Yfaat Weiss

In the past two decades the theoretical discourse around the concept of sovereignty has become far more sophisticated. The contemporary literature largely undermines common perceptions of the term, especially those with a narrow territorial orientation. This project seeks to use these new distinctions in order to analyze the policy of the State of Israel in the Mount Scopus enclave in Jerusalem during the years 1948–1967. The project exposes tactics used by Israel in the demilitarized enclave under UN auspices in the east of Jerusalem––that is, in the heart of Jordanian territory. These were intended to undermine both the Disarmament Agreement signed on 7.7.1948 and the corpus separatum status assigned to Jerusalem under UN Resolution 181 (the Partition Resolution), a situation Israel actually opposed but was forced to accept as a necessary condition of the Partition Plan.

Lacking local intelligentsia in Palestine, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had to be founded primarily on the strength of intellectuals and scholars who acquired their education in Europe, especially in the German-speaking realm. By means of a microhistorical study, I intend to explore the process of the adjustment of the German tradition of knowledge within the framework of the building of the Jewish nation in Palestine.