ABSTRACT
Chaim Weizmann observed in a December 1945 letter to President Truman that 'Palestine, for its size, is probably the most investigated country in the world'. ‘Reconstitute’ had a clear and dramatic meaning in the first part of the twentieth century. A prime example is the singular success of restoring Hebrew into a living language with a vibrant popular literature, modern media, scientific scholarship, commerce and politics. As a consequence, in renaming the land they consciously ignored and set aside many of the physical markers as well as the social and cultural ones of both Europe and Arab neighbours. There is yet another part of the academy that contributes to distancing Jews from the land. This is to be found in the regnant, if not hegemonic, analysis found among sociologists, historical geographers, and political scientists who identify Zionism as built out of the injustices of a 'settler society'.
