Mark Levene

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Mark Levene is a historian and emeritus fellow at University of Southampton.

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Levene's work and research focuses on genocide, Jewish history and anthropogenic climate change. [1]

His book The Crisis of Genocide: The European Rimlands, 1912–1953 received the biennial Lemkin Award from the New York-based Institute for the Study of Genocide in 2015. [1]

In 2015, Dr. Peter Hilpold, a Professor at the University of Innsbruck reviewed the book. He stated that the book makes a valuable contribution, although the study's foundational assumptions are questioned. Levene does not use the same definition of genocide as found in the UN Genocide Convention. [2]

The Balfour Declaration – a case of mistaken identity

In this 1992 essay, Levene followed the people behind the Balfour declaration which during the First World War gave birth to the British Mandate of Palestine and to what later became the state of Israel.

According to him, historians were perplexed about the reasons behind the declaration, or they were simply getting it wrong. He wrote:

"Barbara Tuchman in all seriousness proposed that 'the English Bible was the most important single factor'."

Levene discovered that an anti-Zionist Jew, Lucien Wolf, had actually proposed the idea to the "then clearly anti-semitic" British Foreign ministry and that it was accepted precisely because of that, with the British believing that supporting the Zionists would bring "World Jewry" and especially the Jews in the United States to side with Britain and actively enter the war against Germany (and the Ottoman Empire who ruled Palestine at the time). Later on, Wolf backed off, and when the declaration was realized, other considerations came into play. [3]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balfour Declaration</span> British government statement of 1917

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the press on 9 November 1917.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zionism</span> Movement supporting a Jewish state in Palestine

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people through the colonization of Palestine, an area roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic cleansing</span> Systematic removal of a certain ethnic or religious group

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeland for the Jewish people</span> Idea rooted in Jewish history, religion and culture

The Jewish aspiration to return to Zion, generally associated with divine redemption, has suffused Jewish religious thought since the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King–Crane Commission</span> 1919 inquiry on the post-WWI Ottoman Empire

The King–Crane Commission, officially called the 1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey, consisting primarily of an American delegation was a commission of inquiry concerning the disposition of areas within the former Ottoman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Autonomism</span> Non-Zionist Jewish political movement

Jewish Autonomism, not connected to the contemporary political movement autonomism, was a non-Zionist political movement and ideology that emerged in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, before spreading throughout Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the late 19th century, Jewish Autonomism was seen "together with Zionism [as] the most important political expression of the Jewish people in the modern era." One of its first and major proponents was the historian and activist Simon Dubnow. Jewish Autonomism is often referred to as "Dubnovism" or "folkism".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucien Wolf</span>

Lucien Wolf was an English Jewish journalist, diplomat, historian, and advocate of rights for Jews and other minorities. While Wolf was devoted to minority rights, he opposed Jewish nationalism as expressed in Zionism, which he regarded an incentive to anti-Semitism. In 1917 he co-founded the anti-Zionist League of British Jews.

Aleksandar Georgiev Belev was the Bulgarian commissar of Jewish Affairs during World War II, famous for his antisemitic and strongly nationalistic views. He played a central role in the deportation of some 12,000 Jews to Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland. He was also one of the founders of the Bulgarian nationalist Ratniks.

Genocide definitions include many scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide, a word coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. The word is a compound of the ancient Greek word γένος and the Latin word caedō ("kill"). While there are various definitions of the term, almost all international bodies of law officially adjudicate the crime of genocide pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG).

As an organized nationalist movement, Zionism is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is intertwined with Jewish history and Judaism. The organizations of Hovevei Zion, held as the forerunners of modern Zionist ideals, were responsible for the creation of 20 Jewish towns in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.

This is an incomplete bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luma (region)</span> Region in northeast Albania and southwest Kosovo; historic Albanian tribe

Lumë is a region that extends itself in northeastern Albania and southwest Kosovo whose territory is synonymous with the historic Albanian tribe (fis) of the same name. It includes the village with the same name, Lumë, which is located in Albania. Luma is surrounded by Has region, Fan and Orosh (west), Reçi and M’Ujë e m’Uja, Upper Reka, Gora (east), Opoja and Vërrini of Prizren. The region itself also includes the small Arrëni tribe in the west and the Morina tribe in the east.

Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.

<i>Homogeneous Serbia</i> Discourse by Stevan Moljević advocating for Greater Serbia

Homogeneous Serbia is a written discourse by Stevan Moljević. The work emphasized that the state drew its strength from the degree to which its population identifies itself within the state, contrary to the presumptions of Ilija Garašanin, who believed that the strength of the state is derived from its size and organizational principles. Moljević believed that the victorious Kingdom of Serbia in 1918 made a grave mistake when it decided to establish Yugoslavia instead of clearly defining the borders of Serbia.

The claim that there was a Jewish war against Nazi Germany is an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted in Nazi propaganda which asserts that the Jews, framed within the theory as a single historical actor, started World War II and sought the destruction of Germany. Alleging that war was declared in 1939 by Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, Nazis used this false notion to justify the persecution of Jews under German control on the grounds that the Holocaust was justified self-defense. Since the end of World War II, the conspiracy theory has been popular among neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nakba</span> Displacement of Palestinians since 1948

The Nakba is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel. As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Holocaust and the Nakba</span> Historiography on the two events

The Holocaust and the Nakba have been regarded as interrelated events in discussions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, both historically and in the way these two tragedies have influenced perceptions of the conflict by both parties. In Israel, all Israeli Jews are considered survivors of the Holocaust who must implement the imperative of never again in regards to being a Jewish victim. The uniqueness of the Holocaust is emphasized and linkage between it and the Nakba is often rejected. The 2018 book The Holocaust and the Nakba argues that "unless we can hold these two moments in our hearts and minds as part of the same story, there can be no moving forward in the seemingly unmovable conflict that is Israel-Palestine".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zionism as settler colonialism</span>

Zionism has been described by several scholars as a form of settler colonialism in relation to the region of Palestine and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This paradigm has been applied to Zionism by various scholars and figures, including Patrick Wolfe, Edward Said, Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky. Zionism's founders and early leaders were aware and unapologetic about their status as colonizers. Many early leading Zionists such as Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky described Zionism as colonization.

Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.

Nakba denial is a form of historical denialism pertaining to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and its accompanying effects, which Palestinians refer to collectively as the "Nakba". Underlying assumptions of Nakba denial cited by scholars can include the denial of historically documented violence against Palestinians, the denial of a distinct Palestinian identity, the idea that Palestine was barren land, and the notion that Palestinian dispossession were part of mutual transfers between Arabs and Jews justified by war.

References

  1. 1 2 "Mark Levene". conted.ox.ac.uk. University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education.
  2. Hilpold, P. (2014). "Mark Levene. The Crisis of Genocide. Volume I: Devastation. The European Rimlands 1912–1938. Volume II: Annihilation. The European Rimlands 1939–1953". European Journal of International Law. 25 (4): 1202–1204. doi: 10.1093/ejil/chu080 .
  3. Levene, Mark (1992). "The Balfour Declaration: A Case of Mistaken Identity". The English Historical Review . 107 (422 January): 54–77. doi:10.1093/ehr/CVII.CCCCXXII.54. JSTOR   575676.
  4. Carteny, Andrea (2009). "Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume I: The Meaning of Genocide by Mark Levene". Nations and Nationalism. 15 (2): 362–363. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8129.2009.00408_1.x.
  5. David‐Fox, Michael (2016). "The Crisis of Genocide, Vol. 2: Annihilation: The European Rimlands 1939–1953 . By Mark Levene. (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 535. $130.00.)". The Historian. 78 (1): 164–166. doi: 10.1111/hisn.12141 .
  6. Levene, Mark (1993). "Nationalism and Its Alternatives in the International Arena: The Jewish Question at Paris, 1919". Journal of Contemporary History. 28 (3): 511–531. JSTOR   260644.
  7. on the World Catalog
  8. The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History. Columbia University Press. 2019. doi:10.7312/bash18296. ISBN   978-0-231-18296-6.