In the framework of the Fall 2025 seminar A History of Late Modern Palestine: before and beyond the conflict (1840-1948) offered by Falestin Naïli, the students learned about various political projects that existed for Palestine before 1948 but that didn’t materialize. Among these projects were decentralization within the Ottoman Empire (early 20th century), the Arab Kingdom of Syria (1916- 1920), a binational state for Jews and Palestinians (1920s onwards), a Communist state project (20th century), hopes for Federalism under the umbrella of Kemalist Turkey (1919-1924) and the daily struggles for dignity of the Palestinian trade union movement (1925-1947).
All these projects generated writings by political thinkers, activists and journalists. They offered political horizons that have since been largely forgotten. With this mini-exhibition and podcast project, we propose to shift the gaze towards some of these paths not taken. The period of the First World War and its immediate aftermath stand out as a particularly fertile moment brimming with alternative imaginaries and competing conceptions and dimensions of political community. Many of these visions reached beyond the nation-state, offering strikingly different understandings of belonging and citizenship.
Credits
Episode No. 2
Release Date: 21 January 2026
Recording Date: 11 December 2025
Recording location: New Media Center (NMC), University of Basel
Sound production by Sebastian Schell, NMC
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