Perspectives on “The Wall”: Online Project
One of the themes of this course is to recognize and integrate the various social sciences when confronting a particular real-world problem. In this section of the capstone we will be exploring numerous perspectives to understand the ongoing conflict between the Arab world and the Israelis. In our society, most of us learn about other places, develop opinions, and express our interests (particularly about matters in the Middle East) through media sources. Yet we rarely look closely at what that media is telling us. Is a story about politics or economics? Is the story really about what the main byline says it is? What underlying messages are there that we don’t recognize?
We will be writing blog entries (1 a week, 2 total) that focus on the building of walls between the Palestinian and Israeli populations. You can write about “the wall”, but you can also write about other aspects that divide peoples. You will also be required to respond to others posts (at least 3 responses over the 2 week period). As we engage with the readings, our class periods and the Internet I expect each of you to respond to your own sources of material on the conflict in Israel/Palestine as a civic dialog and learning exercise. What do the social sciences have to offer us as analytical tools? What can we learn about Palestine? About Israel? About the rest of the world’s relationship to these places through what is said in the wide world of media?
There are two parts to this project—the online participation (original posts and responses) and an offline "normal" reflective essay.
ok it's Iraq but it's interesting
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Here is a link to a blog put up by Morgan on a different Blog. There are a
number of entries that tie more to your topic than theirs. Enjoy.
16 years ago
The focus of this blog is an attempt to show why I am of the opinion that the history of Israel and Palestine must be view as a classic example of colonialism. This history must be seen like the relationship between the horse and the rider; the Jews of Israel are the riders, while the people of Palestine are the horse.
ReplyDeleteIn order to fully understand and interpret the history of Israel and palestine, it is important to answer the following questions: What is Zionism? How does Zionism relate to Jewish settlement on the West Bank of Palestine? Zionism can be defined as the belief that Israel has a fundamental right to exist. The Zionist movement is the Jewish national movement that was formed to establish a homeland for the Jews who were scattered all over the Diaspora. Zionism in this sense can be equated with colonialism.
According to Ilan Pappe (2007) Jewish colonization of Palestine was a little different, in that the Jewish colonizers "acquired the land to settle on" (p. 73). The Zionist movement bought land from Palestinian Arabs and establish something called Kibbutz; a sort of a collective community that was traditionally based on agriculture. On these communal farmsthey also formed the "histradut" (p. 81), a kind of Jewish labor organization. It is important to note that the Zionist movement excluded the Arab Paloestinian majority form this labor movement. In fact they argue that " a necessary condition for the realization of Zionism is the conquest of all jobs in Palestine by Jews" (p. 84). This arrangement to monopolize for the Jewish workers was a clear indication of the exclusion of Palestinian workers from the new society in the making. By this time, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) was massively engaged in purchasing land form the Palestinians and otheher landowners and these lands became the collective property of the Jewish people, it could only be "sublet and then, only to Jews" (p. 85). This arrangement had three aims according Pappe: internal colonization, land nationalization, and corporation, and resolved to establish in Palestine settlement cooperatives (p. 85). This segmentation of the labor market by exclusion of Arab competition determined the separate Jewish identity. Thus, we can see the formation of the Jewish state on Palestinian land without regard of the destiny to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Can colonization be any different? You tell me.
TBC*
References:
Pappe', Ilan (2007) The Israeli? Palestinian Question. A Reader. 2nd Edition. Routledge- Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York.
Gilbert, Martin (2008) The Routledge Atlas of The Arab-Israeli Conflict. 9th Edition. Routledge-Taylor and Francis Group. London and New York