| Abstract: | First fleshed out in German romanticism, Occidentalist discourse expresses a regressive, conspiratorial, and anti-cosmopolitan critique of “Western” modernity. In a process mirroring the Orientalization of the Jews in Europe, the Jewish State in the Middle East underwent a process of Occidentalization – a phenomenon most apparent in depictions of Jewish diaspora nationalism as a form of European settler-colonialism. In order to illustrate the research agenda of de-Occidentalizing Israel, two approaches are applied to the example of Israel's occupation: An analysis of preexisting theorizations of Israel's territorial expansion after 1967 points to Occidentalist motifs like the systematic dislocation of Israel from its particular era and region, the neglect of Palestinian resistance, and the failure to develop a regionally comparative perspective. In contrast, a de-Occidentalist recontextualization of Israel as a postcolonial state in the Middle East points to intriguing parallels with other cases of postcolonial state expansion like Syria's protectorate over Lebanon and Morocco's partial annexation of Western Sahara. |
