The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies
Eitan Bronstein Aparicio, the founder of Zochrot, and his partner Eleonore Merza Bronstein share their personal experiences and deep explorations of the Nakba and its impact on their political identities in their dialogue. The authors engage in a profound reevaluation of their personal memories and their roles within the Israeli colonial experience, unveiling how the Israeli hegemonic narrative has overwhelmingly dominated public consciousness. They shed light on the mechanisms used to uphold this narrative while simultaneously denying the existence of Palestine and its tragic erasure.
"The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad" by Tamir Sorek presents the first-ever social biography of Tawfiq Zayyad (1929-1994), a renowned Palestinian poet, activist, and leader.
The book provides a detailed account of Zayyad's life, starting from his childhood in Palestine during the British Mandate era, his involvement with the Israeli Communist Party following the 1948 Nakba, and his transformation into a revolutionary poet in the 1960s. The book highlights the critical role that Zayyad and his contemporaries played in shaping Palestinian national identity through their poetic expressions.
The book "The Meaning of Israel," authored by Jacob M. Rabkin and skillfully translated into Arabic by Hassan Khadir, offers a comprehensive and critical examination that evaluates Zionism and Israel through the prism of Jewish religious principles and references. It sheds a revealing light on the historical resistance within the Jewish community to Zionism, drawing upon less commonly referenced rabbinical sources in this context.
"Emptied Lands: A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev," authored by Alexandre Kedar, Ahmad Amara, and Oren Yiftachel, presents a comprehensive examination of the political and legal arguments surrounding the Israeli doctrine aimed at Judaizing the Negev region. The doctrine seeks to disavow the historical connections and rights of the indigenous population in the area while forcibly displacing and depriving Palestinians of their rightful space for natural growth.
"The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity" by Yehuda Shenhav, translated into Arabic by Yaseen Al-Sayyed, is a substantial work comprising 372 pages. This book serves as a preeminent and authoritative reference in the exploration of the identity and existence of Jews, who are often designated by Zionism as "Mizrahim" or Orientals. Notably, Shenhav consistently refers to these Mizrahi Jews as Arab Jews.
"Stranger at Home," edited by Rawda Kana'ane and Izis Nassir, and introduced by Leila Abu Lughod, is a book that provides a profound exploration of the reality of Palestinian women who live in Israel. This insightful book spans 368 pages is a compelling work authored by a new generation of Palestinian academic women and Israeli citizens who offer unique perspectives that are distinct from those who were displaced.
This book presents a critical study of one aspect of the ‘Grand Zionist Narrative’ which serves, explicitly as well as implicitly, as a collective conscience to the whole Israeli society.
In the preface, the author explains that school books in Israel are written for youngsters who will be drafted into joining compulsory military service at 18 years of age and carry out the Israeli policy of occupation in the Palestinian territories. The concern of the study is not to describe Israeli education as a whole but rather to focus on one specific question: how are Palestine and the Palestinians against whom these young Israelis will potentially be required to use force, portrayed in school books?
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The Repercussions of the War against Gaza on Israel's Relations with Russia and Turkey: Will There Be Fundamental Changes?
On the collapse of the concept of "moving away from America and the West and replacing them with new friends": "Netanyahu was looking for comfortable political partners, even at the cost of harming Israel's national security."
Israeli Affairs (Issue no. 91)
