Palestine comprises the territory that lies between the Mediterranean Sea (on the west), Lebanon (in the north), the Gulf of Aqaba and the Sinai Peninsula (on the south) and the Jordan River (on the east) unless you are a Revisionist Zionist or a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in which case Palestine includes presentday Jordan. Although it covers a small geographic area and includes a relatively small population (compare presentday Israel's 7.5 million citizens with Egypt's 80 million), the dispute between the two rival sets of nationalisms which claim the sole right to control all or parts of this territory has remained at the forefront of international attention for more than six decades. This course will examine the origins of the dispute between Israelis and their forebears, on the one hand, and Palestinians and theirs, on the other, from the midnineteenth century through the present day. Among the topics to be examined: the nature of empires and nations; the origins and diffusion of nationalism; the social history of Palestine up to Zionist colonization; the origins of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism; varieties of Zionism; Zionism and colonialism; seminal events and their consequent symbolic connotations (the 1936 "Great Revolt," the 1948 nakba [disaster]); the construction of a national consensus in Israel; 1967 and its aftermath; the PLO and its Palestinian rivals; the first intifada; the redefinition of the conflict as a result of Oslo and GWOT (the global war on terrorism); the rise and fall of Israeli unilateralism; the effects of the Arab uprisings on the dispute and the rise of Palestinian unilateralism.
