Lecture “Jerusalem: The holy city?” by Julia Tebbe and Sai Englert

Sai Englert is a lecturer at Leiden University, and the author of Settler Colonialism – an Introduction. He works on settler colonialism, Zionism, labour movements, and antisemitism. He is a member of the editorial boards of Notes from Below and Historical Materialism.

Julia Tebbe worked as a volunteer in East-Jerusalem for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme Palestine and Israel from November to February, on behalf of peace organisation PAX. The programme monitors human rights violations and developments in the West Bank and East-Jerusalem. Participants accompany local inhabitants and communities, offer a ‘protective presence’ and are witness to the daily struggles and hopes. Besides this, Julia graduated from the International Public Management and Policy programme at the Erasmus University in 2022, and graduated from the Arabic Language and Culture and Politcology programmes at the University of Amsterdam. 

In this lecture, Sai will first give a theoretical introduction to the situation in Israel, discussing the nature of settler colonialism as a specific form of domination, as well as its relationship to other historical, political, and economic processes. In doing so, he will argue that settler colonialism is a key constituent factor of our modern world. This will allow him to place both the Zionist movement and the state of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian population, in Jeruslam and beyond, within a broader, global, comparative network.

This introduction will be followed by an account of Julia’s experiences as a volunteer at PAX in East-Jerusalem. She will zoom in on the situation there, discussing the settlement policy by the Israeli government and relaying the lives of the Palestinian people under this policy.