Each week this summer, K. brings you a selection of texts that have already appeared in our pages, but have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K.‘s work on words of the conflict. With texts by Bruno Karsenti, Julia Christ, Danny Trom, Diana Muir and David Lemler.
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“Apartheid” or the denial of politics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
By Bruno Karsenti and Danny Trom – Published October 5, 2023
In issue 129 of K., we discussed the open letter, entitled “The Elephant in the room”, denouncing the State of Israel as an apartheid regime. The petition was signed by more than 2,500 academics, bringing together, in a combination unthinkable only a few months earlier, committed Zionists and avowed anti-Zionists. We gave the floor to several of our authors, who explained why they had signed even though they did not agree with the use of the word apartheid. The following text is intended to explain why such a characterization is historically and politically inappropriate, counter-productive and the fruit of an absolutely impracticable analogy, unless one wishes to discredit the history and very existence of Zionism in bad faith.
Read the text by Bruno Karsenti and Danny Trom
“A Land without a People for a People without a Land”
By Diana Muir – Published January 11, 2024
Did the early Zionists really believe that Palestine was a deserted, uninhabited land? For some, that’s what the phrase ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’ implies. Tracing the origins and use of this phrase, Diana Muir shows that to do so would be both to put Zionism on trial and to evacuate the question of the construction of Palestinian national identity.
>> Read the text by Diana Muir
Hayot Adam (“wild beasts in human form”), a cry against humanity
By David Lemler – Published December 14, 2023
In the aftermath of the October 7 attack, the expression “Chayot Adam,” used by several Israeli leaders to describe Hamas terrorists, shocked the public and stirred controversy. Variously translated as “animals,” “wild beasts,” and “human animals,” the phrase is striking for its symbolic violence and, for those sensitive to the resonances of the Hebrew language, for the echoes it finds in biblical and rabbinic texts. David Lemler undertakes an archaeology of this problematic term, drawing on the memory of pogroms and Nazism as well as the deeper roots of the representation of the non-Jew in traditional sources.
“Never again!” a genealogy
By Danny Trom – Published March 21, 2024
What is the “it” whose repetition the slogan “Never again” seeks to ward off? At a time when the use of this phrase is becoming commonplace, to the point where some are turning it against the State of Israel, Danny Trom traces its genesis, beyond the reference to the Holocaust. Questioning the way in which Zionist pioneers appropriated the story of the fortress of Masada’s heroic resistance to the Roman legions, he sheds light on how the slogan relates to the Jewish condition, and how it can still inform our perspective on the current situation.
Anti-Zionism: a realistic option?
By Julia Christ – Published April 26, 2024
“We have to differentiate between anti-Zionism and antisemitism”, say those who don’t like being called antisemitic. On the face of it, there’s nothing foolish about this demand: it’s necessary to distinguish between legitimate criticism of the Jewish state and dubious feelings towards Jews. But is it really necessary to invent a specific word for this criticism? Philosopher Julia Christ traces the various possible uses of the notion of “anti-Zionism” and asks under what conditions, and in what context, criticism of the State of Israel can legitimately be called anti-Zionist. This brief analysis of state criticism and its modalities provides a clearer picture of when anti-Zionism is just another word for antisemitism.
