The Palestine-Israel Conflict and Human Rights
Course No. 206 Spring 2012
Instructor: Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh
No area of the world received more global attention than Palestine in the past 2000 years. This course focuses on the relatively recent struggle in Palestine that developed beginning with the first inklings of a political Zionist discourse in the mid 19th century. We will study several aspects of the transformation of Palestine to create a relatively prosperous but conflicted Jewish state in Palestine and the rendering of most of the 11 million native Palestinians to refugees, displaced, or occupied people. The course aims at developing analytical skills to frame of the Palestine-Israel conflict based on objective analysis. We study how to interpret historical developments from a people perspective and evaluate events and trajectories being aware not to be influenced by “group thinking”, religious zealotry, emotional appeal, or notions of segregations and chosenness. Students will consider various aspects of the conflict: group identity including Zionism, religious influences, human rights (including environmental and economic rights, the right of return, and right to self-determination), International law, people’s resistance, and geopolitical issues (regionally and internationally). The source material for the course includes a selection of historical primary documents and a variety of secondary historical, political and legal texts and media. We will also meet and hear from people on the ground who are shaping and changing history (e.g. when we speak about Palestinians inside the state of Israel, we will meet with those there who are shaping their future).
1) Equip students with knowledge and tools necessary for the critical analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shedding light on historical, religious, cultural, military, ethical and economic aspects.
2) Students will develop skills to analyze relationship, evolution, and impact of ideas like colonialism, Zionism, Palestinian nationalism, nichsayon (cleansing), hafrada (segregation), pan-Arab nationalism, and political Islam.
3) Students will develop skills to study history from a people perspective: how people are the agents and the subjects of historical transformations. This includes a particular emphasis on popular resistance to colonialism and imperialism.
4) Students will be able to develop rights-based approach to arrive at peace with justice. This includes notions of individual and collective rights. Along this line, students will also be able to relate this to International law including UN resolutions about the issues.
5) Students will be able to analyze geopolitical forces locally, regionally, and internationally that helped shape the current reality and potential role in bringing peace the future.
The course will develop the general knowledge of students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but it is not the amount of information that students will be evaluated on but rather their ability to ask the right questions, know where to seek the right answers, be able to evaluate voluminous printed matter for its accuracy and utility and so on. The professor will act as coach, facilitator and supervisor rather than lecturer. Students would have, within the scope of the course, a wide-range of freedom to select topics for discussion and for their research including choosing reading materials, research papers and assignments. The course applies both interactive (e.g. working groups, case studies, role-play) and traditional (tests, quizzes, essays, research papers, presentations) methods. The course is divided into 15 modules. The references provided here are not meant to be exhaustive nor that that I expect you to read all of these. Students, participants, and guest lecturers would be expected to contribute additional sources and collectively these provide a basis for discussion and in depth examination of the issue. For each week, each student is expected to prepare by reading FROM at least two sources for each covered subject (the material below gives a partial list of suggestions) and bringing the references to class. In group discussion, each student summarizes key points of the two sources and the students discuss these among themselves to arrive at collective conclusions that would be supported by evidence. There are now books available electronically: for example go, to http://books.google.com click in the left on "preview and full view" and then search their database for any topic toi find some scanned books. Documents covering the conflict over the past 150 years ae also available here And UN resolutions here
1. Palestine and Zionism before 1917
Before the wave of European Jewish immigration, Palestinians were of various religions: about 85% Muslim, 10% Christian, 5% Jewish and others. We examine how these communities related to each other before Zionism. Palestine is the Western part of the Fertile Crescent: an area that includes Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In this Fertile Crescent the first human agriculture developed. Here the first domestication of animals (e.g. goats, donkeys, camels) and plants (e.g. wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, olives) happened. This is also where civilization began including development of the first alphabet (by Phoenician Canaanites) and the first laws. It was where we first developed sciences like astronomy, engineering, and mathematics. In this section we discuss the origin of the Palestinians from Canaanites` and the development of the first alphabet which gave rise to the Arabic alphabet in southern Canaan (Jordan and Palestine) and to the Latin alphabet in Northern Canaan. We discuss briefly the various invasions of armies with nearly 15 times that local people were ruled by kings or emperors (Persian, Roman, Umayyad, Abbasid, Israelite etc). We touch on development of local religious from Cananitic Pagan ideas to monotheistic ideas to Christianity (first century), Rabbinical Judaism (3rd century), and Islam (7th Century). We ask the questions about the relationship of Palestine as a land and as a people to its position at the crossroads of three continents which made t a particular target of invasions and attempts to control.
We then examine roots of political Zionism in the mid-19th century and contemporaneous and alternative forms of Jewish group identity (religious, cultural, socialist Bund movement) compared with assimilation. We look into how Zionism became practical with the early formation of the “Jewish Colonization Association” and became an international movement in 1897 at the first World Zionist Congress. We examine what were the ideas of the early Zionist leaders with regards to the native non-Jewish Palestinians. In this section we explore early encounters of political Zionism with the Ottoman Empire and the Arab awakening. We examine whether Jews are unique or, like Christians and Muslims, come from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Data analyzed include that derived from genetics (biology) as well as history (archeology and documented records).
Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1938.
Balfour and Jules Cambon Declarations
(The) Bible (there are differing versions) and the Quran
Hitti, Philip Khuri. History of Syria: including Lebanon and Palestine, Piscataway, NJ: Georgias Press, 2002.
Hourani, Albert Habib. A history of the Arab people, Cambridge: Belknapp and Harvard Uuniversity Press, 2003.
Greenberg, Gary. 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History. Sourcebooks, 2002.
Mandel, Neville J. The Arabs and Zionism before World War I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. A careful assessment of Palestinian Arab antagonism to and fear of Zionism in the late Ottoman period.
Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Pluto Press 2004. Chapter 2 “People and the Land”
Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment. Pluto Press 2010. Chapter 5 on “Popular Resistance During the Ottoman Rule”
Qumsiyeh, Mazin Review of Gilad Atzmon’s “The Wondering Who” (John Hunt Publishing, 2011). Holy Land Studies Journal. 2012.
Raed, Basem. Hidden Histories: Palestine and The Eastern Mediterranean. Pluto Press. 2010.
Rast, Walter E. Through the Ages in Palestinian Archaeology: An Introductory Handbook. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992.
Rose, John. The Myth of Zionism. London, Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2004
Sand, Shlomo (Author), Yael Lotan (Translator). The Invention of the Jewish People. Verso, 2009.
Silberman, Neil Asher and Israel Finkelstein. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Touchstone, 2002.
Tubb, Jonathan N. Canaanites (The Peoples of the Past series, Volume 2). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
Whitelam, Keith W. The invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History. New York, Routledge. 1997.
2. The British mandate period: preparing for a Jewish state
In this section we look into how the British government related to Zionism as a consequence of the Balfour Declaration and the initial occupation then the beginning of the Mandate period including the crucial appointment of a Zionist (Herbert Samuel) as the first British High Commissioner which led to the first uprising under British rule in 1921 followed by two more uprisings (1929 and 1936). We examine the origins of violence that began in the 1920s (including killings of Jews, Muslims, and Christians). We ask about consequences of British policies and local resistance during this period. We examine the relationship of the rise of Nazis to power in Germany and the relationship of different local actors in the changing geopolitical structures during and as a result of WWII.
Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim, ed. The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971.
Armistice agreements between Israel and Arab States, 1949
British White Paper, 17 May 1939
Flapan, Simha. Zionism and the Palestinians. London: Croom Helm; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1979.
Kanafani, Ghassan. The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine. New York: Committee for a Democratic Palestine, 1972/ London: Tricontinental Society, 1980.
Palestine Mandate, 24 July 1922
Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment. Pluto Press 2010. Chapter 6.
Segev, Tom. One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Picador, 2001.
Swedenburg, Ted. Memories of Revolt: The 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2003.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181(II) (A+B), 29 November 1947
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194(III), 11 December 1948
3. The Nakba
Between 1947-1949, 530 Palestinian villages and towns were completely destroyed and their people made refugees. Questions to ask is how this happened? Was it a methodical ethnic cleansing or did they leave encouraged “by their leaders” as is suggested sometimes. What documents and resources exist to explain the largest post-WWII refugee crisis (still lingering to this day; 70% of the 11 million Palestinians in the world are refugees or displaced people). We examine the role of key actors, the relevant international law provisions, and we also address the story from the refugee experience themselves ( a people’s history perspective). We also look at Israeli colonization practices and feasibility of Palestinian return to their homes and lands.
Abu-Sitta, Salman. Google for writings available on the internet
Ben-Gurion, David. Israel: Years of Challenge. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.
Benvenisti, Meron. Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. Translated by Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2000.
Sami Hadawi. Bitter Harvest: A modern history of Palestine. Olive Branch Press, New York. 1998.
Masalha, Nur. Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992.
Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York: Pantheon, 1987.
Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Pluto Press 2004. Chapter 4 on Refugees.
Pappé, Ilan. Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-51. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988.
_________.The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2006.
Shlaim, Avi. Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Rogan, Eugene L. and Avi Shlaim, eds. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Segev, Tom. 1949, The First Israelis. New York: Owl Books by Henry Holt, 1998.
4. Palestinians in Israel: Is Israel a Democracy?
Do the laws enacted by Israel since its founding (and a set of new laws enacted in the last five years) make Israel an apartheid state? Does the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid apply in this case?
Asmar, Fouzi El-. To Be an Arab in Israel. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1978.
Bishara, Azmi. Jewishness versus Democracy. Al Ahram Weekly, Oct 27-nov 3, 2004.
Bishara, Marwan. Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid. New York: Zed, 2001.
Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order), 5763 – 2003, 31 July 2003
Dahmash-Jarrah, Samar. Arab Voices speak to American Hearts. Tampa: Olive Branch Books, 2005
Davis, Uri. ISRAEL An Apartheid State, Zed Books Ltd. 1987
Israel Law of Return, 6 July 1950
Israel Nationality Law, 1 April 1952
Jiryis, Sabri. The Arabs in Israel. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976. Translated from the Arabic by Inea Bushnaq.
Machover, Moshe, “Is it apartheid?” google for an internet available article.
Makdisi, Saree. A Racism Outside of Language: Israel’s Apartheid. FEATURES, issue 473. 2010. http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62928
Pappe, Ilan. The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel. Yale University Press. 2011.
Zureik, Elia T. The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism. London; Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.
5. Palestinians in Exile
Since most Palestinians today live in exile/diaspora, a proper understanding of the conflict must include an examination of those communities not currently in Palestine. They include the majority who are in the immediate vicinity: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. Many Palestinian political factions and guerrilla groups were started in those communities. Palestinians are also found in countries in Europe, in North America, in South America and elsewhere. Their interactions with host countries are diverse and unique in many ways. What was the role of these communities in shaping the collective Palestinian discourse and will they have a hand in shaping future discourse especially in regard to peace and justice issues?
Darwish, Mahmud. Memory of Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Hammer, Julian. Palestinians Born in Exile: diaspora and the search for a homeland. Univ. Texas Press. 2005.
Said, Edward The Question of Palestine. New York: Vintage, 1992.
Sayigh, Rosemary. Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries. New York: Monthly Review, 1979.
_________. Too Many Enemies: The Palestinian Experience in Lebanon. London; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed, 1994.
Talhami, Ghada Hashem. Palestinian Refugees: Pawns to Political Actors. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2003
Turki, Fawaz. The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972.
6. International Law and the 1967 occupation
Israel occupied the West Bank (including the old city of Jerusalem) and Gaza strip in 1967. Together these two areas are 22% of historic Palestine. Israel began immediately to build Jewish colonial settlements in these Palestinian lands. In this segment we examine how this occupation began and its consequences. What does International law say about this occupation and colonial settlements. Israel has also constructed a wall around Gaza in the 1990s and is building one in the West Bank? What are the rulings of the International courts on this structure? Do International institutions like the United Nations and the World Bank have a positive or negative role to play in this situation?
Aruri, Naseer H., ed. Occupation: Israel over Palestine, 2nd ed. Belmont, MA: AAUG Press, 1989.
Benvenisti, Eyal "The Applicability of Human Rights Conventions to Israel and to the Occupied Territories", Israel Law Review, Vol. 26, 1992, pp. 24-35
Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949. Also see General Assembly Resolution 64/92, Applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the other occupied Arab territories, 19 January 2010
International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004
Nasrallah, Rami and Rassem Khamaisi (ed.) The Jerusalem Urban Fabric. Jerusalem: A publication of the International Peace and Cooperation Center, 2003
Playfair, Emma, ed. International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories: Two Decades of Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Oxford, UK: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Qafisheh, Mutaz M. The International Law Foundations of Palestinian Nationality (Boston and the Hague: Brill, 2008).
Segal, Rafael and Eyal Weizman (editors). A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture. Babel (Tel Aviv) and Verso (London). 2003.
Shehadeh, Raja. From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel and the Palestinian Territories. London; Boston: Kluwer Law International, 1997.
7. Consequences of ideologies using religion
Is the conflict in this area religious or political or both? Does this conflict relate to monotheistic religions and their origins in these areas? Does it have to do with group identities? What of God’s promises? These and other questions will be raised and analyzed using existing documentary evidence especially in light of need to removing obstacles to arrive at a just and lasting peace.
Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel, Olive Branch Press 1993
Brenner, Lenni. Fifty-One Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis, ed.. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2002.
Ellis, Marc. Israel and Palestine out of the Ashes: the search for Jewish identity in the twenty-first century. Pluto, London, 2002. See also my review pf this book at http://qumsiyeh.org/outoftheashesbymarcellis/
Halsell, Grace, Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture ... and Destruction of Planet Earth. Amana, 2002.
Lustick, Ian. For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988.
Segev, Tom. The seventh Million: the Israelis and the Holocaust, Hill and Wang 1993.
Shahak, Israel and Norton Mezvinsky. Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Pluto Press, 1999.
Wagner, Donald. Anxious for Armageddon: A Call to Partnership for Middle Eastern and Western Christians. Herald Press. 1999.
8. Human (including Economic) Rights
Amnesty international argued that the main reason for the failure of the (Oslo) peace process was ignoring human rights. We examine here what are human rights beyond those discussed earlier (refugee rights)? How are these rights defined and what violations have happened in the past few decades? Can recognition and respect for these rights bring a durable solution to the conflict?
Many of those who struggled against apartheid in South Africa claimed that the solution adopted was a compromise that sacrificed economic justice for aachievingf some human rights (including “one man-one vote”). What is economic justice? What role does the economy play in either creating conflict or (as some would argue) may help resolve conflict? In any peace agreement, we must also deal with economic issues like natural resources and the tourism industry. How have these issues entered into the conflict and how might they be resolved?
Abed, George T. The Economic Viability of a Palestinian State. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1990.
al-HAQ, Law in the Service of Man. Punishing a Nation: Human Rights Violations During the Palestinian Uprising, December 1987-December 1998: A Report. Boston: South End, 1999.
Amnesty International: Various reports
Benvenisti, Eyal and Eyal Zamir, "Private Claims to Property Rights in the Future Israeli-Palestinian Settlement", American Journal of International Law, Vol. 89, 1995, pp. 295-340.
Dugard, John. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, 29 January 2007
Finkelstein, Norman. This Time They Went Too Far – (Gaza Massacre 2008)
Goldstone Report, 15 September 2009
Hadawi, Sami. Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948: A Comprehensive Survey. London: Saqi, 1988.
Hever, Shir. The Political Economy of Israel’s occupation
Isaac, Jad and Hillel Shuval, eds. Water and Peace in the Middle East: Proceedings of the First Israeli/Palestinian International Academic Conference on Water. Amsterdam; New York: Elsevier, 1994.
Physicians for Human Rights. The Casualties of Conflict: Medical Care and Human Rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Report of Medical Fact Finding Mission. Somerville, MA: Physicians for Human Rights, 1988.
Roy, Sara. The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1995.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
9. Minorities and Marginalized Communities
How did the Palestinian-Israeli struggle affect minorities (e.g. Sephardim, Druze, Christians) and by other marginalized communities (e. women)? But even more relevant is how do those communities relate to eth struggle and what is the prospect for a more equitable and just society? Here we will have a guest lecturer to speak about these issues.
Augustin, Ebba, ed. Palestinian Women: Identity and Experience. London; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed, 1993.
Birzeit Women’s Studies Program. Palestinian Women: A Status Report. Birzeit, Palestine: Birzeit University, 1997.
Lavie, Smadar, and Ted Swedenburg. 1996. Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity. Durham: Duke University Press
Lavie, Smadar. 1991. The Poetics of Military Occupation: Mzeina Allegories of Bedouin Identity Under Israeli and Egyptian Rule. Los Angeles: University of California Press
Rubenberg, Sherryl. Palestinian Women: Patriarchy and Resistance in the West Bank. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001.
Svirsky, Gila. Standing for Peace: A history of women in Black in Israel. 1997. Gilasvirsky.com/wib4.html
10. Palestine in the Global Context
Did Britain and later the United States and other Western countries push for the creation and then maintenance of a “Jewish state” of Israel in Palestine despite the wishes of the native people? If so what were their motives? How did Palestine fit into the regional and global geopolitical structure? How was it related to the War on Iraq and the “global war on terrorism” post September 11, 2001? How is it related to the Arab Spring?
Aruri, Naseer, Dishonest Broker. South End Press: Cambridge MA, 2003.
Chomsky, Noam. Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians. Cambridge, MA: South End, 1999.
Rashid Khalidi. Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East. Beacon Press. 2010.
Mearsheimer, John J. and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
11. Palestinian Political Structures and Popular Discourse
What did the local (native) Palestinians want since the first encounter with Zionism? How did Palestinian political discourse evolve in the late 19th century and early 20th century? How did it change with the formation of the PLO in the 1960s? How do we relate the many uprisings (1921, 1929, 1936,…1987,2000) to the changes in political configurations in Palestine? What are the Palestinian constants (thawabet)? How has the nature of the resistance evolved here and what is the role of armed and unarmed (popular) resistance?
Ahmad, Hisham. Hamas: From Religious Salvation to Political Transformation: The Rise of Hamas in Palestinian Society. Jerusalem: PASSIA, 1994.
Gerteiny, Alfred G. The Terrorist Conjunction: The United States, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and Al-Qa'ida. Westport, CT, London: Praeger Security International, 2007
Jamal, Amal. The Palestinian National Movement: Politics of Contention, 1967-2005 (Middle East Studies)
Kattan, Victor "Arab Opposition to Political Zionism", in From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949" (London: Pluto Press, 2009), pp. 78-97
Khalidi, Rashid "The Formation of Palestinian Identity: The Critical Years 1917-1923", in Palestinian Identity: The Contraction of Modern National Consciences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 145-175
King, Mary Elizabeth. A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance. New York: Nation, 2007.
Nassar, Jamal R, and Roger Heacock, eds. Intifada: Palestine at the Crossroads. New York: Praeger, 1990.
Palestine Liberation Organization Charter 1968.
Palestinian calls to action in 1929 and 1936
Palestinian Civil society call to action including call for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS). July 2009.
Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment. Pluto Press 2010
Sayigh, Yezid. Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993.
Stohlman, Nancy and Aladin, Laurieann (ed.) Live from Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action Against the Israeli Occupation. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2003.
12. Evolution and politics of the Israeli society
How has a society made-up primarily of immigrants from other countries function? What are the elements of cohesion and division in Israeli society? Has there been a shift in the composition and structure of this society? What of the role of various peace movements? These questions and others will be tackled especially with regards to interactions with Palestinians.
Gover, Yerach. Zionism: The Limits of Moral Discourse in Israeli Hebrew Fiction. Minneapolism London: University of Minnesota Press, 1994
Honig-Parnas, Tikva. False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine. Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2011.
Melman, Yossi, and Dan Raviv. Behind the Uprising: Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians. New York: Greenwood Press. 1989.
Nathan, Susan. The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide. Nan A. Talese. 2005.
Svirsky, Gila. The Israeli Peace Movement Since the Al-Aqsa Intifada’, in Carey, the New Intifada.
13. Oslo and Beyond
What is the genesis of the secret negotiations held in Norway that led to the Declaration of Principles and other accords of 1993-1995? What did the nascent “Palestinian Authority” hope to achieve and what were the constraints on it? How did the government of Israel behave after these accords were signed? Were both parties expectations and/or actions different? What caused the failure of reaching an agreement based on accords that envisioned a five year transition leading to a final settlement of all key issues (refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, borders, natural resources)?
Abbas, Mahmud. Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo. Reading, UK: Garnet, 1995.
Albin, Cecilia "When the Weak Confront the Strong: Justice, Fairness, and Power in the Israel-PLO Interim Talks", International Negotiations, Vol. 4, 1999, pp. 327-370
Carter, Jimmy. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, 13 September 1993.
Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 28 September 1995
Robinson, Glenn E. Building a Palestinian State: The Incomplete Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
Said, Edward W. The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After. New York: Vintage, 2001.
14. On Group Identity and a Post-nationalist Discourse
Much of this conflict originated as we discussed earlier with political Zionism as an idea that conceived of Jewish group identity. What is the nature of group identities here and their role in perpetuating the conflict? How entrenched or fluid are these group identities? And what is the role of post-colonial and post-nationalist discourse?
Braverman, Mark. Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land. Austin: Synergy Books, 2010.
Dawn, C. Ernest. From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab Nationalism. Urbana, Ill:University of Illinois Press, 1973
Jankowski, James P. and Gershoni, I., Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East. New York, Columbia University Press, 1997.
Kayali, Hasan. Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Khalidi, Rashid, et. al. eds . The Origins of Arab Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991
Kimmerling, Baruch. The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: Society, Society and the Military. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Meyer, Hajo G. The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed. G.MeyerBooks, 2007
Nathan, Susan. The Other Side of Israel: My Journey across the Jewish-Arab Divide. New York: Doubleday, 2005.
Reinhart, Tanya. Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. New York: Seven Stories, 2002.
15. Looking to the future
Having critically examined this history, mythologies and facts and feelings of the protagonists, we must look to the future. While we do not have crystal balls, we can certainly look at the landscape and learn from historical trends. Here we will also examine the merits and shortcomings of different offered political solutions: confederation, two states, one democratic secular state, one Jewish state, one Islamic state etc. This part we will do role playing and even mock debates with students playing the part of different actors (a Hamas member, a Fatah member, a Likud member, an Israel Beitanu member etc).
Abunimah, Ali. One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt, 2006
Finkelstein, Norman. Image and Reality in the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Verso 1995
Hilal, Jamil (ed.) Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution. London, New York: Zed Books, 2007
Hodgkins, Allison Beth "Beyond Two-States: Alternative Visions of Self-Determination for the People of Palestine", Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 28, 2004, pp. 109-126
Kovel, Joel. Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine. Pluto Press, 2007.
Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Pluto Press 2004
Tilley, Virginia, The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Middle East, 2006
Yeshua-Lyth, Ofra. A State of Mind: Why Irael must become secular and democratic (A Memoir). 2006
Abulhawa, Susan. The Scar of David. Journey Publications, 2007.
Dallal, Shaw J. Scattered Like Seeds. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998
Fawal, Ibrahim. On the Hills of God. Montgomery, Alabama: Black Belt Press. 1998
Kanafani, Ghassan. Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories. Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999
Exercize: Critically analyze two books.
Alan Dershowitz. The Case for Israel
Neumann, Michael. The Case Against Israel.