Palestinophilia

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The term Palestinophilia refers to sympathy toward the region of Palestine and/or the people who populate it. As the meaning of the term Palestinian has changed during the 20th century from referring to Palestinian Jew (or sometimes an inhabitant of Palestine) to Palestinian Arab, the meaning of Palestinophilia also transformed accordingly.

[edit] Palestinophilia as a precursor of Zionism

Martin Peretz quotes Derek Penslar's expression "an inchoate Palestinophilia" to describe the relation between 1870s efforts by Alliance Israelite Universelle to establish agricultural schools and self-sufficient communities in the region through education and professional development and political Zionism:

The first truly practical Zionist enterprise in Palestine was established in 1870, long before the First Zionist Congress, when French Jews opened an agricultural school at Mikve Israel. These Frenchmen did not consider themselves Zionists. Nor did the others who, with funds and aggressive technical assistance from imported European experts, followed this "productivisation" paradigm. Their motive, Derek Penslar has written, was not precisely Zionism, but "an inchoate Palestinophilia." But this sentiment quickly became a transformatory Zionist program: working the land was not simply an economic activity, it was also moral regeneration.^[1]

Leon Poliakov traces the appearance of the term in the last quarter of the 19th century Russian Empire, referring to traditional religious pilgrimage among aged diaspora Jews who made aliyah to be laid to rest in the Land of Israel:

At the same time (in the 1880s), "Palestinophilia", a new term which Theodore Herzl would change into "Zionism," enkindled many young hearts. Tens of Palestinophilic societies, such as Bilu or Hovevei Zion were born, and their most determined members travelled to the Promised Land in order to make it flourish, to "live there, not die."^[2]

According to V.A. Dymshits, "As for Jewish Nationalism, having come into existence at a fairly late stage, it took at once the shape of Palestinophilia, and then Zionism, i.e. it was built around rejecting the nation as it was in favor of the nation as it should be, as well as rejecting Yiddish in favor of Hebrew."^[3]

[edit] Palestinophilia after the establishment of Israel

After the modern State of Israel was born, the Palestinian Jews began identifying themselves as Israelis. After the 1967 Six Day War the word "Palestinian" began to be used to differentiate the Arab of the Palestinian region from the other Arabs of the region and the meaning of the term Palestinophilia transformed accordingly. Today, it is being predominantly used to denote support of Palestinians - often, against Israel and Israelis.

For example, Stephen Howe uses it to describe the life and work of the Palestinian scholar Edward Said:

"... there were ageing conservatives, often ex-Foreign Office officials or politicians, for whom Palestinophilia was an outgrowth of their romantic Arabism, of their lucrative links with various oil-rich regimes, or sometimes, it must be said, of ill-disguised anti-Semitism."^[4]

Or by Israel Hasbara Committee: "Lucidity must go hand in hand with courage, because anti-Zionist and Palestinophile conformism is constantly progressing in the public arena."^[5]

A 2002 paper by School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at The Johns Hopkins University contains chapter titled "Palestinophilia: a surrogate revolution?"^[6]

Director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Robert Wistrich also uses this term: "We need to insist that a linkage exists between blind Palestinophilia, being soft on terror and jihad, defaming Israel, and the current wave of anti-Semitic violence."^[7]

[edit] Footnotes