in what situations? Can a man be a hero and a collaborator?

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/29/2020
  

  In Search of King David’s Lost Empire

  The evidence of David’s life is sparse. Was he an emperor? A local king? Or, as Biblical archaeologist Israel Finkelstein claims, a Bedouin sheikh?

• 
• 7/5/2020
  

  Annexation Will Be the (Formal) Beginning of Apartheid and the End of Zionism

  by Andrew Seth Meyer

  An American historian and lifelong liberal Zionist concludes that Israel's planned annexation of West Bank territory will force people of conscience to choose between liberal ideals and a form of Zionism harnessed to ethnic nationalism.

• 
• SOURCE: France 24
  6/21/2020
  

  Israeli Historian Zeev Sternhell, Advocate for Palestinian Rights, Dies at 85

  Hebrew University president Asher Cohen hailed Sternhell, a professor emeritus there who was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for political science in 2008, as "among the most important researchers" to emerge from the institution.

• 
• SOURCE: Haaretz
  6/16/2020
  

  Why Israelis Backed the Civil Rights Movement but Fear Black Lives Matter

  by Chemi Shalev

  After more than 40 years of right-wing rule, Israelis identify and are identified more with ruling whites than with oppressed Blacks.

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  Israel and the Palestinians: Architects of Their Own Destruction

  by Alon Ben-Meir

  The political positions of Israeli and Palestinian leadership set the region on a path toward more bloodshed. 

• 
• 5/31/2020
  

  The Decline and Fall of Socialist Zionism (Review)

  by Ralph Seliger

  A new book examines the diminished influence of left and labor parties in Israeli politics. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/7/2020
  

  Daniel Pipes Argues Annexing the West Bank Would Hurt Israel

  Daniel Pipes, prominent conservative American commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, gives six reasons to believe that taking over Palestinian territory would harm both U.S.-Israel relations and Israel’s status as the Jewish state.