Former academic, occasional undiplomatic diplomat. Close to the sun in the day, near to the moon at night. Opinions my own, retweets not always endorsements.
Mar 19 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
I have had several discussions here where people deny that Israel is a colonial state and claim that Arabs are against the Jews because they are antisemites. I would like to call a witness with impeccable credentials, the well-known postcolonial theorist, Vladimir Jabotinsky.
Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, the direct political ancestor of Benjamin Netanyahu, criticized liberal Zionists who deluded themselves about the Zionist project. In 1923, he wrote an essay entitled "The Iron Wall." A few excerpts follow. en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the…
Mar 18 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I have observed that one theme among defenders of Israel is condescending admonitions to “learn some history.” I was taught the same history that you were, probably in greater depth. . When I was 17 I translated Jacob Katz, Israel among the Nations, from Hebrew to English.
This was the main history textbook in modern orthodox secondary schools in Israel. I also translated a story by Agnon and published it in Commentary. However since then I have spent 57 years studying global politics and history. Confronted by realities of which I was ignorant,
Dec 6, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I have noticed that the discussion of antisemitism in connection to the Gaza offensive has led some people to claim that Arabs, like Jews, are Semites. I would like to shed light on this question. 1/9
There is a firm scientific consensus that (1) race is socially constructed, not biological and (2) there is no such thing as a Semitic race. The contemporary Jewish people is composed of multiple gene pools, most of which show evidence of some Eastern Mediterranean ancestry. 2/9
Dec 1, 2023 • 30 tweets • 5 min read
This is an attempt to put the Israel-Palestine conflict in historical context with empathy for all, but excuses for none. Please delay your reaction till you have read it all. I have to start somewhere. And I will start with my own people. 1/
Jewish history records two exiles from Palestine/Eretz Yisrael: The first after 586 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Solomon’s Temple and exiled the Jews to Mesopotamia. In 538 BCE the Persian emperor Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return and rebuild the Temple. 2/
Feb 27, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
My paternal grandmother, Anne Aarons Rubin, born c. 1898, was born in what she always called “Chernigova Gubernia [District, later Oblast’]” of the Tsarist Empire in the reign of Nikolai II. Her parents brought her to Philadelphia, PA, USA, around 1900. 1/12
Chernigov [Chernihiv in Ukrainian] was the second largest state in Kievan Rus and part of geographical Ukraine, but my grandmother’s family never identified as Ukrainian, but as Jewish. 2/12
