The importance of reclaiming the scholarly language of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict cannot be overstated as entire disciplines, including Middle Eastern Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and Ethnic Studies have come under the spell of these politicised fads with the attendant perversion of standards of evidence and open inquiry. Wielded by scholar-activists, the vast majority of whom do not know Hebrew and have spent little time in Israel, the distortion of crucial terms has become so pervasive that it is no longer possible to recall how these terms were originally used. That a vocabulary of historical explanation has dissolved into today's crude value judgments and "unhinged polemics" distorts the academic study of Israel, of Palestinians, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not incidentally, of politics.
Hijacking the Arab-Israeli Conflict emphasizes how a delegitimizing lexicon of terms and concepts is often used in highly politicized anti-Zionist scholarship. This volume focuses on this linkage between language and thought partly because it is long a staple focus for political theory and philosophy.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.
Introduction
Asaf Romirowsky
1. The gatekeepers
Donna Robinson Divine
2. Word crimes: choosing rationality over a moral panic
Cary Nelson
3. The Demopath’s Lexicon: a guide to Western journalism between the river and the sea
Richard Landes
4. Zionism - The integral component of Jewish identity that Jews are historically pressured to shed
Alyza D. Lewin
5. Can military service bridge social schisms: the case of Israel
Elisheva Rosman
6. Protests and political violence among Arab Knesset members
Gadi Hitman and Nir Sinay
7. Testing the social psychology of protest: empirical evidence from the Israeli experience
Alonit Berenson and Nir Atmor
8. Is religiosity a risk or a protective factor? The connection between religiosity and deviance among religious youths
Vered Ne’eman-Haviv, Wilchek- Aviad Yael and Lahav Chaim
9. Public policy for supporting employed family caregivers of the elderly: the Israeli case
Erez Cohen and Yael Benvenisti
10. Media portrayal of enemy leaders and public opinion toward peace: the cases of Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin 1987-95
Hila Lowenstein-Barkai
11. Shifting trajectory in India-Israel relations under Modi
Muhsin Puthan Purayil
Biography
Asaf Romirowsky is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME). Romirowsky is also senior non-resident research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) and Professor [Affiliate] at the University of Haifa.
