Fraught with emotion, turmoil and global complexity: the nexus of the "homeland" concept with two overlapping, conflicting realities, Israel and Palestine.
The Google Ngram above (created by simply plugging in the terms "Israel" and "Palestine") very clearly indicates that the nation-concept of Israel became, in the corpus of American English texts digitized by Google, the more widely used one, starting in or around 1948, the year Israel became first recognized as a modern nation state, and the concept of Palestine became phantomized.
In British English texts, there's a little more lag time. Why? Probably because, until 1948, the British Mandate for Palestine was the externally accepted narrative, then displaced by Israel-Palestine. Even so, by 1950, Israel overtakes Palestine in textual discussions.
The British Empire's direct influence in the region peaked from near the end of the First World War (1914-1918) until around sometime in the 1950s. British economic and political interests remain, though, at the beginning of the 21st century.
The proposed partition of Israel-Palestine in 1947 looks like a mess even at a rearview glance. As of 2011, Humpty Dumpty has yet to be pieced together again, but a globally recognized State of Palestine is in the pipeline.
Today's Rune: Movement.
4 comments:
The Israeli Palestine conundrum is like the poster boy for how not to do it, I guess.
Hope both peoples, cousins, will work it out!
Very interesting use of the Google Ngram! It looks like a zero sum game for the most part -- when one goes up the other goes down. "The peace process" is diplomats and politicians like to call it is mind bogglingly frustrating!
Mark
Very interesting use of the Google Ngram. When on goes up the other goes down -- pretty much mirroring the frustrating "peace process" that never seems to produce peace. I never really thought the Palestinian leadership wanted peace. They have legitimate gripes -- but they also want to remain in power and need the common enemy of Israel.
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