The Rise and Rise of the ‘Israel Question’

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter explores the extent to which the unique positioning of Israel within contemporary, global, civil society echoes the ways in which European Jews were once positioned, as they aspired to equality within national societies at the end of the eighteenth century. Even as sympathy for Palestinian suffering is to be expected on the face of the enormous human toll of the current conflict, the level and intensity of anti-Israel rhetoric raises difficult questions. The chapter’s main claim, then, is that the contemporary ‘Israel question’ is a twenty-first century incarnation of earlier ‘Jewish questions’. The argument proceeds in three steps. It starts off by recounting how and why the raising of various ‘questions’ became a powerful rhetorical and political device at the time of the formation of European nation-states since the Enlightenment. It then shows how, as global trends have become increasingly salient in the past 50 years, this way of thinking has also become the standard way of grappling with the international standing of the Jewish state. It ends with the thesis that, whether as a ʼnational Jewish question’ or an ‘international Israel question’, similar antisemitic tropes are being mobilised.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationResponses to 7 October
Subtitle of host publicationUniversities
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages22-28
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781040101544
ISBN (Print)9781032804804
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2024
Externally publishedYes

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