Categories such as the right to self-determination, historical precedence, indigeneity, purchase, treaties, human rights, and international law are commonly employed in the academy in examining and judging the contending sides of the Arab/Israeli conflict. Thus terms like “colonial-settler,” “indigenous,” “apartheid” or “racist,” and “Arab” rather than “Jewish” land frame the discourse. The analysis will examine how novel and distinctive are these terms. This is the subject of Ilan Troen’s: Israel/Palestine in World Religions—Whose Holy Land?(2024)
Ilan Troen is professor emeritus of the Sam and Anna Lopin Chair of Modern History (Ben-Gurion University, 2007) and the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Chair in Israel Studies (Brandeis, 2017). He was founding director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies (Brandeis) and founding academic director of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev). He was also the founding editor of the international journal Israel Studies (Indiana U. Press) for 26 years. He is a past president of the Association for Israel Studies (2015-17) and was presented with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.