Project MUSE®: Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 5 (2006) - vol. 7 (2008)Latest Articles: Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary JournalTWOProject MUSE®Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal1750-01251474-9475Latest articles in Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Remembering the Palestinian Nakba: Commemoration, Oral History and Narratives of Memory
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255205
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1948 was the year of the Nakba. It saw the establishment of a settler-colonial Zionist state on 78 percent of Mandatory Palestine. It also symbolised the Palestinian Nakba (the ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’)1 – the destruction of historic Palestine and ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Palestinians. In 1948 the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinians was carried out as an integral part of the infamous Plan Dalet and through the systematic use of terror and a series of massacres, of which the massacre of Deir Yasin in April 1948 was the most notorious. The Israeli state delegates the job of acquiring, settling and allocating land in the country to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a quasi-governmental racist
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallRemembering the Palestinian Nakba: Commemoration, Oral History and Narratives of Memory2008-12-12text/htmlen-USRemembering the Palestinian Nakba: Commemoration, Oral History and Narratives of Memory2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®1715082026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Salafi Formations in Palestine and the Limits of a De-Palestinised Milieu
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255206
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With the current ‘Islamist sphere’ in Palestine (in this case the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) being dominated by the Hamas movement, little room has been left for other Islamist trends including Salafism. Constructing a strong popular ‘Islamist’ identity and promoting it successfully among Palestinians, whether the promoter be the Salafis, Hamas, Hizb al-Tahrir, the Sufis or any other Islamist group, has largely been shaped by the stance adopted by each of these groups towards the Israeli occupation. The ‘resistance’ to this occupation and the conjectural means of this resistance has been the license for attaining public and popular legitimacy by every group (Islamist or secular). The Salafi school of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallSalafi Formations in Palestine and the Limits of a De-Palestinised Milieu2008-12-12text/htmlen-USSalafi Formations in Palestine and the Limits of a De-Palestinised Milieu2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®900382026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Are There any Shi’ite Muslims in Israel?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255207
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The Shi’a (literally the ‘sect’, which is that of Ali the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, who was also the fourth Caliph) began as a political group in the 7th century, and in a process that continued for three centuries, become a group with a well-formed religious ideology that is distinct from Sunni Islam.
Various Shi’ite trends that had emerged during the Middle Ages disappeared from the stage of history. The main ones that remained until our day are the Zaydis (concentrated mainly in the Yemen), the Ismailiyya (with its various sects represented in the Indian sub-continent and in East Africa), and the Imamiyya1 (comprising the majority in Iran and in Southern Iraq, and also represented
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallAre There any Shi’ite Muslims in Israel?2008-12-12text/htmlen-USAre There any Shi’ite Muslims in Israel?2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®760162026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12The State of Israel and the Apartheid Regime of South Africa in Comparative Perspective
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255208
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With increasing frequency comparisons are being drawn between the situation of the Palestinian people both in the Occupied Territories and inside Israel with the system of Apartheid imposed on the indigenous peoples of South Africa by the Nationalist Government in 1948 (Carter 2006). The object of this essay is to explore the analogy and test its merits and shortcomings.
In making any comparison between the two political systems of South Africa under Apartheid and the Government of Israel, it is necessary to enter a qualification that they are separated in time and space and that any comparison will have limitations. It is also necessary to enter the general caveat that whilst systems may have
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallThe State of Israel and the Apartheid Regime of South Africa in Comparative Perspective2008-12-12text/htmlen-USThe State of Israel and the Apartheid Regime of South Africa in Comparative Perspective2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®517142026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12On Israel’s Ethnogenesis and Historical Method
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255209
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This book addresses a topic much debated during the last two decades or so in biblical and archaeological scholarship: Israel’s origins in ancient Palestine. However, its original feature is the use of an anthropologically-oriented archaeological perspective. Indeed, Faust, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University (Israel), has produced a well-written and bibliographically informed study on what he calls ‘Israel’s ethnogenesis’, that is, the process through which Israel evolved into an ‘ethnic group’ during the Late Bronze/Iron transition in the Near East (ca. 13th to 11th centuries BCE). Now, what Israel? The biblical or the historical? Does Faust see such a distinction as
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallOn Israel’s Ethnogenesis and Historical Method2008-12-12text/htmlen-USOn Israel’s Ethnogenesis and Historical Method2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®372882026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Terror and Toleration, East and West, Despotic and Free: Dichotomous Narratives and Representations of Islam
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255210
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Despite the critiques of orientalism by Edward Said and others the popularity of simplistic variants of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilisations meta-narrative in both popular and scholarly narratives demonstrate that stereotypical orientalist assumptions as to the nature of the East or the Islamic world continue to be unproblematically and uncritically asserted. Such narratives imagine a monolithic Islamic world which is qualitatively different in cultural terms and in the values it espouses to a secular or Christian West. Rather than valuing freedom, democracy, rationality and tolerance, the Islamic world is characterised as despotic, oppressive, reactionary, militantly prosletyising and expansionist.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallTerror and Toleration, East and West, Despotic and Free: Dichotomous Narratives and Representations of Islam2008-12-12text/htmlen-USTerror and Toleration, East and West, Despotic and Free: Dichotomous Narratives and Representations of Islam2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®332152026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12The Challenge of Social History
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255211
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This edited volume is a welcome addition to the literature on the subaltern strata of the Middle East. Its distinctive character is that the chapters range over a long chronological period, from the 15th to the 20th centuries, and cover the entire expanse of territory from Morocco to Iran (and even Greece). Moreover, they discuss a very diverse variety of social groups: urban crowds, women, workers, the unemployed, peasants, slaves, gypsies, shantytown dwellers, and Roma. There are no chapters on religious minorities and tribal peoples; but everything cannot be included in one volume.
The editor and the authors of the various chapters are committed to a variety of methods of ‘history from below’. As a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallThe Challenge of Social History2008-12-12text/htmlen-USThe Challenge of Social History2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®92472026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Reading the Bible in Jerusalem
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255212
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Readers of this journal will need no introduction to the late Michael Prior, Vincentian priest, biblical scholar and writer, musician, justice activist and above all, passionate advocate for the Palestinian people. There is still a tangible sense of great loss at his untimely death in 2004 – suffered both here in Britain and by Christian communities in Palestine. I was a colleague of Michael from 1980–1989 and well remember the excitement of the visit of Palestinian students from Birzeit University, and the impact felt by the whole College at the time: it proved a formative experience for the rest of Michael’s life.
This collection of essays and lectures has been carefully put together and edited by
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallReading the Bible in Jerusalem2008-12-12text/htmlen-USReading the Bible in Jerusalem2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®88262026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Occupier’s Law
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255213
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In dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict,’ mainstream literature seems to favour the ‘spectacular’ sides of violence at the expense of an understanding of people and their everyday experiences in such contexts. Tobias Kelly breaks away from this trend and produces a poignant account of the predicament of a West Bank village that has fallen under the civil control of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) after the Oslo Accord (1993) but remains subject to the military control of the Israeli state; a situation causing a myriad of contradictions and confusions in legal rights and claims, particularly in the area of labour law. Arguing that the ‘conflict’ is ultimately one over legal rights, the claims
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallOccupier’s Law2008-12-12text/htmlen-USOccupier’s Law2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®87182026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12A Palestinian Woman Speaks
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255214
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Readers of this journal, familiar with the grim reality that is Palestine today, might ask what new dimension this new book might contribute. The most important feature is the writer herself. Quaker activist, theologian, religious leader and international speaker, she has lived all her life in Ramallah. All the harassments, humiliations and countless forms of oppression have been experienced by herself and her family. ‘The narrative of my life is one of exclusion’, she writes. Her brother is still missing. She, her late husband and family have endured the sufferings of the intifadas. Her mother had to leave the country for lack of medical treatment.
But this book is far more than a personal catalogue of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallA Palestinian Woman Speaks2008-12-12text/htmlen-USA Palestinian Woman Speaks2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®56182026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Voices of Palestinian Bedouin Women in Israel
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255215
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The book, Weaving Tradition and Modernity is a ‘must read’ to hear the inside stories of the Bedouin Arab community through the ‘voices’ of the Palestinian Bedouin women who study at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The book presents stories told by Bedouin women in higher education about the their lived experiences in the land that they claim to belong to, yet where their language, values, beliefs, histories, and politics are marginalised and the tough economic conditions deprive them of their humanity and rights. As a reader from the South Pacific my heart is disturbed by the intensity of the troubles in the very homeland of the biblical stories that are revered by the Pacific Peoples who are Christians
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallVoices of Palestinian Bedouin Women in Israel2008-12-12text/htmlen-USVoices of Palestinian Bedouin Women in Israel2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®49782026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12The Land Speaks Arabic
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255216
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This excellent documentary on one of the most pressing issues of our time brings together rarely seen footage of Palestine before 1948 juxtaposed with historical research, eyewitness accounts, stunning choreography, moving testimonials, and historical documents.
We can state the fact that before the Zionist project began in Palestine it was more heavily populated than the United States of today. We can state that Palestine 20 years or even fifty years after the Zionist project was launched was still predominantly Arab. But it is one thing to state a fact and another to have seen it or lived it. The next best thing is to have a film that shows you a video of the era and pictures of the documents of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallThe Land Speaks Arabic2008-12-12text/htmlen-USThe Land Speaks Arabic2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®80842026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Biblical Archaeology
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255217
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The Bible Unearthed: The Making of a Religion, is a four-part documentary series based on Israel Finkelstein’s The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, coauthored with Neil Asher Silberman. The documentary attempts to differentiate between the history and legend contained within the Old Testament, engaging with the historiography of recent decades to highlight changing attitudes towards biblical archaeology, particularly the move away from literalism within scholarly research.
The first portion of the series focuses on the Patriarchs and Genesis, consistently emphasising the controversial nature of the stories contained within the Old
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallBiblical Archaeology2008-12-12text/htmlen-USBiblical Archaeology2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®58152026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Letter to the Editor
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255218
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The Editor
Holy Land Studies
Dear Editor,
Rumy Hasan argues (HLS, Vol.7, No.1, May 2007) that as Israel is based on the same ideology of separating peoples as Apartheid South Africa was, the struggle against Zionist oppression should follow in the footsteps of the anti-Apartheid movement. There is much to be said for such an approach. It puts Zionism itself in the dock, and takes us away from the chimera of a two-state solution. But is it sufficient?
The assumption behind Hasan’s argument is that Apartheid’s collapse was achieved by the anti-Apartheid movement. But it is questionable whether this was sufficient to bring about the dismantling of Apartheid inaugurated
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallLetter to the Editor2008-12-12text/htmlen-USLetter to the Editor2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®57962026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12Books Received
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/255219
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Some of the books listed below may be reviewed in future issues.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/327/image/coversmallBooks Received2008-12-12text/htmlen-USBooks Received2008-12-122008TWOProject MUSE®109592026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002008-12-12