UC San Diego
Department of Communication
SearchMenu

COSF 188

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ISRAELI / PALESTINIAN CONFLICT*

Spring, 2011

Tuesdays / Thursdays 5:00 - 6:20

Warren Lecture Hall, Room 2204

Gary Fields

Email:  gfields@ucsd.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 3:00 – 4:00 or by appt.

Course Description

The conflict between the state of Israel and the group of people inside and outside of Israel known as Palestinians is arguably the most intractable conflict in the world today.   At the core of this conflict lie contrasting visions about the nature and identity of territory in the region, and who rightfully belongs to the land.   Such differences about territorial belonging have created divergent narratives about the causes of the conflict, and vigorous debates regarding its perpetrators and victims.   At issue in these debates are different interpretations of both present and past, and different understandings of responsibility for the conflict.   This course is a critical engagement with these debates, and the divergent ways that these debates are represented in various sets of literature about the conflict.   In addition, this course seeks to provide students with a rigorous immersion into the nature of argument and issues of “objectivity” and “point of view.”     It is intended to give voice to a broad range of perspectives on this conflict, many of which are too often silenced, while challenging students to understand the structure of the arguments at the core of one of the most impassioned issues of modern times.

Course Format

This format for the course will be an interactive lecture.   What this means is that the instructor will be lecturing, but students should be prepared for questions from the lectern.   Sessions will begin with a 5-10 minute “news of the day” segment in which students will be invited to share topical events relating to the course material.   Questions about previous sessions will follow, to be followed, in turn, by the topic scheduled for that particular day.   Occasionally, the class will view a film or video collectively.   Due to the politically-charged nature of the material in the course, it is mandatory that participants in the class engage with the class material, with the instructor, and with each other in a respectful manner.   Those who are unable to comply with this requirement, or those who have come to the class in order to promote a political agenda related to the conflict, should consider options other than this course.

Course Requirements

Participants are expected to attend all  sessions and to complete the readings prior to each session. There will be three written assignments, one a midterm of 5 pages, the second, a final paper of 9-10 pages, and the third a 1-page reflection on a reading or readings for a particular class session that students will be post for the class prior to the class meeting.   This third assignment will not be graded but is mandatory.  Evaluation will be based on a combination of the written assignments (80%), the reflection paper (10%), and class participation (10%).   The class participation element, however, can only help your grade.   If for whatever reason, students are reluctant to participate in a large class format, their grade will be taken from the written assignments.

Readings for the course can be accessed from Web CT    http://webct.ucsd.edu

The sessions for the course will be organized as follows:

* Please note that this syllabus is subject to change.

Week 1 - Introduction and Background

3/29        Course Overview

  • Bronner, Ethan (2009).   “The Bullets in my In-Box.”   New York Times .   January 25, 2009
  • Gush Shalom (2005).   Truth Against Truth:   A Completely Different Look at the Israel / Palestinian Conflict 

3/31        Prelude to Conflict

  • Tessler, Mark (2009).   A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.   Bloomington:   Indiana University Press [1-5].  
  • Gelvin, James L. (2005).   The Israel Palestine Conflict:   One Hundred Years of War.   Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press.   [pp. 1-13].
  • Ben-Yehuda, Nachman (1996).   The Masada Myth:   Memory and Mythmaking in Israel .   Madison:   University of Wisconsin Press.   [pp. 3-24]     

Week 2 - Zionists and Palestinians: Representations and Encounters

4/5         Coveting Zion:   Jewish National Aspirations in the 19 th Century and Beyond

Guest Speaker:   Professor Deborah Hertz

  • Zerubavel, Yael (1995).   Recovered Roots:   Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition .   Chicago:   University of Chicago Press [13-22].
  • Shlaim, Avi (2002).   The Iron Wall:   Israel and the Arab World .    New York:   W.W. Norton [1-5]
  • Smith, Charles (2007).     Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict . Boston:   Bedford/St. Martins [pp. 36-38].
  • Herzl Theodor (1896).   The Jewish State and The Basel Program (1897); [Read Excerpts from Charles Smith 54-57]

4/7          From Coveting to Colonizing:   Territorial Ambitions of Zionism and Critics

  • Smith, Charles (2007).   The Arab Response to Zionism.     Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict . Boston:   Bedford/St. Martins [pp. 40-47].
  • Shafir, Gershon (1996).   Zionism and Colonialism:   A Comparative Approach . Israel in Comparative Perspective.   Michael N. Barnett, ed.   New York:   State University of New York Press. [227-242].
  • Khalidi, Rashid (1995).   Palestinian Identity:   The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.   New York:   Columbia University Press [pp.   96-117].   
  • Said, Edward (1978).   The Question of Palestine.   New York:   Random House [ix-xvii, 3-15].
  • Magnes, Judah and Buber, Martin (1947).   Arab-Jewish Unity.   Westport:   Hyperion Press, Inc. [pp. 12-16, 24-28]
  • Jabotinsky, Ze’ev (1923).   The Iron Wall
  • Balfour Declaration (1917).   Review drafts and final text of the Balfour Declaration (1917) from Smith, Charles (2007).   Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict.   [pp. 102-103].

Week 3 - Debates on 1948 and The Palestinian Refugee Problem

Tuesday's Lecture: Independence or Nakba? 
Thursday's Lecture: Born of War, or Design?        Reversing Myths:   The Revisionist Interpretation of 1948

  • Rogin, Eugene L. and Shlaim, Avi (2002).   The War for Palestine:   Rewriting the History of 1948.   Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press [1-11 and maps].
  • Morris, Benny (2002).   Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus of 1948.   The War for Palestine.   Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds.   Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press [37-59]
  • Ben-Ami, Shlomo (2007).   Scars of War, Wounds of Peace:   The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.   London:   Weidenfeld and Nicholson [pp. 34-47].   Also watch the first 5 minutes of this video  
  • Benvenisti, Meron (2002).   Sacred Landscape:   The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948 .   Berkeley:   University of California Press.   [pp. 144-169].   [This reading is optional]

4/14        The Debate Over 1948 and the Palestinian Refugees
Film:   Kedma / Amos Gitai, Director (Selections shown in class)

  • Masalha, Nur (1991).   “A Critique of Benny Morris,” Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 21 (1): 90-97.
  • Finkelstein, Norman (2001).   ‘Born of War, Not By Design.’ Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. London: Verso [51-87].

Week 4 - The Only Democracy in the Middle East? Citizenship and the Israeli State

4 /19        Jewish and Democratic?     State and Citizenship in Israel
Guest Speaker:   Gershon Shafir 

  • Shafir, Gershon and Peled, Yoav (2002).   Being Israeli:   The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship.   Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press. [110-136]. [Read electronic version on UCSD library website]
  • Israel Democracy Institute (2010).   Israeli Democracy Examined [Read Executive Summary].  
  • Mitnick, Joshua (December 4, 2010).   “Why Only 51% of Israelis Support Equal Rights for Arab Minority.”   Christian Science Monitor.        

4/21        The “Ethnocratic” State:   Separation, Difference and Apartheid?

  • Forman, Geremy and Kedar, Alexandre (2004).   “From Arab Land to ‘Israeli Lands’:   The Legal Dispossession of Palestinians Displaced by Israel in the Wake of 1948.”   Environment and Planning D.   Volume 22 (6):   809-830.
  • Yiftachel, Oren (2002) .   “The Shrinking Space of Citizenship .”   Middle East Report.   No. 223.
  • Peteet, Julie (2009).   “Beyond Compare.”   Middle East Report.   No. 253. Vol. 39 (4): pp. 16-25.

First Assignment Distributed

Week 5 - Lords of the Land: Landscape, Occupation and Settlement

Tuesday's Lecture: Landscapes of Occupation, Settlement, and Conflict 
Thursday's Lecture: Settlements, Settlers and the Matrix of Control

4 /26        Realizing Zion:   Israeli Settlement Beyond Israel

  • Gorenberg, Gershom (2007).   Occupied Territories:   The Untold Story of Israel’s Settlements.   London:   I.B Tauris.         [34-41, 48-53, 99-107]
  • Weizman, Eyal (2007).   Hollow Land:   Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.   London: Verso [87-108, 122-133].
  • Siegman, Henry (2008).   “Grab More Hills, Expand the Territory.”   London Review of Books .   Vol. 30 (7): 15-17.
  • B’tselem (2002).   Land Grab:   Israel’s Policy of Settlement in the West Bank.   [pp. 7-8, 11-19, 37-41, 47-51, 91-116].   

4 /28        Landscape, Settlements and Settlers
Film:   The Settlers / Ruth Walk, Director (Selections to be viewed in class]

  • Theroux, Louis (February 3, 2011).   The Ultra Zionists [BBC Documentary to be viewed in class]
  • Fields, Gary (2010).   “Landscaping Palestine:   Reflection of Enclosure in an Historical Mirror.” International Journal of Middle East Studies.   Vol. 42 (1): 63-82. 
  • Shehadeh, Raja (2008).   Palestinian Walks:   Forays into a Vanishing Landscape .   New York: Scribner [“Introduction” and   “Walk 2”].   See also the video   
  • Halper, Jeff (2006).   The 94 Percent Solution:   Israel’s Matrix of Control .   The Struggle for Sovereignty:   Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005.   Joel Beinin and Rebecca L. Stein, eds.   Stanford:   Stanford University Press. [pp. 62-71]
  • Goldberg, Jeffrey (2004).   “Among the Settlers:   Will They Destroy Israel.”   The New Yorker . 

First Assignment Due

Week 6 - Terrorism, Conflict, and the Wal

Tuesday's Lecture: The "Wall" / Fence? Barrier Against Terrorism?

5/3         Is it Possible to Understand Terrorism?

Film:   Battle of Algiers [viewing to be arranged]                                                                   

5/5  The Wall:   Response to Terrorism?

  • Film:   Budrus [To be Viewed in Class]

  • “The Fence.”   60 Minutes (December 21, 2003).
  • Carter, Jimmy (2006).   The Wall as a Prison.  Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid .  New York: Simon and Shuster. [189-216].
  • Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2003).  Saving Lives:  Israel’s Security Fence [view the video and peruse the website]. 
  • United Nations (2008).  The Humanitarian Impact of the West Bank Barrier [pp. 4-8, 14-22].  

Week 7 - The "Peace Process: What Went Wrong?

Tuesday's Lecture: Wither the Peace Process?

5/10        Peace:   Mythology and Media Representations

  • Reinhart, Tanya 

    (2002).   Israel / Palestine:   How to End the War of 1948 .   New York:   Seven Stories Press [pp. 21-60].
  • Malley, Robert and Agha, Hussein (August 9, 2001).   Camp David:   The Tragedy of Errors.   New York Review of Books.    

  • Ben-Ami, Shlomo and Finkelstein, Norman (2007).   

    Debate on Peace Process, 

     [

    Pt. 1], 

     [Pt. 2], 

    [Pt. 3], 

    [Pt. 4], 

    [Pt. 5], 

    [Pt. 6

    ]

5/12        Peace Process (cont’d):   U.S. Policy and the Controversy over the Israel Lobby

Guest Speaker:   Robert Filner (D-CA), House of Representatives District 51

  • Zunes, Stephen (2003).   Tinderbox:   U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism .   Monroe:   Common Courage Press. [pp. 106-135]
  • Mersheimer, John and Walt, Stephen (2006). “The Israel Lobby.”   London Review of Books.  
  • Massing, Michael (2006). “The Storm over the Israel Lobby.”   New York Review of Books.

5/12   The Peace Process (cont’d)

Week 8 - Gaza and Goldstone: Defense Against Terror or War Crimes?

Tuesday's Lecture: Gaza: Frames of Conflict, Fact-finding from the Ground

5/17         Prelude to Conflict in Gaza

5/19         The Goldstone Report and its Different Representations

Week 9 - Can the Conflict End?

Tuesday's Lecture: One State? or Two?

5/24         Two States for Two People?   Or One state for All?

  • Video:   “Is Peace out of Reach?”   60 Minutes Broadcast January 25, 2009.
  • Judt, Tony (2003).   “Israel:   The Alternative.” New York Review of Books.   Vol. 50 (16).
  • Makdisi, Saree (2008).   Palestine Inside Out.   New York:   Norton [ pp. 290-298].  
  • Ibish, Hussein (2009).   What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda?   Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal.   Washington:   American Task Force on Palestine.   [pp. 16-51, 61-72, 76-103].   
  • Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2007).   Two States for Two People 

5 /26        The Conflict and the Campus:   Blacklists and Boycotts

Week 10 - The Middle East and Israel / Palestine: What Future?

 5/31        Upheaval in the Arab World:   Wild Card for a Peace Settlement?

 Guest Speaker:   Professor Farid Abdul Nour, SDSU Department of Political Science

Readings TBA

6/2          Final Thoughts

Gary Fields