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History 380-010 and 080History of the Arab-Israeli ConflictProf. Rudi Matthee Office: Munroe 223 |
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For printable regular syllabus in Word Format.
Honors syllabus Word Format
This course seeks to provide a better understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict by exploring its roots and its historical complexity. After examining the religious traditions of Judaism and Islam, we will discuss the origins of Zionism as well as the nature of Arab/Ottoman and Levantine society in the 19th century. We will next study the relationship between the early Zionist settlers in Palestine, the indigenous Arab population, and the British mandate authorities, until the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948. The final part will be devoted to the successive wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the rise of Palestinian nationalism, and the protracted search for coexistence between Jews and Arabs, culminating in the (failed) Oslo peace accord and, finally, the current bleakness marked by Palestinian terror and Israeli oppression. Lectures, discussion, reading of historical material. Use of film, documentary and, for the current period, of newspaper and magazine articles. Midterm, final and research paper.
Required Readings:
Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State. At http://books.google.com/books?id=0l9TfQtsX5kC&dq=herzl+the+jewish+state&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA89,M1
Charles Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. A History with documents. New York: St Martin’s Press, 6th edn., (Boston, 2007).
Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston, 2007)
Aaron David Miller, The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace (New York, 2008)
Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (New York, 2007)
Reader with articles, on electronic reserve.
Resources:
G. Wigoder, ed., New Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, 2 vols. Madison, 1994.
Ph. Mattar, ed., Encyclopedia of the Palestinians. New York, 2000.
Exams and Papers
There will be a take-home midterm exam, divided into two parts, one given on March 4 and the other on March 11, and a two-hour in-class final on May 25, at 10:30 am. The final is not cumulative, though there’s never any harm in retaining what you’ve learned in the first part of the course. A research paper, based on a historical topic of your own choice and relevant to the course, approved by Prof. Matthee, is due on or before May 13. You should have a one-page summary of the proposed topic ready by April 15 to present for approval.
All work must be done on time; no incompletes are given except in cases of major disaster.
Grades in the course will be based on the following:
1. Midterm examination (20%)
2. Final examination (30%)
3. Term paper (40%)
4. Class attendance (10%)
and participation
Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone else’s work as your own. It is a form of dishonesty--a form of cheating, in fact—and as such one of the new deadly sins (the old ones have either been forgotten or are so flagrantly violated that no one seems to care anymore) and will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Plagiarism is not limited to using someone else’s exact words; using someone else’s ideas without attribution is also a form of plagiarism. The good news is that plagiarism is easily avoided by clearly citing your sources. If you do, you can safely avoid even the hint of improper usage of someone else’s work.
Lecture Schedule
Week One: Feb. 11-13:
Lecture topic: Introduction: Zionism in 19th-century Europe
Reading: Herzl, The Jewish State
Week Two: Feb. 16-20
Lecture Topic: Introduction: Palestine in the 19th Century; The Migration to Palestine
Reading: Smith, pp. 1-58.
Reader: Garfinkle, “On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase.”
Week Three: Feb. 23-27
Lecture Topic: World War I, Great Britain, and the Peace Settlements
Reading: Smith, pp. 59-110.
Reader: Avineri, “Political and Social Aspects of Israeli and Arab Nationalism”
Week Four: March 2-6
Lecture Topic: Palestine Between the Wars
Reading: Smith, pp. 111-169.
Khalidi, pp. 1-64.
Reader: Mattar, “The Mufti of Jerusalem.”
Sivan, “The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam.”
Week Five: March 9-13
Lecture Topic: World War II and the Creation of Israel
Reading: Smith, pp. 170-225.
Khalidi, pp. 65-104
Reader: Morris, “The Harvest of 1948”
Syrkin, “The Arab Refugees”
Week Six: March 16-20
Lecture Topic: no lectures
Documentary on March 16: “Palestine: Story of a Land,” Pt. 1
Reading: Smith, pp. 226-263.
Reader: Benvenisti: Sacred Landscape, pp. 55-89
Avineri, “Israel in the Post-Ben Gurion Era”
Week Seven: March 23-27
Lecture Topic: From the War of 1948 to the Six-Day War, 1956-1967
Reading: Smith, pp. 264-305.
Khalidi, pp. 105-139
Week Eight: April 6-10
Lecture Topic: From the Six-Day War to Yom Kippur/Ramadan, 1967-1976: Palestinian Nationalism
Reading: Smith, pp. 306-353.
Khalidi, pp. 140-181
Reader: Marx, “Palestinian Refugee Camps.”
Liebman, “The Myth of Defeat.”
Litvak, “The Development of Arab Anti-Semitism.”
Week Ten: April 13-17
Lecture Topic: Lebanon, The West Bank, and Camp David
Documentary: The Sword of Islam
Reading: Smith, pp. 354-405.
Reserve: Lustic, “Israel’s Dangerous Fundamentalists”
Roumani, “The Sephardi Factor in Israeli Politics.”
Morris, “The Rejection: Bleak Conclusions from the History
of a People Karsh, “Revisiting Israel’s “Original Sin.”
Week Eleven: April 20-24
Lecture Topic: The “New World Order,” Change in Israel, the Intifada, the Gulf War, 1984-1993
Reading: Smith, pp. 406-449.
Khalidi, pp. 182-217.
Reserve: Tessler, “The Intifada and Political Discourse in Israel.”
Finkelstein, “Reflections on Palestinian Attitudes During the Gulf War.”
Lewis, “Evolution of an Unwritten Alliance.”
Margalit, “The Other Israel.”
Week Twelve: April 27-May 1
Lecture Topic: The Peace that Wasn’t: The Oslo Accords, 1993-94
Documentary: The Oslo Accords (PBS)
Reading: Miller, pp. 1-190
Smith, pp. 450-498
Reserve: NYT Magazine “Whose Jerusalem Is It?”
Mahler, “Uprooting the Past”
Podeh, “History and Memory”
Foreign Policy Roundtable: “The War over Israel’s Influence”
Week Thirteen: May 4-8
Lecture Topic: No Peace after All: Rabin, Netanyahu, Sharon, 1994-2000
Reading: Miller, pp. 191-385
Reserve: Roy, “Why Peace Failed.”
Goldberg, “In the Party of God.”
Gerber, “Zionism, Orientalism and the Palestinians.”
Judt, “Israel, the Alternative.”
Wieseltier, “Israel, Palestine and the Return to the Bi-National Fantasy.”
Newman, “Barriers or Bridges?”
Week Fourteen: May 11-20
Lecture Topic: Israeli Unilateralism and the Future of Palestine, 2000-2009
Reading: Smith, pp. 499-560.
Tolan
Goldberg, “Is Israel Finished?
Cohen, “Eyeless in Gaza.”
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Contents of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Reader (2009):
Adam Garfinkle, “On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase,” Middle Eastern Studies 27 (1991): 539-50.
Schlomo Avineri, “Political and Social Aspects of Israeli and Arab Nationalism,” in E. Kamenka, ed., Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea (London, 1973), 101-22.
Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948. Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2000.
Philip Mattar, “The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Politics of Palestine,” The Middle East Journal 42 (1988): 227-240.
Benny Morris, “The Harvest of 1948 and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” The Middle East Journal 40 (1986): 671-685.
Marie Syrkin,” The Arab Refugees: A Zionist View,” Commentary 41:1 (1966): 23-29.
Charles S. Liebman, “The Myth of Defeat: the Memory of the Yom Kippur War in Israeli Society,” Middle Eastern Studies 29 (1993): 399-417.
Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, (New York, 1986), ch. 2, “The Muslims and the Jews,” pp. 117-39.
Meir Litvak, “The Development of Arab Anti-Semitism,” at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=624&PID=0&IID=741&TTL=The_Development_of_Arab_Anti-Semitism
Jeffrey Goldberg, “Among the Settlers,” The New Yorker (May 31, 2004), at http://www.jeffreygoldberg.net/articles/tny/a_reporter_at_large_among_the.php
Avishai Margalit, “The Other Israel,” New York Review of Books (May 28, 1998): 30-35, at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=842
Benny Morris, “The Rejection: Bleak Conclusions from the History of a People,” The New Republic (April 21 and 28 2003), at http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=a7a1b2ca-552d-491d-a992-5325ed118d3b
Norman Finkelstein, “Reflections on Palestinian Attitudes during the Gulf War,” Journal of Palestine Studies 21 (1992): 54-70.
Amos Oz, “An Unsentimental Peace,” Harper’s (Oct. 1993), at http://www.harpers.org/archive/1993/10/0001408
Foreign Policy Roundtable: “The War over Israel’s Influence,” Foreign Policy (July/August 2006): 57-66.
Sarah Roy, “Why Peace Failed: An Oslo Autopsy, Current History 100(2002), 8-16 at http://www.allen-design.com/Tobin.pdf
Jeffrey Goldberg, “In the Party of God,” The New Yorker (Oct. 14, 2002),
http://www.jeffreygoldberg.net/articles/tny/a_reporter_at_large_in_the_par.php
Elie Podeh, “History and Memory in the Israeli Educational system: The Portrayal of the Arab-Israeli Conflict in History Textbooks,” History and Memory 12 (2000): 65-100.
David Samuels, “In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat Destroyed Palestine,” The Atlantic Monthly (Sept. 2005), at
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200509/samuels/2
Tony Judt, “The Alternative,” The New York Review of Books 50 (Oct. 23, 2003) at
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671
Leon Wieseltier, “What is not to be Done: Israel, Palestine and the Return of the Bi-National Fantasy,” New Republic (Oct. 27 2003), at
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=a7a1b2ca-552d-491d-a992-5325ed118d3b
David Newman, “Barriers or Bridges: On Borders, Fences and Walls,” Tikkun 18 (Nov. 2003), 54-58, at
http://www.tikkun.org/archive/backissues/xtik0311/politics/031113a.html
Yossi Klein Halevi, “Fenced In,” The New Republic (Nov. 10, 2003), 18-19, at
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=11E15295-9933-4E4F-8545-0CCE9A9ACB79
Rose, “Deadly Embrace,” London Review of Books (Nov. 4, 2004), at
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n21/rose01_.html
Tony Judt, “Goodbye to All That?” The Nation (Jan. 3, 2005), 15-18, at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050103/judt
Jeffrey Goldberg, “Unforgiven” The Atlantic May 2008, 32-51 at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/israel
Roger Cohen, “Eyeless in Gaza,” New York Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009, at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22270
