Derek Penslar ─ Declarations of (In)dependence: Dialectics of Zionist Statecraft, 1896-1948
submitted by Marvin's Underground Evening Lectures
on 10/10/18
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This talk analyzes the relationship between dependence and independence in four foundational texts in the history of Zionist statecraft: Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State of 1896, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Biltmore Program of 1942, and the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. These documents differ greatly in authorship, structure, and audience, but, taken together, they illustrate the Zionist project's convergence with and divergence from anti-colonial projects and post-colonial states in the first half of the twentieth century.
