Enough of blood and tears
Canaan. Judea. Palestine. Israel. Perhaps the most fought over, sought after and coveted area of the world, with some of the world's most detailed and brutal history. The history of the modern state of Israel begins in 1896 when the Hungarian Jew Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat in which he proposed the foundation of a Jewish state as the solution to the problem of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. The following year the first Zionist Congress met in Basle, Switzerland, to discuss his ideas. The resolution of the congress was to establish a "home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured by public law" and set up the World Zionist Organisation to work for that end. Herzl even tried to acquire land and financial backing for such a state. Zionist settlers were encouraged to travel to Palestine; by 1914 around 70,000 immigrants had arrived and were living alongside around half a million Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire. During the British mandate (until 1948) around 600,000 Jewish settlers came to Palestine and the coexistence of Zionists and the Arabs of Palestine became more problematic. In 1917, the British government signalled its 'sympathy for Zionist aspirations' in the now famous Balfour declaration; writing to Lord Rothschild, a prominent British Jew. He asserts: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object," although does not mention a state. With the imminent conflict of World War II, however, Britain terminated its commitment to Zionism in return for support from the Arab world, effectively retracting the Balfour declaration....
Features: Mourning becomes electron
A very long time ago, a truth was seen. Then, a book was written and rewritten, trimmed and polished for the indifferent demands of the general reader, gradually acquiring a cover design, an audience, a publisher, while the core idea patiently ripened, undisturbed by litigation and dispute. Now, more than twenty years since its completion, Making Names is neither obsolete nor dispensable. The tragicomic legal struggle surrounding the work does little to lessen the intellectual merits of Making Names - its prose still shines, its questions still stand, and its 'Electra' remains one of the most powerful statements of the human condition written in the last century. ...
Features: Your money or your life: it's a simple choice
Following the recent spate of high-profile attacks on students in Oxford, you would be forgiven for thinking that this once peaceful city has been turned into a haven for muggers, pickpockets and general ne'er-do-wells. Our previously safe streets and squares are bursting with sinister figures lurking in the shadows, ready to steal our hard-earned money. Clearly this is an over-exaggeration, yet it raises some interesting points about student perspectives on the general issue of street crime....
Features: Letter from America
Whether the President of the United States is a knowing or unknowing pawn, he is still essentially a pawn. We should be forensic here, because this was a standard argument until glib humour overtook outrage and then 9/11 ensured any criticism incendiary and inappropriate. It is only from within America that I have become aware that all those cartoons of Bush as the lazy, pretzel-choking cowboy-monkey are not a joke. That power is concentrated in this man is dizzying enough. Still more alarming is that power is exercised through this man on behalf of a plutocratic mafia. What was true in 2000 is true today. This point must be known and re-stated....