In Heidegger and the Jews, the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard points out that history claims to narrate the past but, in practice, what it does is conceal our collective shame. The Americans conceal slavery and imperial genocidal aggression, the Brits conceal their colonial blunders, the Jews turn their eyes away from anything that may have…
This year, Palestinians and their supporters mark the 100th anniversary of The Balfour Declaration, a written statement from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. For Palestinians, The Balfour Declaration was the beginning…
On Monday, October 30, Israel fired five missiles at a tunnel under construction in Gazan territory east of Khan Younis. Seven Palestinians were killed and nine wounded during the attack. Israel asserts that the tunnel had reached the Israeli side of the perimeter wall it has built around Gaza, but it attacked the tunnel on…
On 2 November 1917 the British government in the form of the country’s then foreign secretary, Sir Arthur Balfour, addressed a letter to Lord Rothschild, a leading figure within the British Jewish community. In terms of its significance and impact this brief letter, known to the world as the Balfour Declaration, remains unsurpassed. Depending on your point of view it…
This week, Palestinians around the world are marking 100 years since the Balfour Declaration was issued on November 2, 1917. The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality when Britain publicly pledged to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” there. The pledge is generally viewed as one…
As Israeli legislators returned to parliament this week, ending the long summer recess, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced a packed agenda of reforms designed to push Israel further to the right. Legislative proposals include weakening the supreme court’s powers of judicial review, cracking down on left-wing civil-society organisations, expanding Jerusalem’s boundaries to include more Jewish settlements…
