The University of Texas at Austin	Fall semester 2008
Government 320L/MES 323K	Prof. Clement M. Henry
Unique numbers: 39400/42610	Office: Batts 4.152
Mezies BO.306 M-W-F 2-3p.m.	Office hrs: M-F 3-4, W 3-6
TA: Mary Sutcliffe Love, Batts 1.118, Off hrs. M 12:30-2, W 9:30-11	or by email

Arab-Israeli Politics

Course Content	Course requirements:	Peace Conference in class
Required texts:	Class discussions Internet	Annotated bibliogaphies
Position papers (500 words)	Peace Conference participation	Debriefing Paper (500-700 words)
Schedule of Topics and Readings - Mon., Sept. 1,8, 15,21,29	October 6, 13, 20, 27; November 3, 10, 17, 24; Dec 1

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Course Content

This is a course about politics and clashing value systems, not history, but first you will need to learn the history and learn why you are learning the historical facts that are presented. You will also discover that "Arab-Israeli" politics really involves several levels: 1) conflicts between Arabs and Israelis in Palestine/Israel, 2) conflicts between the state of Israel and various Arab states in the region, 3) conflicts, muted since the end of the Cold War but still present, between powerful states outside the region who are sucked into the first two sets of conflicts, 4) conflicts within the American community over the nature of our commitment to Israel and how to reconcile it with other national interests, 5) conflicts within the Israeli body politic over relationships with their Arab neighbors, and 6) conflicts between Arab states and within the various Palestinian communities over their relationships with Israel. This course is designed to enhance your understanding of these domestic, regional, and international factors in the "Arab-Israeli" conflict.

Some of these conflicts may divide you as well as the protagonists in the Middle East. You will be expected to develop an understanding and empathy with the protagonists, whatever your own views on the subject may be. You will learn to appreciate the clashes in values that may accompany conflicting political perspectives. You may deepen your own appreciation of some of the moral dilemmas underlying political choices.

Irrespective of your own convictions, you will be expected to develop your critical faculties, in order to be able to detect "bias" or "spins" in narratives of the Arab-Israeli conflict and in the daily press, whether in the form of "news" reports or editorial opinion. In the guise of "objective" narrative and "scientific" analysis crucial facts may be omitted, or others emphasized that reinforce the views of some protagonists against others. To detect the omissions or get a feel for the balance or lack of balance in a supposedly objective report, you will need to acquire a good command of the history of conflict between Arabs and Jews over territories named "Palestine" and "Israel." How far back? In one of your required readings, Charles Smith starts off with Biblical times (circa 1400 BC). Smith's book was attacked by some reviewers on the ground that Zionism emerged as a cultural and political movement only in the late nineteenth century.

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Class discussions over the Internet

While we will try to discuss various points of view in class, you are also expected to express some of your views and perceptions in "chat," on Blackboard. This forum is protected by a password, so that it is very much like our classroom. Make a comment and it will be seen only by other members of the class, your TA, and your professor. Your contributions will count toward your class participation grade.

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Peace conference

The best way to develop your empathy and critical understanding of the various protagonists is through hands-on experience. You will therefore all be involved in a simulation of a peace conference in the final weeks of the course. Each of you will represent a particular actor in the conflict, and you will team up with other actors in your country or (in the cases of Palestinian and Israeli roles, in parties or factions). Each of you will focus on one or two major issues of the peace conference, as indicated here. The instructor will try to take account of your personal preferences in selecting the role. The richest experience, for those of you who already have strong convictions and seek to develop empathy for conflicting perspectives, may be to play the role of one of your "enemies." But most of you probably just want to learn something about the Middle East and have no particularly entrenched views. No prior experience or course work is required, and you should not feel intimidated by students who seem to know a great deal about the Middle East. Whatever your previous knowledge of the Middle East, expect to spend a fair amount of time on this course crritically evaluating what you think you already know, preparing position papers on peace agenda issues, and exchanging messages through our computer-conferencing system. No prior experience with computers is needed to complete your work satisfactorily, but you will need to type. You will enhance your computer literacy and learn how to use the Internet as a research tool.

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Required texts:

You will be expected to purchase (or share):

Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel (Wiley, 2003) 0-471-67952-6

Neve Gordon, Israel's Occupation (U of Calif. Press, 2008) 978-0-520-25531-9

Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld, Oxford, 2007) 978-1-85168-555-4 (optional)

Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 6th edition (St. Martin's Press, 2006)

Abel's course pack, available for purchase at 715 23rd St. (University Towers parking).

Recommended (**=available for purchase; *=PCL reserve):

**Jimmy Carter, Palestine Peace not Apartheid (Simon and Schuster, 2006)

** Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage (Beacon, 2007)

** John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)

 

Asher Arian, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel (Chatham House, 1997)

*Donna E. Arzt, Refugees into Citizens (NY: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997)

I.J. Bickerton and C.L. Klausner, A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 4th ed., Prentice Hall, 2005

*Seymour M. Hersh, The Sampson Option, New York: Vintage, 1991

Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity (Columbia UP, 1997)

Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin eds, The Israel-Arab Reader, Penguin 2008

*Miriam Lowi, Water and Power (Cambridge UP, 1995)

Benny Morris, The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge UP, 1987)

Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine (Cambridge UP, 2004)

Glenn E. Robinson, Building a Palestinian State (Indiana UP, 1997)

Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall (Norton, 1999)

Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (U of Indiana Press, 1994)

*Mark Zeitoun, Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics of the Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict (London: Tauris, 2008).

World Bank (available online), Making the Most of Scarcity : Accountability for Better Water Management Results in the Middle East and North Africa (March 2007)

You should also be reading either The New York Times, The Washington Post, or the Christian Science Monitor regularly, and/or use our UT resources. Haaretz is strongly recommended, really the New York Times of Israel. The Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Dawn (Al-Fajr), available in PCL, or Palestine Report, online only, also provide useful and timely insights, respectively from conservative Israeli and from Palestinian perspectives. Another very useful site is the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which has reports and polling data. Similarly, in Israel the Tami Steinmetz Center offer polls on current public opinion.

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Course requirements

Grading

Midterm 25%
Position Paper 10%
Annotated bibliography 10%
Conference preparation and participation 10% (includes a paper outlining your opening positions and strategies for implementing them, at least in part)
Class Participation 15% (includes computer "chat" participation for 10%)
Identifications Test 15%
Final take-home essay 15%

Important Dates

MID-TERM EXAM: Monday, Sept. 29.

Annotated Bibliography (10 items at least): due Friday, Oct. 10

Draft position paper (500 words): due Friday, Oct. 17

Peace Conference begins: Wednesday, Nov. 12.

YOUR POSITION PAPER/Speech notes: due Wed, Nov. 12, by email and hard copy in class

Revised Position Paper (if you still want another chance), due Wednesday, Nov. 26

Debriefing issues paper (like a take home final essay): due Dec. 3 in class.

IDENTIFICATIONS TEST: Friday, Dec. 5.

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You will also present annotated bibliographies of the sources you used to prepare the position paper. You will present one copy in class on Friday, October 10, and you will also transmit it to our archive of annotated bibliographies on the Discussion Board, organized by issue thread on Blackboard. The bibliography should consist of at least 10 useful sources about your character and his/her policy concerns on at least one of the key issues such as security, Jerusalem, water, settlements, compensation for refugees, the future political status and boundaries of Palestine, etc. - or on issues concerning Israel's relations with Lebanon and Syria - and Iran. You may be able to locate samples of your character's speeches. The sources may be articles, books, or electronic files. Electronic sources can be documented with their URL (http://......). You should make a brief critical summary of each source. Make sure that the electronic verson of your annotated bibliography has an informative subject header, such as the name of your character and the substantive policy issue.

For your bibliography and general information, you may access many useful materials, including translations of the foreign press, over the Internet. You may not even need to go to the library, just use our course home page internet resources and surf the net for a tremendous amount of information! Or look at the supplementary bibliographies in mena-politics (where you can also find past role profiles done by students, but be careful to check out their info!) or on Ami Isseroff 's MidEast Web Gateway, or, better still, try to find relevant resources in www.assr.org. There is also a collection of Palestinian biographies as well as one of leading Israeli personalities. And the International Crisis Group has useful material on the Arab-Israeli Conflict. You could also find translations of speeches and newspaper articles by Foreign Broadcasting Information Service, FBIS--now available online for UT students via the WWW from the UT Libraries home page. For briefings on the military strengths and weaknesses of the various protagonists, consult the annual reports of the Institute of Strategic Studies (London) and other materials (SIPRI, for example) available in the reference room of PCL. Here are arms expenditures from the SIPRI database (and you can obtain data on Israel , Iran, Jordan, Syria etc.).

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You will be expected to do some research on the character you are representing in the conference and at least one major issue that concerns him/her, to be written up in a position paper of about 500 words. You will present one copy in class on October 17, and you will also transmit it to our collection of position papers we will set up in Blackboard.

You will pay special attention to his or her statements and positions with respect to Middle East foreign policies and strategies in general, and in particular to at least one of the issues on our peace conference agenda: security, borders, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, water, and nuclear weapons.

Here are the sorts of information to look for (but please do not write a laundry list of answers!):

TITLE: Check to make sure your assigned title is correct, if you were given a name.

ROLE NAME: given in handout or to be researched in light of your title.

*DISCUSSION OF POLITICAL GOALS AND STRATEGIES: (Very important, and you can do it for the country even if you don't have much personal information). How your character's goals and strategies relate to your topic at hand, the Arab-Israeli conflict and peace process. Focus on the particular issue that will concern your character at the peace conference.

*ROLE DESCRIPTION: your duties and responsibilities, political position and power should be analyzed. Can you speak for your country or will your speech need to be cleared by a higher authority?

*POLITICAL ALLIES AND OPPONENTS: Specify your principal allies and adversaries within the simulation.

GREATEST CONTRIBUTIONS (optional): Major past accomplishments of which the other players should be made aware.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Optional and please be very brief if you happen to come up with something.

BACKGROUND BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION (do the best you can):

Place of birth:

Date of birth:

Schooling:

Career pattern:

Present post:

ROLE PLAYING NOTES (optional): Character-related information that is significant for the simulation, eg. foibles and desires, reputation.

MEANINGFUL QUOTATIONS (optional): These might indicate some of the actor's views relevant to the simulation.

 

**SOURCES (very important for grading purposes): give sources in your annotated bibliographies, and pay attention to the quality of the evidence. (See your syllabus for suggestions on electronic sources; you may also try the PCL reference room)

 

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You will each be expected to exchange substantive emails with your team members in preparation for our final peace conference. In the course of your research on one or two issues (such as water, the future of Israeli settlements, or nuclear weapons proliferation), you will be expected to develop a position paper for presentation at the class peace conference. You will also be expected to revise it in the course of discussions inside and outside class. It may also serve as a nucleus for your debriefing paper due Dec. 3.

You are expected to write a second paper of no more than 700 words, due Tuesday, Nov. 8 Wed., Dec. 3 (hard copy in class, electronic version to the "debriefings" file in Blackboard) presenting your impressions of the conference, what you learned from it, and how "realistically" you thought other (you could single out one or two) characters performed in the game. Try to avoid play-by-play descriptions and summaries of what happened. You will be graded for your originality and perceptiveness and also for your ability to document your insights. You should cite required readings you did for this course and research you did in connection with the course when comparing "real life" with what went on in class. A good paper will have a lead idea, focus on a particular issue, and develop a well documented argument.

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Aug 27-29: Getting started: discussion of final peace conference and other course requirements.

Readings:

1) Get familiar with our WWW home page for Gov 320L/MES 323K at chenry.webhost.utexas.edu/aip, including our New Resources online.

2) Examine some maps of Israel-Palestine; also from Smith, pp TBA; and the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) maps - some of which are included in your Abel's Course Pack.

3) Get a quick overview from Joel Beinen and Liza Hajjar, Palestine, Israel, and Arab Israeli Politics: A Primer, Middle East Report (2002), esp pp. 1-5. Let us update with those New Resources online.

Sept. 1: Labor Day holiday

Sept. 3-5: Conceptual themes: issues of national self-determination, dialogue, and perspective ("bias"). The importance to the United States of resolving the Arab-Israel conflict. Impact of the Second Gulf War (1990-91).

Readings:

Smith, pp. 1-18

Dershowitz, pp. 1-28

Pappe, pp. xi-xviii, 1-9

Complete reading Joel Beinen and Liza Hajjar, Palestine, Israel, and Arab Israeli Politics: A Primer

Sept. 8-10: The Middle East context: a strategic area, unstable and "penetrated" political systems, diplomatic paralysis, and local arms races. Introducing the other principal actors with stakes in the Middle East - for our peace conference

Readings:

Smith, pp. 23-47, 54-58.

Dershowitz, pp. 29-52

Fill out your choice of country and issue area(s), due Friday, September 12

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Sept. 12: Arab and Jewish nationalisms: an overview.

Sept 15: The Status of Palestine: Thrice-Promised Land 1915-1922.

Readings:

Charles Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, pp. 59-93, 102-03, for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, pp 94-95 has convenient chronology; please examine pp. 96-101 in light of map on p 41. Visit the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for a detailed list of accords and agreements concerning the peace process since 1993. Also see the Palestinian Liberation Organization Negotiations Affairs Department.

Sept. 17-19: The Issue of Autonomy: British dilemmas over Palestine: conflicting commitments concerning political representation, land, and people.

Readings:

Dershowitz, pp. 52-90

Smith, pp. 109-158

Pappe, pp. 10-28 

Sept. 22-24: Issues of Internal Security, Ethnic Cleaning, and Terrorism--"Gun Zionism" and the Emergence of Israel

Readings:

Pappe, pp. 10-28 29-87 - and as much more as you have time to read

Smith, pp. 170-216

Deir Yassin Remembered with an interview of Israeli historian Benny Morris (Jan 9, 2004).

also recommended: Mark Tessler, A History, pp. 273-335

 Sept. 26: Class peace conference preparations

Readings:

Review Joel Beinen and Liza Hajjar, Palestine, Israel, and Arab Israeli Politics: A Primer, pp. 12-15

Smith, 461-465 ("Oslo 2" of September 28, 1995).

You may also want to read more recent documents from the Israeli foreign ministry's home page, such as the Hebron accords of January 17, 1997, including attached notes. Please study Smith, p. 465, outlining the areas A and B from which the Israeli army was redeployed under Oslo 2, and compare with the maps on pp. 504 and 528. You may view lots of maps at our PCL and also at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, esp. the most recent map of the separation barrier (May 2008). And here is how one Palestinian research center views the situation on the ground : Monitoring Israeli Colonization Activities (1997-2005).

 

Optional: useful background for preparing your research:

Carol Migdalovitz, Middle East Peace Talks, Congressional Research Service (updated as of Jan. 13, 2006)

Asher Arian, The Second Republic, pp. 103-140 (about Israeli political parties and elections) or search from the Israeli foreign ministry's home page or site map.

S.B Galanti, From the Margins to a Continuing Governing Position: The Miracle of the Israeli Rightist Likud Elite, World Political Science 4: 1 (2008)

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Sept 29: Midterm exam: to consist of two parts:

1) 10 identification questions (eg. what/when was Deir Yassin and what was its significance? ....Golan Heights?..(you would also need to put this one on a blank map we will give you) for 50% of the grade, and

2) an essay question (chosing 1 out of 2 or 3).

 

Oct. 1: Issues of Refugees and Regional Security: Recalling the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1949-56.

Reading:

Smith, 228-259

Oct. 3: Peace conference preparations - the issues and bibliographical searches

Neve Gordon, Israel's Occupation (UC Press), pp. xv-xxi, 1-22

Oct. 6-8: From War to War, 1956-1967

Readings:

Smith, pp. 264-300

Dershowitz, pp 91-99
Optional: browse through the home page of the USS Liberty

Suggested: Baylis Thomas, How Israel Was Won (Lexington, 1999), pp. 1-172 for a quick review 1880s to 1967.

 

Oct. 10: Annotated bibliography due in class and on Blackboard

 

 

Readings:

Abel's Couse Pack, items # 2 (Clinton Plan) and 5 (State Dept Road Map)

Carol Migdalovitz, Middle East Peace Talks, Congressional Research Service (updated as of Jan. 13, 2006)

Neve Gordon, pp. 23-69

 

Suggested: Clayton E. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David (NY: Nations Books, 2004)

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Oct. 13: Costs of Diplomatic Paralysis: the 1973 War. Step by step vs. comprehensive solutions? - Then and Now.

Readings:

Smith, pp. 306-343

 Review your Beinen and Hajjar Primer : How would you view 1) Madrid, 2) Oslo, 3) current peace efforts (see also U.S. State Department, Roadmap for Peace) in light of the old Kissinger vs. Carter/Brzezinki debate?

Oct. 15: Regional Insecurity and Lebanon: the American expeditions of 1958 and 1982 - and now Iraq!

Readings:

Smith, pp. 354-394

 

Oct. 17: Draft position papers due: hard copy in class and electronic one posted to Blackboard

Oct. 20: The Intifada, the Transformation of the PLO, and the Gulf Crisis: Pressures for Peace.

Readings:

Smith, pp. 406-443

Neve Gordon, pp. 70-114, 147-168

Palestinian Declaration of Independence

Oct. 22: The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Continuing Peace with Jordan? Syria and the Golan.

Readings:

Smith, pp. 450-487; Avi Shlaim, excerpt from "The Lost Steps," The Nation, Aug 30, 2004.

optional: read the other parts of the Shlaim article, which reviews Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace; skim Israel-Jordan Treaty (Oct. 26, 1994). View the Israeli settlers' version of the history of the Golan Heights.

Oct. 24: Collapse of the Peace Process since Camp David II - and further destruction of Lebanon

Readings:

Smith, 499-543

Neve Gordon, pp. 169-196

Robert Malley, Fictions About the Failure at Camp David, New York Times, July 8, 2001.

@-2 Clinton Plan, Jan. 7, 2000.

 

Optional:

Deborah Sonntag, Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed, New York Times, July 26, 2001

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, "Tragedy of Errors," New York Review of Books, August 9, 2001

Dennis Ross et al, "Camp David: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, Sept. 20, 2001

Nigel Parry, Misrepresentation of Barak's offer at Camp David as "generous" and "unprecedented"

 

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Oct. 27: The refugee and settlement issues

Readings:

@-2 Foundation for Middle East Peace, Report on Israeli Settlement (2005)

Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) - Survey Research Unit: PSR Polls among Palestinian Refugees, (Jan-June 2003), released 18 July 2003.

Palestine Refugee ResearchNet (McGill University), Refugees and Final Status: Key Issues

Arzt, pp. 35, 60-61, 83-123 (PCL reserve)

Applied Research Institute, Jerusalem, Recent Israeli Settlement Activity, read one of the case studies, including maps

Smith, pp. 402, 405, 495, 499 maps of Israeli settlements, 496 bypass road.

 

Oct. 29: Water

Reading:

@-7 Miriam Lowi, "Rivers of Conflict, Rivers of Peace," Journal of International Affairs, Summer 1995, pp. 123-144.

Baylis Thomas, The Dark Side of Zionism (Lexington Books, 2009 - here previewed), Appendix A : "Water Wars" (log into Blackboard)

Stephan Libiszewski, Water Disputes in the Jordan Basin Region (better link here) - download after logging into Blackboard

 

optional: Miriam R. Lowi, Water and power (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Oct. 31: Jerusalem

Readings:

The Debate at Camp David over Jerusalem's Holy Places (July 2000) - (Middle East Media Research Institute)

An official Israeli view: Basic Law and links to legal background and other papers.

Neve Gordon, pp. 197-222
A Palestinian view: Building Plans in East Jerusalem Post Anapolis
Maps of Jerusalem and old city

 

Nov. 5: Other Constraints: Israeli and Palestinian internal politics

Readings:

Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) - Survey Research Unit: Poll of 5-7 June 2008 (you may look for later polls in their index) - here is poll #29 of 28-30 August 2008

Neve Gordon pp. 114-146, 223-231

Israeli Knesset as a result of the March 2006 elections - to compare with previous January 2003 elections.

home pages of Israel's principal political parties (along with a few other marginal ones).

 

optional :

Michel Warschawski, Toward an Open Tomb: The Crisis of Israeli Society (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004) -(as you read about Israel, think America): Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire (Owl Books, 2005)

Nov. 10: U.S. foreign policy: oil and domestic constraints

Readings:

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," London Review of Books, March 2006, also KSG Working Paper No. RWP06-011 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=891198 or at Harvard's Kennedy School

Concerning reaction to to your Mearsheimer and Walt article, see Michael Massing, The Storm over the Israel Lobby, NYRB June 8, 2006 and, on the other side, Alan Dershowitz, Debunking..

visit AIPAC , the Council for the National Interest, and Washington Report

 

optional: Paul Findley, They Dare Speak to Speak Out, 25-49

Nov. 12: Final preparations for class peace conference - position paper/draft speech due in class and on Blackboard

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Nov. 12: Arms control and nuclear proliferation

Readings:

@ Seymour Hersh, The Sampson Option, chapter 21, pp. 285-305 (the rest of the book is also a great read if you have time, and it is a good historical review of US-Israeli relations)

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' revelations on TV in 2001.

 

Optional:

Center for Defense Information, Israeli Nuclear Delivery Systems

Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on the history of the Israeli nuclear program

Nov. 14: The Class Peace Conference - Provisional Agenda

Nov. 17-26: The Class Peace Conference

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Nov. 26: The Class Peace Conference - revised position papers due in class and on Blackboard

Nov. 27-28: Thanksgiving holiday

Dec. 1: Summing up the peace process: how can we reconcile Palestinian self-determination with Israeli security?

Readings:

@Rand Corporation, Helping a Palestinian State Succeed (Rand, 2004)

Examine our in-class New Resources - and also the Geneva Accord of October 2003

Dec. 3: The Issue of spin and press bias - in Israel, too!

Readings:

@ Alison Weir, "The Coverage - and Non-Coverage - of Israel-Palestine," The Link 38:3 (July-August 2005), 1-13

 

Final issues essay due

Dec. 5: Identifications Test (choice of 20 out of 24: eg. identify and give significance of Sharm el Sheikh)

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