Anti-Semites on Zionism: From Indifference to Obsession
This article compares European and Middle Eastern anti-Semitism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the 1870s through the 1930s, in parallel fashion anti-Semitism became a mobilizing, all-embracing ideology in Europe, while the Arab world witnessed an eruption of anticolonial and nationalist sentiment, often directed against the Zionist project. Arab anti-Semitism featured the irrational and fantastic qualities of its European counterpart, but it took form against the reality of the Zionist project. The article draws a distinction between the realms of systemic intolerance, aggravated by socio-economic crisis, and political strife, driven by discrete events and policies. Its main sources are fin-de-siècle European anti-Semites' writings on Zionism, which are shown to be fundamentally different from the anti-Zionist rhetoric emanating from the Middle East at that time.
The Third Reich and the Palestine Question
In order to ensure its racial, ideological, and strategic interests, the Hitler regime actively supported the status quo in Palestine and the Middle East during the interwar period. This included the perpetuation of British imperial power in Palestine, the Jewish National Home (not an independent Jewish state) promised by the Balfour Declaration, and the rejection of Arab self-determination and independence. The Third Reich and the Palestine Questionis the first comprehensive study of German Palestine policy during the 1930s. Francis R. Nicosia places that policy within the context of historical German interests and aims in Palestine, the Middle East, and Europe from the Wilhelminian era through the Weimar period and the Third Reich. He also provides insight into the broader foreign policy aims and calculations of the Nazi regime throughout the Arab Middle East before World War II. In a new introduction, Nicosia places his ground-breaking research in its proper historical perspective. He reviews some of the recent literature on the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He also discusses some of the archival materials that have recently become available in the former German Democratic Republic and Soviet Union.
Taphonomy of Isisfordia duncani specimens from the Lower Cretaceous (upper Albian) portion of the Winton Formation, Isisford, central-west Queensland
Taphonomic analysis of fossil material can benefit from including the results of actualistic decay experiments. This is crucial in determining the autochthony or allochthony of fossils of juvenile and adult Isisfordia duncani, a basal eusuchian from the Lower Cretaceous (upper Albian) distal-fluvial-deltaic lower Winton Formation near Isisford. The taphonomic characteristics of the I. duncani fossils were documented using a combination of traditional taphonomic analysis alongside already published actualistic decay data from juvenile Crocodylus porosus carcasses. We found that the I. duncani holotype, paratypes and referred specimens show little signs of weathering and no signs of abrasion. Disarticulated skeletal elements are often found in close proximity to the rest of the otherwise articulated skeleton. The isolated and disarticulated skeletal elements identified, commonly cranial, maxillary and mandibular elements, are typical of lag deposits. The holotype QM F36211 and paratype QM F34642 were classified as autochthonous, and the remaining I. duncani paratypes and referred specimens are parautochthonous. We propose that I. duncani inhabited upper and lower delta plains near the Eromanga Sea in life. Their carcasses were buried in sediment-laden floodwaters in delta plain overbank and distributary channel deposits. Future studies should refer to I. duncani as a brackish water tolerant species.