In his book, A History of Modern Palestine, Ilan Pappe attempts to add to the discussion of the struggle between Jews and their counterparts over the idea of Israeli state. Using documents that have been released by the Israeli secret service that one of his graduate students had found, Pappe attempts to paint a “new history of the conflict” in the Middle East. His books adds a new element to the argument. The documents, released in the late 1980s, but the US, UN, and Israeli government show that the state of Israel was not completely innocent in the 1940s conflict. While history usually is written by the victors, Pappe, known for being critical of Israel and it policies, writes an alternate history. The questions becomes, does he do the subject a justice or fairness?
Pappe books opens up in uncontroversial enough discussing the history of the Ottomans and the typical way that most people have looked at the struggle in the region (Pappe, 3). He presents this idea, in order to attack the foundations of Israel of what it stands for. As the introduction continues, however, that narrative is interrupted quickly by a brief overview of the alternate history that the reader will see throughout the remainder of the book. “The Israeli (and before that Zionist) version of pasts events and echoes adopts what I will call the common version. Israel’s self-image, as a Western identity in the midst of an Arab wilderness, and its perceptions as Palestinians as “others’ feeds this view (Pappe 6).” Pappe begins to tell the narrative of Palestine, in which only calls in the Land of Israel, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Pappe starts with Napoleon's invasion in 1799. The focus of the story is of both Arabs and Jews. It focuses on t...
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...who admits compassion for the colonized not the colonizer; who sympathizes with the occupied not the occupiers; and sides with the workers not the bosses. He feels for women in distress, and has little admiration for men in command.... Mine is a subjective approach....” (Pappe, 11)
This quote is excrutiatingly important. When reading his book, one should note the biases inside and with this quote; Pappe does all who read a disservice.
While Pappe attempts to lend a new sort of historical narrative to the mountain of already innumerable texts on the Middle East conflict, his story falls short. While the narratives are fascinating, his use of poor sources, not to mention his open and outright bias towards the situation, he does not help. This book, while extensively read, falls short of passing a historical narrative and should be read with extreme skepticism.
...r remains faithful to the memory of his peaceful childhood when Jews and Palestinians lived together in peace, and the prospect of a better future. Despite the political wrongs his people have suffered, he is proud of his heritage and intends to “restore race relations between Jews and Palestinians, (by restoring) human dignity” (146). To do this, Chocour implements innovative techniques: he has Palestinians visit the Kibbutzim, and has Jews spend time with Palestinian families. Chocour’s message is quite honorable, “to change hearts not institutions” (222). Chocour remembers that “Jews and Palestinians are brothers, the(y) have the same father, Abraham, and believe in the same God” (34). It is sad that peoples in this region need to be remnded that they are brothers, but it is comforting that there are men like Chocour, who valiantly assume this task as their own.
This marked the beginning of the Palestine armed conflict, one of its kinds to be witnessed in centuries since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War 1. Characterized by a chronology of endless confrontations, this conflict has since affected not only the Middle East relations, but also the gl...
On the streets of Jerusalem, in the rubble of Ramallah, in synagogues, in mosques, in the hearts and minds of millions in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the remainder of Israel, Israelis and Palestinians are locked in a clash of civilizations. In his masterful work, The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel L. Huntington outlines a theory which approaches international politics on the scale of civilizations. However, he circumvents discussion about Israel. Huntington cautiously describes Israel as a “non-Western” (Huntington 90) country, but identifies the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as one along a fault line between civilizations (267). Though he chooses to avoid the issue, Huntington’s theory provides a groundwork for analyzing the conflict in Israel in terms of a clash of civilizations between Judaism and Islam. This is a dangerous and provocative idea. But if we dare examine its implications and explore its insights, we risk a more complete understanding of the conflict which has plagued relations between Palestinians and Israelis in particular, Muslim countries and Israel in general, for over fifty years.
For this course, we are using two different books to guide our learning throughout the semester. One of the books is Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary. The other book used in this course is The Modern Middle East: A History by James Gelvin. Both of these books tell the history of the Middle East. Although these books discuss the similar subjects, they are written and tell the history in different ways. This paper will create a comparison between these two books by showing the differences between them.
The Holocaust was the almost complete destruction of Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II, which lasted between1939 and 1945. We can learn much from this event and ways to prevent similar events from happening again. However, it can be compared to today’s Arab Israeli Conflict, which is the cause of a dispute over the land of Palestine.
Hedges’s first entry has him in Beit Agron receiving his press pass and preparing for the dangerous trip ahead. While leaving he notes a man of Israeli Arabic descent that voices his opinion on the Palestinians and how they “are animals,” and that “…Israel is a land of love…Palestinians do not love…We should put fire to them.”
Yapp, Malcolm. The Near East since the First World War: A History to 1995. London: Longman, 1996. Print.
As the trains follows its route, the excited passengers consult their travel guides and imagine ancient times based on the book descriptions and the landscapes perceived. Most of them are prosperous emancipated Jews, naively searching for a solution to the Jewish question. Of them, only Israel Zangwill is not naive. He is a well-known, incisive writer who sees Palestine as it is, a territory already occupied by villagers and farmers. Seven years later, when giving a speech in New York, he scandalizes his audience by stating that Palestine is populated and that the sons of Israel should be prepared to take the country by force. As a result he is driven out of the Zionist movement, only to return in the second decade of the twentieth century with more radical postures.
Joe Sacco’s graphic novel, Palestine, deals with the repercussions of the first intifada in Israel/Palestine/the Holy Land. The story follows the author through the many refugee camps and towns around Palestine as he tries to gather information, stories, and pictures to construct his graphic novel. While the book is enjoyable at a face level, there are many underlying themes conveyed throughout its illustrated pages and written text.
The ongoing and explosive Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when two major nationalist movements among the Jews and Arabs were born. Both of these groups’ movements were geared toward attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East, where they each had historical and religious ties to the land that lies between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Toward the end of the 19th century, Southern Syria (Palestine) was divided into two regions, inhabited primarily by Arab Muslims, and ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire (BBC News). At this time, most of the Jews worldwide lived predominantly in eastern and central Europe. When the Zionist political movement was established in 1887 and began to fund land purchases in the Ottoman Empire controlled region of Palestine, tensions between the two groups arose. Since then, Israel and Palestine have been vying for control of this land that they both covet, and this conflict remains as one of the world’s major sources of instability today, involving many different players. One of these players who continues to halt the peace process, is a militant fundamentalist Islamic organization called Hamas. Hamas has intensified extreme opposition and bloodshed in the region, with the aim of destroying the state of Israel. However, few people know that starting in the mid 1970s, Israel secretly supported an organization that would later emerge as Hamas, even though both groups had competing future visions for the nation. Why did it choose to do this when it had so much at stake? This paper will address the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leading up to the beginning of Israeli support of Hama...
He tried to portray the world through the terms of compassion and hope, but at the same time “he was profoundly disturbed by the brutality of totalitarianism and the savagery of war,”
For many centuries, Judaic and Arabian societies have engaged in one of the most complicated and lengthy conflicts known to mankind, the makings of a highly difficult peace process. Unfortunately for all the world’s peacemakers the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the war between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, is rooted in far more then ethnic tensions. Instead of drawing attention towards high-ranking officials of the Israeli government and Hamas, focus needs to be diverted towards the more suspect and subtle international relations theory of realism which, has imposed more problems than solutions.
Edward Said “States” refutes the view Western journalists, writers, and scholars have created in order to represent Eastern cultures as mysterious, dangerous, unchanging, and inferior. According to Said, who was born in Jerusalem at that time Palestine, the way westerners represent eastern people impacts the way they interact with the global community. All of this adds to, Palestinians having to endure unfair challenges such as eviction, misrepresentation, and marginalization that have forced them to spread allover the world. By narrating the story of his country Palestine, and his fellow countrymen from their own perspective Said is able to humanize Palestinians to the reader. “States” makes the reader feel the importance of having a homeland, and how detrimental having a place to call home is when trying to maintain one’s culture. Which highlights the major trait of the Palestinian culture: survival. Throughout “States”, Said presents the self-preservation struggles Palestinians are doomed to face due to eviction, and marginalization. “Just as we once were taken from one habitat to a new one we can be moved again” (Said 543).
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian.” Stated former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir after three fourths of one million Palestinians had been made refugees, over five hundred towns and cities had been obliterated, and a new regional map was drawn. Every vestige of the Palestinian culture was to be erased. Resolution 181, adopted in 1947 by the United Nations declared the end of British rule over Palestine (the region between the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River) and it divided the area into two parts; a state for the Jewish and one for the Arab people, Palestine. While Israel was given statehood, Palestine was not. Since 1947, one of the most controversial issues in the Middle East, and of course the world, is the question of a Palestinian state. Because of what seems a simple question, there have been regional wars among Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, terrorist attacks that happen, sometimes daily, displacement of families from their homes, and growing numbers of people living in poverty. Granting Palestinian statehood would significantly reduce, or alleviate, tensions in the Middle East by defining, once and for all, the area that should be Palestine and eliminating the bloodshed and battles that has been going on for many years over this land.
The graphic novel Palestine written by Joe Sacco is a trustworthy description of different stories in the heart of the century-long conflict between Arabs and Israeli. Sacco produced the graphic novel after spending two months with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories in late 1991 and early 1992. Things certainly have changed since thenThe story is all about what happened in that part of the Middle East at the beginning of the 1990s. In this respect, a critical viewpoint should be applied in order to discuss the main topics in detail. Thus, Palestine is actually a guide for a Westerner willing to know what occurs in the Middle East each time the conflict between Israeli and Palestinians takes place.Excellent contemporary graphic novel. The characters convincingly portrayed. Sacco has a journalist eye and a storyteller’s heart.