Palestine Nexus: a conversation with Zachary Foster

Palestine exists in our minds, says Zachary Foster, not in nature. If Palestine doesn’t exist, why do we identify with it? We identify with Palestine, first, because it has a name. In fact, we only identify with 

places we’ve named. Unnamed places, such as 22°29′05″N 22.48 to 53°46′19″E 53.77, have no identities based on them. But we don’t identify with every place we’ve named. We need to hear stories about a place if we are going to identify with it, stories about famines and wars, conquests and tribes, history, geography, economy, archeology and millions more topics. The more engaging the stories, the more likely we are to identify with places like Palestine. In our discussion we talked about his controversial PhD thesis and other material published in relation to Palestine during WW1. Lastly, we discussed his trip to Gaza where he collected documents and material now available on https://palestinenexus.com/

Originally published on 02/22/2023

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