Historical Controversies in the Study of Israel/Palestine

MEST30722 Historical Controversies in the Study of Israel/Palestine 20 Semester 2 Undergraduate Level 3 Moshe Behar Unit coordinator Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Last part of a Bachelors ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0 This class critically surveys the following themes: “Israeli Inter-generational Conflict?”; “Historical Inquiry and Israel/Palestine’s Collective Memory”; “Israel/Palestine: Democracy, Ethnic Democracy, ‘Ethnocracy’ or apartheid?”; “Jewish and Democratic State: Built-in Structural Tension?”; “Arab Citizenship in a Jewish State”; “Sephardim/Mizrahim in Israel” and “The Politics of Land Ownership.”  During the last four decades liberal democracies worldwide have grappled with questions relating to citizenship, immigration, multi-culturalism, gender gaps, collective rights, and the civil status of ethnic or indigenous minorities. Brexit is part of this too. In Israel/Palestine these issues came to the fore in the 1990s, manifesting themselves in debates between the “old” and “new” historians; disputes between the “critical” and “establishment” sociologists; questions of memory and collective identity; new forms of political organisation by Israel’s Palestinian-Arab citizens, Sephardic-Mizrahi Jews, and women. Discussions often revolved around the question whether Israeli society embodies persistent inequalities between European Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, women, Palestinian Arabs, and Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, or whether it is a place of (comparatively) well-functioning co-existence. This class critically surveys in this respect the themes detailed above. On completion of this unit, successful participants should have reached an advanced level of foundational knowledge in the study of post-1948 contemporary Israel/Palestine; be able to discuss and analyse competing schools of scholarly thought studying the Palestine/Israel question; be able to comment in an informed manner on a range of profound controversies surrounding the study of post-1948 Israel/Palestine.  On successful completion of the course students should have developed skills for critical analysis of the debates surveyed and the scholarly and sociopolitical controversies surrounding them; understand of critical issues pertaining to the modern study – and predicaments – of contemporary Israel/Palestine; be able to develop a productive PPP to support their essays.  Ability to comment in an informed manner on a range of controversies surrounding the study of contemporary Israel/Palestine. The foundational knowledge acquired will be useful for any position in the private or public sector that deals with Israel/Palestine; the creation of rigorous written and oral presentations to support one’s projects/case.  <ul><li>Time Management and punctuality</li><li>Ability to differentiate between scholarship and motivational speaking and/or advocacy</li><li>Comprehension of the importance of being able to argue contrasting theses</li><li>Oral presentations and PPP</li></ul> 0 Other 100% <figure class="table"><table aria-rowcount="4" border="1" data-tablelook="1184" data-tablestyle="MsoNormalTable"><tbody><tr aria-rowindex="1" role="row"><td data-celllook="4369" role="rowheader"> Assessment task   </td><td data-celllook="4369" role="columnheader">Weighting within unit  </td></tr><tr aria-rowindex="2" role="row"><td data-celllook="4369" role="rowheader">Oral presentation  (note: students whose attendance is below 75% with no approved mitigating circumstances will not be permitted to present before their peers in class and may present before the lecturer alone).  </td><td data-celllook="4369">  25% </td></tr><tr aria-rowindex="3" role="row"><td data-celllook="4369" role="rowheader">  Essay  </td><td data-celllook="4369">  75% </td></tr></tbody></table></figure> <ul><li>Oral feedback  </li><li>Written feedback on essay </li><li>Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation/office hour) </li></ul> Y <ol><li>Ram, Uri, The Changing Agenda of Israeli Sociology: Theory, Ideology and Identity (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995);</li><li>Lissak, Moshe, “‘Critical’ Sociology and ‘Establishment’ Sociology in the Israeli Academic Community: Ideological Struggles or Academic Discourse?” Israel Studies, 1.1 (1996), pp. 247-294;</li><li>Shapira, Anita, “Politics and Collective Memory: the Debate Over the ‘New Historians’ in Israel” History and Memory, 7 (1) (Spring 1995), pp. 9-40;</li><li>Pappe, Ilan, “Humanizing the Text: Israeli ‘New History’ and the Trajectory of the 1948 Historiography” Radical History Review (Spring 2003), pp. 102-22;</li><li>Smooha, Sammy, “The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State” Nations and Nationalism, 8 (4) (2002), pp. 475-503; </li><li>Ghanem, A., Rouhana, N. and Yiftachel, O., “Questioning ‘Ethnic Democracy’: A Response to Sammy Smooha” Israel Studies, 3(2) (1998), pp. 253-67;</li><li>Gavison, Ruth, “The Jews’ Right to Statehood: A Defense” Azure (Summer 5763/2003), No. 15;</li><li>Bligh, A., Karsh, E. and Karsh, I., “Special Issue ‘The Israeli Palestinians: An Arab Minority in the Jewish State’” Israel Affairs, 9(1-2) (2003).  </li></ol> Lectures 24 Seminars 12 0 164 Primary and selective secondary sources coupled with lecture notes will be made available in Canvas.