This SIIS faculty syllabus explores the Arab-Israeli conflict and the history of Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine/Israel through the notion of “parallel narratives.” The readings illustrate both Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives of the conflict, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian claims to the land, and how multiple narratives build a robust picture of complex historical events.
You should become familiar with www.bitterlemons.net for examples of parallel or contrary narratives, as well as Scham’s chart of Israeli and Palestinian traditional narratives of their history (PDF below). The latter should be brought to the seminar for discussion.
Required Readings
For purposes of our session, you should examine the following:
Declarations
- Israel’s Declaration of Independence (also in Rabinowitz/Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East)
- PLO Covenant (also in Rabinowitz/Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East)
- PLO Covenant – abbreviated
- Hamas Charter (also in Rabinowitz/Reinharz, Israel in the Middle East)
- Hamas Charter – abbreviated
- American Declaration of Independence (PDF)
- The Peel Commission Report of 1937
Paul Scham
Israeli and Palestinian Traditional Narratives of their History: A Distillation
[PDF chart]
Alon Confino, “Miracles and Snow in Palestine and Israel: Tantura, a History of 1948,” Israel Studies 17.2 (Summer 2012) pp. 25-61.
“Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide,” [and DVD] Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbytarian Church, January 2014.
Troen, Ilan & Troen, Carol. “Indigeneity.” Israel Studies, vol. 24 no. 2, 2019, pp. 17-32. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/720047.
Recommended Readings
Photographs and Literature as evidence:
Nili Scharf Gold, “Portrait of Haifa in 1948: The Poet, the Bay and the Mountain,” Israel Studies 17.2 (Summer 2012) pp. 1-24.
Alon Confino, “Miracles and Snow in Palestine and Israel: Tantura, a History of 1948,” Israel Studies 17.2 (Summer 2012) pp. 25-61.
Maoz Azaryahu and Arnon Golan, “Photography, Memory, and Ethnic Cleansing: The Fate of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, 1948 – John Phillips’ Pictorial Record,” Israel Studies 17.2 (Summer 2012) pp. 62-76.
Tel Aviv photos, from Benjamin Z. Kedar, The Changing Land Between the Jordan and the Sea: Aerial Photographs from 1917 to the Present (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999)
Beersheba & Qiryat Gat photos, from Kedar, The Changing Land Between the Jordan and the Sea: Aerial Photographs from 1917 to the Present (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999)
Iraq al-Manshiyya (Qiryat Gat), from Walid Khalidi All that Remains (The Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992).
Studies on parallel narratives:
Sami Advan, Dan Bar-On, Eyal Naveh
Side by Side; Parellel Histories of Israel-Palestine (New York, 2012) Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 4; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8
![Adel Manna and Motti Golani, <i>Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba 1948</i> [English-Arabic edition] Hb](https://www.rolpub.com/images/IHJR%205%20-%20Two%20Sides%20ARabic_website%20pic.jpg "Adel Manna and Motti Golani, <i>Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba 1948</i> [English-Arabic edition] Hb")
Motti Golani and Adel Manna, “Introduction: Narrative, National Historical Narrative, and Historiography,” and “Epilogue: 1948, Here and Now,”
Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba 1948: Two Narratives of the 1948 War and Its Outcome
(The Netherlands/St. Louis: Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation and Republic of Letters Publishing, Dordrecht, 2011), pp. v-23, 153-155.
Robert I. Rotberg, Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History’s Double Helix (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006) Chs. 1,3,4,6,9 ISBN/ISSN: 0253218578
Review material on the flight/expulsion of the Arab Refugees in 1948:
Walid Khalidi, Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Autumn, 1988) pp. 4-33.
Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford, 2006), selections
ISBN/ISSN: 1851685553
Benny Morris 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven, 2008)
Ch 4: “The Second Stage of the Civil War, April-mid-May 1948”
ISBN/ISSN: 0300126964
Efraim Karsh, “1948, Israel, and the Palestinians – the True Story,” Commentary, May 2008.
Select other key examples such as the “Jenin massacre” or the Al-Dura affair. The same could be done for the 2008 war in Gaza.
Report of the UN Secretary-General on Jenin
Films on Jenin: Jenin, Jenin by Mohammed Bakri. Jenin: The Reservists Diary, by Gil Mezumam
New York Times “Israeli Report Casting New Doubts on Shooting in Gaza” (May 19, 2013)
The Al Durah Project: Examining the Evidence – Raw Footage vs. France 2 Broadcast
Viewing Jerusalem
Al Quds University, Jerusalem, the Old City: An Introduction.
Yusuf Natsheh, The Growth of Nationalism over the Temple Mount/al Masjid al-Aqsa.
Yitzhak Reiter, Narratives of Jerusalem and its Sacred Compound. Palestinian Textbooks: from Arafat to Abbas and Hamas (American Jewish Committee, 2008).
Controversial books, such as: Collected reviews of Nadia Abu El-Haj’s, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (Chicago, 2001). Also in en.wikipedia.org.
Perspectives from biographies
Amos Oz
A Tale of Love and Darkness (Hebrew, 2003; English, 2004)
ISBN/ISSN: 015603252X
Sari Nusseibeh
Once Upon a Country; A Palestinian Life
(New York, 2007) ISBN.ISSN: 0374299501
The textbook wars: From Nationalist Battle to Religious Conflict: New 12th Grade Palestinian schoolbooks Present a World Without Israel (Palestine Media Watch, February 2007).
Arab and Palestinians in Israeli Textbooks in the School Year 1999-2000 (Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, September 2000).
Who are the Indigenous?
A. Current Issues Concerning Bedouin
(repeated from syllabus on Colonialism or Colonization)
Seth J. Frantzman, Havatzelet Yahel, Ruth Kark, “Contested Indigeneity: The Development of an Indigenous Discourse on the Bedouin of the Negev, Israel,” Israel Studies, 17:1 (2012), 78-104.
Havatzelet Yahel, Ruth Kark, Seth Frantzman, “Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People?” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2012, 3-14.
Patricia Golan, “Bedouin in Limbo,” The Jerusalem Report, January 7, 2008
The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, The National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel (2006)
Ruth Kark versus Oren Yiftachel, Protocol from the Beer-Sheva District Court, 2010. [Hebrew]
Oren Yiftachel (2003), “Bedouin Arabs and the Israeli Settler State: Land Policies and Indigenous Resistance,” (Eds. Duane Champage and Ismael Abu-Saad) The Future of Indigenous People: Strategies for Survival and Development, UCLA American Indian Studies Center Publications, 2003.
B. Christian Claims
Perceptions of Israel Amongst Christians. [PDF of assembled sources]
Naim Ateek, Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY, 1989). pps. 102-114.
“Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide,” [and DVD] Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbytarian Church, January 2014.
Yaakov Ariel, “Suspicion, Support, Recognition and Rejection: Contemporary Christianity and Israel,” (Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, November 2013).
C. Israel and Islam
Norman A. Stillman, “Perceptions and Understandings of Israel within Islam,” (Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, October 19, 2013).
Paul Scham, Walid Salem, Benjamin Pogrund, eds.
Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue
(Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2005) ISBN/ISSN: 159874013X
Sami Adwan and Dan Bar-On,
Learning Each Other’s Historical Narrative: Palestinians and Israelis Part I, Part II. (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East, 2003).
Walid Khalidi, ed.,
All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948
(Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992)
Moshe Halbertal, “The Goldstone Illusion.” The New Republic (6 November 2009).
Asa Kasher, “Operation Cast Lead and the Ethics of Just War.” Azure 37 (Summer 2009)