Course Title: THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: HISTORICAL MEMORY, IDENTITY, & NATIONALISM
 

Department Of Political Science/Texas State University
The online version of this syllabus can be accessed @ arnoldleder.com

e-mail address: al04@txstate.edu
Office: ELA 335
Office Hours: TBA & by appointment

Selected Web Resources For Texas State University
Texas State University Library
Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
Citation & Bibliographic Styles & Related Information

COURSE ORGANIZATION & STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Please see: Academic Honesty Statement/Student Handbook/Texas State University San Marcos
An excerpt from this statement can be found at the end of this syllabus.

Class Participation, Oral Presentations, Exams, Papers, Grades
1. This course will be conducted as a seminar.  Students must attend every class meeting and be prepared to discuss assigned readings and other materials.  Active participation in class discussion is essential.  Course grades will be determined by oral presentations, class participation, and written papers.
2. Determinants of Course Grade: Oral Reports & Presentations 25%/ Seminar Participation 15%/ Essay Exams/Papers 60%

Attendance
1. Three (3) unexcused absences are permitted.  Students with four (4) unexcused absences will have their course grade lowered by one letter grade.  Students who have five (5) unexcused absences will have their course grade lowered by two letter grades.  No absences beyond five (5) for any reason are permitted.  Any student who has more than five absences is likely to fail the course and, therefore, should withdraw from the course.
2. The instructor for the course is not responsible for bringing students who have missed class "up-to-date" on missed material.  Each student has the responsibility to remain current with respect to class material.

Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is an introduction to the origins, politics, and development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

PURPOSE OF COURSE
This course is designed to familiarize students with the issues of historical memory, identity, and national consciousness in the Israeli and Palestinian communities.  These issues will be examined within the framework of broader theoretical literature on nationalism and the construction of national identity.

MATERIALS AT RESERVE READINGS DESK/Texas State University Library
Anthony Marx, Faith in Nation, Chapters 1 & 7.
Anita Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force 1881-1948, Chapter 1 "The Birth of a National Ethos" (pp.1-52.).

Recommended Books
Anthony Marx/Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins Of Nationalism (Oxford Univ. 2003)/Paperback
Anita Shapira/Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force 1881-1948 (Stanford Univ. 1992)/Paperback

Required & Recommended Articles & Other Readings Are Listed in the Appropriate Sections of the Syllabus
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THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: HISTORICAL MEMORY, IDENTITY, & NATIONALISM
Overview Of Course
Topics
I. Historical Memory, Identity, & National Consciousness: An Overview
II. The Question of Identity in the Middle East
III. Israeli Identity
IV. Palestinian Identity
V. The Conflict: An Historical Perspective
VI. Jerusalem (Yerushaleyem/al-Quds)
VII. The Conflict After 1967
VIII. Additional Dimensions Of The Conflict

TOPICS FOR READING, ORAL & WRITTEN REPORTS, & DISCUSSION

I. Historical Memory, Identity, & National Consciousness: An Overview
Readings:
Books
Anthony Marx, Faith in Nation, Chapters 1 & 7.
These chapters of the Marx book are available @ the RESERVE READINGS DESK/Texas State University Library.
Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism In The Twentieth Century, pp. 52 through 64.
Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots, Preface, Introduction, & Chapter 1.
Articles
James McPherson, "Southern Comfort", The New York Review of Books, April 12, 2001.
Richard Vinen, "Electric Koran", London Review of Books, 7 June 2001
This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" and look for the author and title of this article.  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Fintan O'Toole, "Lesser Evils" (Review Of Ireland's HolyWars: The Struggle For A Nation's Soul,1500-2000 byMarcus Tanner Yale University Press) The New Republic, August 19 & 26, 2002. O'Toole challenges the book's "misleading" title and the conventional view held by Tanner that religious identity is at the root of the Irish conflict.  In O'Toole's words: "What Ireland shows, again and again, is how the meaning of religious identity changes under the pressure of political and economic forces."  Consider O'Toole's view in the light of  Anthony Marx's treatment of the relationship between religion and nationalism.
For full online access to this article go to Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas StateUniversity User Name and password are required.

Jerry Z. Muller/Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism/Foreign Affairs March-April 2008

II. The Question of Identity in the Middle East
Readings: Bernard Lewis, The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, the entire book.

Jonathan Wilson/Ancestral Journeys/NYT Sunday Book Review July 6, 2008 A review of Origins: A Memoir by Amin Maalouf (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008)
“Barely a hundred years ago, Lebanese Christians readily proclaimed themselves Syrian, Syrians looked to Mecca for a king, Jews in the Holy Land called themselves Palestinian ... and my grandfather Botros liked to think of himself as an Ottoman citizen,” he writes. “None of the present-day Middle Eastern states existed, and even the term ‘Middle East’ hadn’t been invented. The commonly used term was ‘Asian Turkey.’ (boldface added)
From Amin Maalouf's book.  See Origins: A Memoir. Go to "Search inside this book" and type in the words "Jews in the Holy Land called themselves Palestinian" (without the quotation marks).  This line and the cited passage above are found on page 211 of Maalouf's book.  The passage is cited in Jonathan Wilson's NYT review of Maalouf's book.
See also: Alexander Star/Liberalism in the Levant?Slate June 16, 2008

Moshe Shemesh, "The Palestinian Society in the Wake of the 1948 War: From Social Fragmentation to Consolidation", Israel Studies, Spring 2004, Vol. 9, No. 1.
For full online access to this article by Shemesh go to Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas StateUniversity User Name and password are required.

VI. Jerusalem (Yerushaleyem/al-Quds)
Readings:
Articles
Bernard Wasserstein/The Politics Of Holiness In Jerusalem/The Chronicle of Higher Education/September 21 2001
Amos Elon/The Deadlocked City/The New York Review of Books/October 18 2001
Elon's article is a review essay of Bernard Wasserstein/Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City (Yale 2001)
For a different perspective, see: Daniel Pipes/The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem/Middle East Quarterly/Fall 2001
See also:
Emmanuel Navon/We Forget Thee, Jerusalem/Azure Autumn 2007, No. 30. (pdf) A review essay of "How Dreadful Is This Place!" Holiness, Politics, and Justice in Jerusalem and the Holy Places in Israel by Shmuel Berkovitz (Carta Jerusalem, 2006, Hebrew).

VII. The Conflict After 1967
1. Israelis & Palestinians
Readings:
Books
Mark Tessler, A History Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Part IV.
2. Israelis, Palestinians, the Arab States, & Peace Efforts
Readings:
Books
Itamar Rabinovich, Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs 1948-2003, the entire book.
Articles
Michael Scott Doran/Palestine, Iraq, & American Strategy/Foreign Affairs/January-February 2003
Josef Joffee/A World Without Israel/Foreign Policy, January-February, 2005

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Academic Honesty Statement/Texas State University

Learning and teaching take place best in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and openness. All members of the academic community are responsible for supporting freedom and openness through rigorous personal standards of honesty and fairness. Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty undermine the very purpose of the university and diminish the value of an education.
Academic Offenses
Students who have committed academic dishonesty, which includes cheating on an examination or other academic work to be submitted, plagiarism, collusion, or abuse of resource materials, are subject to disciplinary action.
a. Academic work means the preparation of an essay, thesis, report, problem assignments, or other projects which are to be submitted for purposes of grade determination.
b. Cheating means:
1. Copying from another student’s test paper, laboratory report, other report or computer files, data listing, and/or programs.
2. Using materials during a test unauthorized by person giving test.
3. Collaborating, without authorization, with another person during an examination or in preparing academic work.
4. Knowingly, and without authorization, using, buying, selling, stealing, transporting, soliciting, copying, or possessing, in whole or part, the content of an unaministered test.
5. Substituting for another student—or permitting another person to substitute for oneself in taking an exam or preparing academic work.
6. Bribing another person to obtain an unadministered test or information about an unadministered test.
c. Plagiarism means the appropriation of another’s work and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in one’s own written work offered for credit. (Underline Added)
d. Collusion means the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing written work offered for credit.
e. Abuse of resource materials means the mutilation, destruction, concealment, theft or alteration of materials provided to assist students in the mastery of course materials.
Penalties for Academic Dishonesty
Students who have committeed academic dishonesty may be subject to:
a. Academic penalty including one or more of the following when not inconsistent:
1. A requirement to perform additional academic work not required of other students in the course;
2. Required to withdraw from the course with a grade of “F.” (Underline Added)
3. A reduction to any level grade in the course, or on the exam or other academic work affected by the academic dishonesty.
b. Disciplinary penalty including any penalty which may be imposed in a student disciplinary hearing pursuant to this Code of Conduct.

This statement is taken from the Texas State University San Marcos Student Handbook.
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