History Off the Page Dr. Jason Hansen

Send us a Text Message.After a period of relative calm during World War II, the need to resettle Jewish survivors from the Holocaust once more inflamed tensions in Palestine - this time between Britain and the Zionists. In this episode we discusses the causes of the revolt, the Jewish insurgency, advances and failures in the Palestinian nationalist movement and the effect of the nascent Cold War on the conflict. Jump links:Intro (0:51)The historical context (2:01)The refugee crisis (9:38...

Send us a Text Message.In this episode we explore the history of the region during the Second World War. On the one hand, this moment represented something of a pause in tensions between the British, Zionists and Arabs, as the three sides worked together to fend of the Axis threat. On the other, however, Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda, amplified by local collaborators such as Hajj Amin, spoke openly of genocide, poisoning relations between Jews and Arabs. As the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, Bri...

Send us a Text Message.In this episode we explore the history of the Arab Revolt (1936-39), the first attempt to solve the political crisis in Palestine through armed, organized violence. As we'll see, the revolt proved to be a massive failure, badly damaging the Palestinian national cause. Topics covered in the episode include the story of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam - the intellectual founder of Hamas, Nazi efforts to spread anti-Judaism in the Middle East, tactical and strategic discussion about ...

Send us a Text Message.In this episode of our series on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we examine the period of the British Mandate, essentially the moment when the split between the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine began to become more permanent. On the one hand, increased Jewish migration combined with the development of Jewish institutions like the Histradrut (labor union) and Haganah (defense organization) provided the basis for an independent Jewish state -...

Send us a Text Message.This episode explores the history of Israel/Palestine during the First World War - a time when divisions between the local Jewish and Arab communities began to harden. On the one hand, both peoples suffered under the strain of the war and repression under the Ottoman governor Jamaal Pasha. On the other hand, the war brought together Zionist and British policy goals, culminating in official British support for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine (the Balfour declarat...

Send us a Text Message.In this second episode, we start to explore the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, starting with the initial wave of large-scale Jewish migrations in the early 1880s. The episode highlights the complexity of identities in the region, including the multi-faced relationships between Ottoman, Arab, Palestinian and Jewish/Muslim/ Christian belonging. We'll explore the critical role played by the Ottoman Empire in the story, including the passage of the 1858 Land R...