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Course Description PROFESSOR ASSISTANT Interdisciplinary Programmes Academic year 2019-2020 PROFESSOR The Arab Israeli Conflict Cyrus Schayegh Office hours MINT104 - Autumn - 6 ECTS ASSISTANT Wednesday 12h15 - 14h00 Amal Shahid Course Description Office hours This class examines the Arab-Israeli conflict and the formation of Jewish Israeli and of Palestinian society from the late 1800s to the 2010s. It strikes a balance between these three separate but linked processes, and it takes a look at their regional and global settings. Due to the contentious nature of its subject, the class pays considerable attention to historiographic debates and to primary sources, including political declarations and treatises, films and filmed interviews, novels, archival sources, and newspapers. We will discuss the rise of Zionism and of Palestinian nationalism and the formation of two national yet internally stratified societies; the wide range of relations between the two societies, their unequal socio- political development and evolving perceptions of, and behavior towards, each other until 1948; the lasting effects of endemic violence and of collective traumas; Israeli and Palestinian socio-political development after 1948; the post- 1948 conflicts between Israel, Arab states and the Palestinians, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and its regional and global setting; and the peace initiatives and treaties that started in the 1970s, peaked in the early 1990s, and stalled from 2000. The course ends with a prepared war/diplomacy game on 1971-1973, including the October War. Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2 | CP 1672 - CH-1211 Genève 1 | +41 22 908 57 00 | graduateinstitute.ch MAISON DE LA PAIX Syllabus Requirements 10%: 10-minute closed-book in-class geography quiz. In week 3. You will have to locate 15 places on a blank map of Palestine/Israel and surrounding countries. Map: in week 1, I will upload, to Moodle, a map including a list of about 30 places. 50%: class participation 40%: open-book take-home final paper in preparation for the diplomacy/war-game. Length: 2,000 words excluding footnotes. To be emailed to me, [email protected], at the latest on Monday, 16 Dec 2019, 23:59. Late submissions carry a penalty of 0.5 grade per day submitted late (example: a 6 for the paper— not the final grade—becomes a 5.5). Re the game: • Held on Tues, 17 Dec, 18:00-22:00, not on a Wed; it replaces the last class, that of Wed, 18 Dec. • description of the game and the final paper, including the readings I will assign for it: at the bottom of this syllabus • Your participation in the game itself will not be graded Other In class, drinks are allowed, food not Cellphones and laptops are not allowed open in class. Print out the material – if possible double-sided and two pages recto-verso, for environmental reasons. However, do bring your laptops with you in case we need them for an exercise. Our text book will be Charles Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 9th ed. (Boston: Bedford, 2017), referred to in the syllabus as Smith, Conflict. Readings Week 1 1. Zionism: a history to World War I 2. Ottoman Palestine, the first stage of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, and the formation of Palestinian nationalism, late 19th century to the 1920s 3. World War I Smith, Conflict, 25-39, 49-74 Dmitry Shumsky, Beyond the Nation-State: The Zionist Political Imagination from Pinsker to Ben-Gurion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 1-23 Primary source (1): Leo Pinsker, selection from Autoemanzipation (1882), in Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea. A Historical Analysis and Reader (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1997), 182-88 Primary source (2): Translation of Najib al-Khuri Nassār, Al-Sahiuniyyah [Zionism] (Haifa: Karmel, 1911), 2-3, 62-64 Primary sources (3-5): Sir Henry McMahon, “The McMahon Letter,” “The Sykes- Picot Agreement (1916),” and “The Balfour Declaration (1917),” all in The Israel-Arab Reader, 7th ed. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin (London: Penguin, 2008), 11-13, 13-16, and 16- 17 Week 2 1. The League of Nations Mandate system 2. Palestinian politics and society, 1918-1948 Smith, Conflict, 75-81 - Page 2 - Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage. The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon, 2006), 48-90 Primary source (1): “League of Nations: The British Mandate (1922),” in The Israel-Arab Reader, 7th ed. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin (London: Penguin, 2008), 30-36 Primary source (2): Ellen Fleischmann, “Interview of a deputation of the Arab Women’s Committee in Jerusalem at Government House on Thursday, 24 March 1938,” in The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History, ed. Camron Amin et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 2017-213 Week 3 1. The historiographic debate about Zionism/colonialism 2. The Yishuv: politics and society, 1918-1948 Derek J. Penslar, “Zionism, Colonialism and Postcolonialism,” Journal of Israeli History 20:2-3 (2001): 84-98 Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine under the Mandate (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 37-52 (section of ch. 3, ‘The growth and consolidation of the Jewish political center’) Deborah Bernstein, Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000), 3-10 Primary source (1): Land of Promise (film, 1935). View at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDoD6W2z01s [Originally produced for the Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund) of the Jewish Agency] Primary source (2): Translation of Annie Mainz, Das ist Tel Aviv [This is Tel Aviv] (Hamburg: Lessmann, 1934), 5-13, passim Week 4 The conflict unfolds: up to, and including, the 1948 War Smith, Conflict, 115-146, 162-202 Primary source (1): Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall,” (1923), in Israel in the Middle East. Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre- 1948 to the Present, ed. Itamar Rabinovich et al. 2nd ed. (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2008), 41-44 Primary source (2): Nakba Archive: www.nakba-archive.org > interviews > online excerpts: Watch Meriam Othman (http://nakba-archive.org/?p=1091) and Mahmud Abu Haija (http://nakba-archive.org/?p=111) Primary source (3): “UN General Assembly Resolution 194 [Palestinian Refugee Question]—Progress Report of the UN Mediator,” in Smith, Conflict, 252-253 Week 5 1. Israel and the Holocaust 2. The Inter-State Israeli-Arab Military Conflict (1950s-70s) Smith, Conflict, 231-247, 275-289, 301-306, 309-312, 316-318, 320-325, 349-354 Primary source (1): Benny Brunner, The Seventh Million [film (1995), based on Tom Segev, The Seventh Million. The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993) Primary source (2): Gamal Abd el-Nasser, “Speech Justifying Nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, July 28, 1956,” in Smith, Conflict, 255-256 Primary source (3): UN Security Resolution 242, November 22, 1967: at https://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/palestine/ch3.pdf Primary source (4): Egypt and Israel, “Peace Treaty,” (1979) in Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds., The Israel-Arab Reader 7th ed. (London: Penguin, 2008), 227f. Week 6 - Page 3 - Israeli state and society, 1940s to 1980s Alan Dowty, The Jewish State a Century Later (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 61-84 (“Building a Civic State”), 143-158 (“The Communal Split”) Ilan Pappé, The Forgotten Palestinians. A History of the Palestinians in Israel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 46-63 (parts of ch.2, “The open wound: military rule and its lasting impact”), 94-101, 126-134 (parts of ch. 3, “Military Rule by Other Means”) Primary source (1): “State of Israel: Proclamation of Independence (May 14, 1948)” and “UN General Assembly: Resolution 194 (December 11, 1948),” in Israel-Arab Reader, 81-83 Primary source (2): “State of Israel: Law of Return” (1950), in Israel-Arab Reader, 87- 88 Primary source (3): “The Black Panthers (in Israel) Speak” [film, 2002, Eli Hammo and Sami Shalom Chetrit. View at https://vimeopro.com/graduateinstitutelibrary/the-arab- israeli-conflict, Password: MINT104] Week 7 The PLO and the Palestinians abroad (1950s-70s) Smith, Conflict, 223-224, 268-273, 306-309, 312-316, 325-329, 353 Paul T. Chamberlin, “The Struggle Against Oppression Everywhere: The Global Politics of Palestinian Liberation” Middle Eastern Studies 47:1 (2011): 25-41 Primary Source (1): “The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine National Council, July 1-17, 1968; PLO Resolutions on UN Security Council Resolution 232, June 1974,” in Smith, Conflict, 336-338 Primary source (2): Yasir Arafat, “Address to the UN General Assembly, November 13, 1974,” in Smith, Conflict, 339-342 Primary source (3): “A Framework for Peace in the Middle East Agreed at Camp David, September 17, 1978,” in Smith, Conflict, 391-393 Week 8 1. The PLO and the Palestinians abroad (1980s) 2. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (1967-1990s) Smith, Conflict, 355-375, 395-415 Btselem, “Conquer and Divide,” read sections 1967-77 and 1977-93 at: https://conquer- and-divide.btselem.org/map-en.html Primary source (1): Palestine National Council, “Declaration of Independence,” (November 15, 1988), in Israel-Arab Reader, 354-357 Primary source (2): Ghasan Kanafani, Men in the Sun (novel, 1962) Week 9 1. The 1991 Madrid Conference and the Oslo Peace Process (1990s) 2. Israel’s Palestinians: a view from the 1990s Smith, Conflict, 415-421, 435-465 Sammy Smooha, "Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype," Israel Studies 2:2 (Fall 1997): 198, 209-227 Primary source (1): “The Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles” ([‘The Oslo Agreement’] September 13, 1993), in Smith, Conflict, 472-476 Primary source (2): “The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (Oslo 2) on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” in Smith, Conflict, 476-480 Primary source (3): Edward Said, “The Morning After,” London Review of Books (October 21, 1993).
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