Author: Hilton Obenzinger
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691216320
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
In the nineteenth century, American tourists, scholars, evangelists, writers, and artists flocked to Palestine as part of a "Holy Land mania." Many saw America as a New Israel, a modern nation chosen to do God's work on Earth, and produced a rich variety of inspirational art and literature about their travels in the original promised land, which was then part of Ottoman-controlled Palestine. In American Palestine, Hilton Obenzinger explores two "infidel texts" in this tradition: Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1876) and Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress (1869). As he shows, these works undermined in very different ways conventional assumptions about America's divine mission. In the darkly philosophical Clarel, Melville found echoes of Palestine's apparent desolation and ruin in his own spiritual doubts and in America's materialism and corruption. Twain's satiric travelogue, by contrast, mocked the romantic naiveté of Americans abroad, noting the incongruity of a "fantastic mob" of "Yanks" in the Holy Land and contrasting their exalted notions of Palestine with its prosaic reality. Obenzinger demonstrates, however, that Melville and Twain nevertheless shared many colonialist and orientalist assumptions of the day, revealed most clearly in their ideas about Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans. Combining keen literary and historical insights and careful attention to the context of other American writings about Palestine, this book throws new light on the construction of American identity in the nineteenth century.
American Palestine
Author: Hilton Obenzinger
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691216320
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
In the nineteenth century, American tourists, scholars, evangelists, writers, and artists flocked to Palestine as part of a "Holy Land mania." Many saw America as a New Israel, a modern nation chosen to do God's work on Earth, and produced a rich variety of inspirational art and literature about their travels in the original promised land, which was then part of Ottoman-controlled Palestine. In American Palestine, Hilton Obenzinger explores two "infidel texts" in this tradition: Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1876) and Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress (1869). As he shows, these works undermined in very different ways conventional assumptions about America's divine mission. In the darkly philosophical Clarel, Melville found echoes of Palestine's apparent desolation and ruin in his own spiritual doubts and in America's materialism and corruption. Twain's satiric travelogue, by contrast, mocked the romantic naiveté of Americans abroad, noting the incongruity of a "fantastic mob" of "Yanks" in the Holy Land and contrasting their exalted notions of Palestine with its prosaic reality. Obenzinger demonstrates, however, that Melville and Twain nevertheless shared many colonialist and orientalist assumptions of the day, revealed most clearly in their ideas about Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans. Combining keen literary and historical insights and careful attention to the context of other American writings about Palestine, this book throws new light on the construction of American identity in the nineteenth century.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691216320
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
In the nineteenth century, American tourists, scholars, evangelists, writers, and artists flocked to Palestine as part of a "Holy Land mania." Many saw America as a New Israel, a modern nation chosen to do God's work on Earth, and produced a rich variety of inspirational art and literature about their travels in the original promised land, which was then part of Ottoman-controlled Palestine. In American Palestine, Hilton Obenzinger explores two "infidel texts" in this tradition: Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1876) and Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress (1869). As he shows, these works undermined in very different ways conventional assumptions about America's divine mission. In the darkly philosophical Clarel, Melville found echoes of Palestine's apparent desolation and ruin in his own spiritual doubts and in America's materialism and corruption. Twain's satiric travelogue, by contrast, mocked the romantic naiveté of Americans abroad, noting the incongruity of a "fantastic mob" of "Yanks" in the Holy Land and contrasting their exalted notions of Palestine with its prosaic reality. Obenzinger demonstrates, however, that Melville and Twain nevertheless shared many colonialist and orientalist assumptions of the day, revealed most clearly in their ideas about Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans. Combining keen literary and historical insights and careful attention to the context of other American writings about Palestine, this book throws new light on the construction of American identity in the nineteenth century.
America's Palestine
Author: Lawrence Davidson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813024219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
"A first-class job of primary archival and media research on the origins of American involvement in Palestine, an area of major interest and importance to Zionists, Palestinians, and the United States."--Michael W. Suleiman, Kansas State University "Davidson develops an important thesis concerning the impact of perceptions on foreign policy, with reference to U.S. policy toward Palestine. . . . [His] emphasis on the pre-state period makes his study unique."--Ann M. Lesch, Villanova University In a revisionist look at the history of U.S. relations with Palestine, Lawrence Davidson offers a critical study of the evolution of American popular and governmental perceptions of Zionism and Palestine, from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the founding of Israel in 1948. Zionism, which sought to transform Palestine into a Jewish state, emphasized the biblical and religious connections of the West to Palestine. Davidson argues that this orientation predisposed the American people to see Zionism as a form of "altruistic" imperialism that would bring civilization to a backward part of the world. However, American Zionists met resistance from the State Department, particularly the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, whose neutral stance until 1945 was shaped by a fear of foreign entanglements. Exploring rising tensions on both sides, Davidson describes how the American Zionists overcame this resistance and outmaneuvered the State Department by using lobbying techniques and appeals to popular sentiment. Showing how a powerful and determined interest group turned the U.S. political system to its advantage and shaped foreign policy, America's Palestine is an important study of one of the 20th century's most controversial international stories. Lawrence Davidson, professor of history at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, is the author of Islamic Fundamentalism and of numerous articles on U.S. attitudes toward and relations with the Middle East.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813024219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
"A first-class job of primary archival and media research on the origins of American involvement in Palestine, an area of major interest and importance to Zionists, Palestinians, and the United States."--Michael W. Suleiman, Kansas State University "Davidson develops an important thesis concerning the impact of perceptions on foreign policy, with reference to U.S. policy toward Palestine. . . . [His] emphasis on the pre-state period makes his study unique."--Ann M. Lesch, Villanova University In a revisionist look at the history of U.S. relations with Palestine, Lawrence Davidson offers a critical study of the evolution of American popular and governmental perceptions of Zionism and Palestine, from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the founding of Israel in 1948. Zionism, which sought to transform Palestine into a Jewish state, emphasized the biblical and religious connections of the West to Palestine. Davidson argues that this orientation predisposed the American people to see Zionism as a form of "altruistic" imperialism that would bring civilization to a backward part of the world. However, American Zionists met resistance from the State Department, particularly the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, whose neutral stance until 1945 was shaped by a fear of foreign entanglements. Exploring rising tensions on both sides, Davidson describes how the American Zionists overcame this resistance and outmaneuvered the State Department by using lobbying techniques and appeals to popular sentiment. Showing how a powerful and determined interest group turned the U.S. political system to its advantage and shaped foreign policy, America's Palestine is an important study of one of the 20th century's most controversial international stories. Lawrence Davidson, professor of history at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, is the author of Islamic Fundamentalism and of numerous articles on U.S. attitudes toward and relations with the Middle East.
Looking for Palestine
Author: Najla Said
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101632151
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
A frank and entertaining memoir, from the daughter of Edward Said, about growing up second-generation Arab American and struggling with that identity. The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Najla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted about her cultural background and identity. Said knew that her parents identified deeply with their homelands, but growing up in a Manhattan world that was defined largely by class and conformity, she felt unsure about who she was supposed to be, and was often in denial of the differences she sensed between her family and those around her. The fact that her father was the famous intellectual and outspoken Palestinian advocate Edward Said only made things more complicated. She may have been born a Palestinian Lebanese American, but in Said’s mind she grew up first as a WASP, having been baptized Episcopalian in Boston and attending the wealthy Upper East Side girls’ school Chapin, then as a teenage Jew, essentially denying her true roots, even to herself—until, ultimately, the psychological toll of all this self-hatred began to threaten her health. As she grew older, making increased visits to Palestine and Beirut, Said’s worldview shifted. The attacks on the World Trade Center, and some of the ways in which Americans responded, finally made it impossible for Said to continue to pick and choose her identity, forcing her to see herself and her passions more clearly. Today, she has become an important voice for second-generation Arab Americans nationwide.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101632151
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
A frank and entertaining memoir, from the daughter of Edward Said, about growing up second-generation Arab American and struggling with that identity. The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Najla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted about her cultural background and identity. Said knew that her parents identified deeply with their homelands, but growing up in a Manhattan world that was defined largely by class and conformity, she felt unsure about who she was supposed to be, and was often in denial of the differences she sensed between her family and those around her. The fact that her father was the famous intellectual and outspoken Palestinian advocate Edward Said only made things more complicated. She may have been born a Palestinian Lebanese American, but in Said’s mind she grew up first as a WASP, having been baptized Episcopalian in Boston and attending the wealthy Upper East Side girls’ school Chapin, then as a teenage Jew, essentially denying her true roots, even to herself—until, ultimately, the psychological toll of all this self-hatred began to threaten her health. As she grew older, making increased visits to Palestine and Beirut, Said’s worldview shifted. The attacks on the World Trade Center, and some of the ways in which Americans responded, finally made it impossible for Said to continue to pick and choose her identity, forcing her to see herself and her passions more clearly. Today, she has become an important voice for second-generation Arab Americans nationwide.
Blind Spot
Author: Khaled Elgindy
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815731566
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
A critical examination of the history of US-Palestinian relations The United States has invested billions of dollars and countless diplomatic hours in the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution. Yet American attempts to broker an end to the conflict have repeatedly come up short. At the center of these failures lay two critical factors: Israeli power and Palestinian politics. While both Israelis and Palestinians undoubtedly share much of the blame, one also cannot escape the role of the United States, as the sole mediator in the process, in these repeated failures. American peacemaking efforts ultimately ran aground as a result of Washington’s unwillingness to confront Israel’s ever-deepening occupation or to come to grips with the realities of internal Palestinian politics. In particular, the book looks at the interplay between the U.S.-led peace process and internal Palestinian politics—namely, how a badly flawed peace process helped to weaken Palestinian leaders and institutions and how an increasingly dysfunctional Palestinian leadership, in turn, hindered prospects for a diplomatic resolution. Thus, while the peace process was not necessarily doomed to fail, Washington’s management of the process, with its built-in blind spot to Israeli power and Palestinian politics, made failure far more likely than a negotiated breakthrough. Shaped by the pressures of American domestic politics and the special relationship with Israel, Washington’s distinctive “blind spot” to Israeli power and Palestinian politics has deep historical roots, dating back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate. The size of the blind spot has varied over the years and from one administration to another, but it is always present.
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815731566
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
A critical examination of the history of US-Palestinian relations The United States has invested billions of dollars and countless diplomatic hours in the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution. Yet American attempts to broker an end to the conflict have repeatedly come up short. At the center of these failures lay two critical factors: Israeli power and Palestinian politics. While both Israelis and Palestinians undoubtedly share much of the blame, one also cannot escape the role of the United States, as the sole mediator in the process, in these repeated failures. American peacemaking efforts ultimately ran aground as a result of Washington’s unwillingness to confront Israel’s ever-deepening occupation or to come to grips with the realities of internal Palestinian politics. In particular, the book looks at the interplay between the U.S.-led peace process and internal Palestinian politics—namely, how a badly flawed peace process helped to weaken Palestinian leaders and institutions and how an increasingly dysfunctional Palestinian leadership, in turn, hindered prospects for a diplomatic resolution. Thus, while the peace process was not necessarily doomed to fail, Washington’s management of the process, with its built-in blind spot to Israeli power and Palestinian politics, made failure far more likely than a negotiated breakthrough. Shaped by the pressures of American domestic politics and the special relationship with Israel, Washington’s distinctive “blind spot” to Israeli power and Palestinian politics has deep historical roots, dating back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate. The size of the blind spot has varied over the years and from one administration to another, but it is always present.
Inter/Nationalism
Author: Steven Salaita
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452953171
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
“The age of transnational humanities has arrived.” According to Steven Salaita, the seemingly disparate fields of Palestinian Studses and American Indian studies have more in common than one may think. In Inter/Nationalism, Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine. Salaita offers a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—which, among other things, aims to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. In doing so, he emphasizes BDS’s significant potential as an organizing entity as well as its importance in the creation of intellectual and political communities that put Natives and other colonized peoples such as Palestinians into conversation. His discussion includes readings of a wide range of Native poetry that invokes Palestine as a theme or symbol; the speeches of U.S. President Andrew Jackson and early Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky; and the discourses of “shared values” between the United States and Israel. Inter/Nationalism seeks to lay conceptual ground between American Indian and Indigenous studies and Palestinian studies through concepts of settler colonialism, indigeneity, and state violence. By establishing Palestine as an indigenous nation under colonial occupation, this book draws crucial connections between the scholarship and activism of Indigenous America and Palestine.
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452953171
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
“The age of transnational humanities has arrived.” According to Steven Salaita, the seemingly disparate fields of Palestinian Studses and American Indian studies have more in common than one may think. In Inter/Nationalism, Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine. Salaita offers a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—which, among other things, aims to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. In doing so, he emphasizes BDS’s significant potential as an organizing entity as well as its importance in the creation of intellectual and political communities that put Natives and other colonized peoples such as Palestinians into conversation. His discussion includes readings of a wide range of Native poetry that invokes Palestine as a theme or symbol; the speeches of U.S. President Andrew Jackson and early Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky; and the discourses of “shared values” between the United States and Israel. Inter/Nationalism seeks to lay conceptual ground between American Indian and Indigenous studies and Palestinian studies through concepts of settler colonialism, indigeneity, and state violence. By establishing Palestine as an indigenous nation under colonial occupation, this book draws crucial connections between the scholarship and activism of Indigenous America and Palestine.
Children of Catastrophe
Author: Jamal Krayem Kanj
Publisher: Garnet Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1859642624
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
The making of a refugee - Life in the camp - Revolution and political evolution - Israeli military raids - Camp economy - Lebanese civil war - Journey into a new life - A new American home and the return to Palestine - The destruction of Nahr el Bared camp: the unrecorded story.
Publisher: Garnet Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1859642624
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
The making of a refugee - Life in the camp - Revolution and political evolution - Israeli military raids - Camp economy - Lebanese civil war - Journey into a new life - A new American home and the return to Palestine - The destruction of Nahr el Bared camp: the unrecorded story.
From Palestine to America
Author: Taher Dajani
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595482864
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Taher Dajani remembers playing soccer with his neighborhood friends in his idyllic city of Jaffa, Palestine. But on April 24, 1948, when Taher was fourteen, his carefree lifestyle came to an abrupt end. His family, with little money and few possessions, escaped the city by sea in a crowded fishing trawler as Zionist militia encircled Jaffa. Taher's father believed the family was in danger, so overnight they became refugees. The family took refuge in Syria and later in Libya, which enabled them to rebuild their lives. They experienced grief at leaving a place they loved and felt a great sense of loss and displacement, but with perseverance the Dajanis began anew. From Palestine to America describes the family's experiences and their determination. Taher Dajani writes this memoir about his new life after leaving his beloved Jaffa-from his days as a college student in Chicago to his work with the central bank in Libya-and his position with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. Even though it has been sixty years since the Dajani family were forced to flee Palestine, they remember their heritage and roots, and Jaffa, Palestine, will forever be in their hearts.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595482864
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Taher Dajani remembers playing soccer with his neighborhood friends in his idyllic city of Jaffa, Palestine. But on April 24, 1948, when Taher was fourteen, his carefree lifestyle came to an abrupt end. His family, with little money and few possessions, escaped the city by sea in a crowded fishing trawler as Zionist militia encircled Jaffa. Taher's father believed the family was in danger, so overnight they became refugees. The family took refuge in Syria and later in Libya, which enabled them to rebuild their lives. They experienced grief at leaving a place they loved and felt a great sense of loss and displacement, but with perseverance the Dajanis began anew. From Palestine to America describes the family's experiences and their determination. Taher Dajani writes this memoir about his new life after leaving his beloved Jaffa-from his days as a college student in Chicago to his work with the central bank in Libya-and his position with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. Even though it has been sixty years since the Dajani family were forced to flee Palestine, they remember their heritage and roots, and Jaffa, Palestine, will forever be in their hearts.
Black Power and Palestine
Author: Michael R Fischbach
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503607399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
A study of how the Arab-Israeli conflict affected the American civil rights movement. The 1967 Arab–Israeli War rocketed the question of Israel and Palestine onto the front pages of American newspapers. Black Power activists saw Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. Soon concerns over the Arab–Israeli conflict spread across mainstream black politics and into the heart of the civil rights movement itself. Black Power and Palestine uncovers why so many African Americans—notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others—came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did. Americans first heard pro-Palestinian sentiments in public through the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Michael R. Fischbach uncovers this hidden history of the Arab–Israeli conflict’s role in African American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power’s transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected US black politics, animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today. In chronicling this story, Fischbach reveals much about how American peoples of color create political strategies, a sense of self, and a place within US and global communities. The shadow cast by events of the 1960s and 1970s continues to affect the United States in deep, structural ways. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement. Praise for Black Power and Palestine “An indispensable read on the civil rights and Black Power era, shedding new light on just how deeply the Arab-Israeli conflict has shaped black domestic politics. Anyone interested in why conflict in the Middle East continues to cast its long shadow over U.S. foreign and domestic policy should read this book.” —Cynthia A. Young, The Pennsylvania State University, author of Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left “Michael R. Fischbach explores one of the most important international ramifications of the political awakening of African Americans in the 20th century: how movements ranging from the Black Muslims and Black Panthers to SNCC and the NAACP related to the Palestinian struggle. Original and timely, Black Power and Palestine offers fascinating insight into a vital issue in the self-definition of the African American community, one that continues to have great relevance today in the growing linkages between the Black Lives Matter movement and Palestinian activism.” —Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University, author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503607399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
A study of how the Arab-Israeli conflict affected the American civil rights movement. The 1967 Arab–Israeli War rocketed the question of Israel and Palestine onto the front pages of American newspapers. Black Power activists saw Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. Soon concerns over the Arab–Israeli conflict spread across mainstream black politics and into the heart of the civil rights movement itself. Black Power and Palestine uncovers why so many African Americans—notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others—came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did. Americans first heard pro-Palestinian sentiments in public through the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Michael R. Fischbach uncovers this hidden history of the Arab–Israeli conflict’s role in African American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power’s transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected US black politics, animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today. In chronicling this story, Fischbach reveals much about how American peoples of color create political strategies, a sense of self, and a place within US and global communities. The shadow cast by events of the 1960s and 1970s continues to affect the United States in deep, structural ways. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement. Praise for Black Power and Palestine “An indispensable read on the civil rights and Black Power era, shedding new light on just how deeply the Arab-Israeli conflict has shaped black domestic politics. Anyone interested in why conflict in the Middle East continues to cast its long shadow over U.S. foreign and domestic policy should read this book.” —Cynthia A. Young, The Pennsylvania State University, author of Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left “Michael R. Fischbach explores one of the most important international ramifications of the political awakening of African Americans in the 20th century: how movements ranging from the Black Muslims and Black Panthers to SNCC and the NAACP related to the Palestinian struggle. Original and timely, Black Power and Palestine offers fascinating insight into a vital issue in the self-definition of the African American community, one that continues to have great relevance today in the growing linkages between the Black Lives Matter movement and Palestinian activism.” —Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University, author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
Our American Israel
Author: Amy Kaplan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989929
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
An essential account of America’s most controversial alliance that reveals how the United States came to see Israel as an extension of itself, and how that strong and divisive partnership plays out in our own time. Our American Israel tells the story of how a Jewish state in the Middle East came to resonate profoundly with a broad range of Americans in the twentieth century. Beginning with debates about Zionism after World War II, Israel’s identity has been entangled with America’s belief in its own exceptional nature. Now, in the twenty-first century, Amy Kaplan challenges the associations underlying this special alliance. Through popular narratives expressed in news media, fiction, and film, a shared sense of identity emerged from the two nations’ histories as settler societies. Americans projected their own origin myths onto Israel: the biblical promised land, the open frontier, the refuge for immigrants, the revolt against colonialism. Israel assumed a mantle of moral authority, based on its image as an “invincible victim,” a nation of intrepid warriors and concentration camp survivors. This paradox persisted long after the Six-Day War, when the United States rallied behind a story of the Israeli David subduing the Arab Goliath. The image of the underdog shattered when Israel invaded Lebanon and Palestinians rose up against the occupation. Israel’s military was strongly censured around the world, including notes of dissent in the United States. Rather than a symbol of justice, Israel became a model of military strength and technological ingenuity. In America today, Israel’s political realities pose difficult challenges. Turning a critical eye on the turbulent history that bound the two nations together, Kaplan unearths the roots of present controversies that may well divide them in the future.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989929
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
An essential account of America’s most controversial alliance that reveals how the United States came to see Israel as an extension of itself, and how that strong and divisive partnership plays out in our own time. Our American Israel tells the story of how a Jewish state in the Middle East came to resonate profoundly with a broad range of Americans in the twentieth century. Beginning with debates about Zionism after World War II, Israel’s identity has been entangled with America’s belief in its own exceptional nature. Now, in the twenty-first century, Amy Kaplan challenges the associations underlying this special alliance. Through popular narratives expressed in news media, fiction, and film, a shared sense of identity emerged from the two nations’ histories as settler societies. Americans projected their own origin myths onto Israel: the biblical promised land, the open frontier, the refuge for immigrants, the revolt against colonialism. Israel assumed a mantle of moral authority, based on its image as an “invincible victim,” a nation of intrepid warriors and concentration camp survivors. This paradox persisted long after the Six-Day War, when the United States rallied behind a story of the Israeli David subduing the Arab Goliath. The image of the underdog shattered when Israel invaded Lebanon and Palestinians rose up against the occupation. Israel’s military was strongly censured around the world, including notes of dissent in the United States. Rather than a symbol of justice, Israel became a model of military strength and technological ingenuity. In America today, Israel’s political realities pose difficult challenges. Turning a critical eye on the turbulent history that bound the two nations together, Kaplan unearths the roots of present controversies that may well divide them in the future.
An American Feminist in Palestine
Author: Sherna Berger Gluck
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781566391900
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
In December 1987, with the outbreak of the intifada, American TV beamed dramatic pictures of Palestinian children and older women taking to the streets of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem to confront Israeli soldiers. News stories also reported how a small band of Israeli women dressed in black were taking to the streets in West Jerusalem to challenge their government's policy. Moved by these images and emboldened by the example of the Israelis, Sherna Gluck broke a silence she, like so many Jewish Americans, had kept for so long. Her trip to Occupied Palestine one year later began a journey that introduced her not only to the horrors of Israeli occupation, but to the creativity of the Palestinian resistance movement and its transformative potential, especially for women. Highly sympathetic to the Palestinians, but with vigilantly critical observation, An American Feminist in Palestine recounts the author's experiences over the course of three years as she returned repeatedly to a number of villages and refugee camps. Weaving together anecdotes, interviews, and candid observations, she captures the vitality of the early days of the intifada and the problems that later began to plague the movement after the Gulf War. Author note: Sherna Berger Gluck directs the Oral History Program and teaches in the Women's Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach. Her previously published books include Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History (with Daphne Patai).
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781566391900
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
In December 1987, with the outbreak of the intifada, American TV beamed dramatic pictures of Palestinian children and older women taking to the streets of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem to confront Israeli soldiers. News stories also reported how a small band of Israeli women dressed in black were taking to the streets in West Jerusalem to challenge their government's policy. Moved by these images and emboldened by the example of the Israelis, Sherna Gluck broke a silence she, like so many Jewish Americans, had kept for so long. Her trip to Occupied Palestine one year later began a journey that introduced her not only to the horrors of Israeli occupation, but to the creativity of the Palestinian resistance movement and its transformative potential, especially for women. Highly sympathetic to the Palestinians, but with vigilantly critical observation, An American Feminist in Palestine recounts the author's experiences over the course of three years as she returned repeatedly to a number of villages and refugee camps. Weaving together anecdotes, interviews, and candid observations, she captures the vitality of the early days of the intifada and the problems that later began to plague the movement after the Gulf War. Author note: Sherna Berger Gluck directs the Oral History Program and teaches in the Women's Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach. Her previously published books include Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History (with Daphne Patai).