San Diego State University
Department of History
Jewish-Arab Relations
HIST 680
Spring 2014
Professor Moshe Naor
Class Days: TH (5:00-7:40)
Class Location: AL 566
Office Hours: AL 567, T 4:00-5:00
mnaor@mail.sdsu.edu
Course Description
This course examines the relations between Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine
and in the State of Israel, beginning with the emergence of Zionism in the late
nineteenth century until 1967. We will examine the sources, characteristics, and
significance of the conflict, as well as the development and maintenance of
relationships of affinity, cooperation, and coexistence between Arabs and Jews.
Within the broader context of Jewish history in the Middle East and the Islamic
countries, this course will discuss the influence of Zionist Ideology on Jewish-Arab
relations, the idea of the use of force, and the emergence of the Jewish Yishuv (prestate community) in Palestine. We will also examine the change in this process that
occurred after the establishment of the State of Israel, and the question of the status of
the Arab minority in Israel. Accordingly, the course will examine social, political, and
cultural aspects of the relations between Arabs and Jews, focusing on such ideas and
concepts as integration, separation, a dual society, mixed cities, and Oriental Zionism.
Other issues we will examine include the different positions within the Zionist
movement on the “Arab question,” and the political contacts between the Zionist
leadership and representatives of Palestinian and Arab nationalism, against the
background of the change created by the transition from Ottoman rule to the British
colonial administration.
Grading
- Five-page book review, which has to be completed by week seven, and an oral
presentation of the book review in class - (25%)
- Research Paper (approximately 15 pages) (60%)
- Classroom presentation (15%)
Course Topics and Readings
Class 1(Jan.23) - East and West in Zionist Ideology
Mark R. Cohen, "Islam and the Jews: Myth, Counter-Myth, History", Jerusalem
Quarterly, 38 (1986), pp. 125-137.
Gil Eyal, The Disenchantment of the Orient: Expertise in Arab Affairs and the Israeli
State, Stanford University Press, 2006, pp. 33-61.
Amnon Rubinstein, From Herzl to Rabin: The Changing Image of Zionism, Holmes
&Meier, 2000, pp.54-81.
Class 2 (Jan.30)– Nationalism and Origins of a Conflict
Neville J. Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I, Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1976, pp.32-57, 93-116.
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National
Consciousness, Columbia University Press, 1997, Chapter 7.
Anita Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992, pp.53-82.
Gershon Shafir, Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,
University of California Press, 1996, pp. 1-21
Class 3 (Feb.6)- Society, Culture and Politics in Late Ottoman Palestine
Michelle U. Campos, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early
Twentieth-Century Palestine, Stanford University Press, 2010, pp. 166-196.
Neil Caplan, Futile Diplomacy: Early Arab-Zionist Negotiation Attempts 1913-1931,
Frnak Cass, pp.10-46.
Yosef Gorny, Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987, pp.11-77.
Abigail Jacobson, “A City Living through Crisis: Jerusalem during World War I,”
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 36 No. 1 (April 2009), pp. 73-92.
Class 4 (Feb.13) – A "Dual Society" Under British Colonialism
Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine under the
Mandate, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp.16-35.
Barbara J. Smith, The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy:
1920-1929, London and New York: L.B. Tauris Publishers, 1993, pp. 63-132.
Deborah S. Bernstein, Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in
Mandatory Palestine, State University of New York Press, 2000, pp.19-47.
Zachary Lockman, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine,
1906-1948, University of California Press, 1996, pp.58-110.
Class 5 (Feb.20)- The Zionist Ideology and the "Arab Question"
Yosef Gorny, Zionism and the Arabs, 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 81-180.
Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948,
University of California n Press, 2008, pp.15-92.
Yfaat Weiss, "Central European Ethnonationalism and Zionist Binationalism", Jewish
Social Studies, 11/1 (2004), 93-117.
Adi Gordon, "The Need for West: Hans Kohn and the North Atlantic Community",
Journal of Contemporary History, 46/1 (2011), pp.33-57.
Class 6 (Feb.27) : The Conflict and the Palestinian Arabs
Noah Haiduc-Dale, Arab Christians in British Mandate Palestine, Edinburgh
University Press, 2013, pp.130-162
Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: the Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood,
Beacon Press, 2006, pp.1-30
Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian
National Movement, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988, pp.1-49.
Class 7 (Mar.6) – The "Mixed Cities"
Michelle Campos, "Remembering Jewish-Arab Contact and Conflict", in: Sandy
Sufian and Mark LeVine (eds.), Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the
Study of Israel-Palestine, Rowman & Littlefeld Publishers, 2007, pp.41-65.
Tamir Goren, "Cooperation in the Guiding Principle: Jews and Arabs in the Haifa
Municipality during the British Mandate", Israel Studies, 11/3(2006), pp.108-141.
Deborah Bernstein, "Contested Contact: Proximity and Social Control in Pre-1948
Jaffa and Tel-Aviv", in: Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz (eds.), Mixed Towns,
Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations
and Cultural Encounters in Palestinian-Israeli Towns, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007,
pp.215-241.
Mark LeVine, Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and the Struggle for
Palestine, 1880-1948, University of California Press, 2005, Chapter 4.
Mustafa Abbasi, "The War on the Mixed Cities: The Depopulation of Arab Tiberias
and the Destruction of its Old Sacred City (1948-9)", Holy Land Studies, 7/1 (2008),
pp.45-80.
Class 8 (Mar.13) – Book Review Presentations
Class 9 (Mar.20) - The Oriental Jews in Mandate Palestine
Albert Memmi, "Who is an Arab Jew?", Israel Academic Committee on the Middle
East", 1975.
Lital Levy, "Historicizing the Concept of Arab Jews in the Mashriq", Jewish
Quarterly Review, 98/4 (2008), pp.452-469.
Salim Tamari, "Ishaq al-Shami and the Predicament of the Arab-Jew in Palestine",
Jerusalem Quarterly, 21 (2004), pp 10-26.
Reuven Snir, ‚"Ana min al- Yahud‛: The Demise of Arab-Jewish Culture in the Twentieth
Century", Archiv Orientali, 74 (2006), pp. 387-424.
Class 10 (Marc.27) – The 1948 War: War and Society
Anita Shapira, "Jerusalem in 1948: A Contemporary Perspective"' Jewish Social
Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Spring/Summer 2011), pp. 78-123
Emmanuel Sivan, "To Remember is to Forget: Israel's 1948 War", Journal of
Contemporary History, 28/2 (1993), pp.341-359.
Moshe Naor, "Israel's 1948 War of Independence as a Total War",
Journal of Contemporary History, 43/2 (April 2008), pp, 241-257.
Salim Tamari, Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture,
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009, pp.56-70.
Itamar Radai, "The Collapse of the Palestinian-Arab Middle Class in 1948: The Case
of Qatamon", Middle Eastern Studies, 43/6 (2007), pp.961-982.
Class 11 (Apr. 10) – The Exodus of the Middle Eastern Jews
Yaroz Tsur, "Israeki Historiography and the Ethnic Problem", in: Benny Morris (ed.),
Making Israel, University of Michigan Press, 2007, pp. 231-277.
Moshe Gat, The Jewish Exodus from Iraq, 1948-1951, Frank Cass 1997, pp.160-191.
Joel Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture. Politics, and the Formation
of a Modern Diaspora, University of California Press, 1998, pp. 60-89.
Michael R. Fischbach, Jewish Prosperity claims against Arab Countries, Columbia
University Press, 2008, Chapter 2.
Class 12 (Apr.17) – The Mizrahim and Sephardim in the State of Israel
Ella Shohat, "Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish
Victims", Social Text, 19-20 (1988), pp.1-35.
Ilan Troen, "New Departures in Zionist Planning: The Development Town", in: Ilan
Troen and Noah Lucas (eds.), Israel: The First Decade of Independence,, State
University of New York Press, 1995, pp.441-460.
Sami Shalom Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews,
Routledge, 2010, pp.43-80.
Nissim Leon, "The Secular Origins of Mizrahi Traditionalism", Israel Studies, 13/3
(2008), pp. 22-42.
Class 13 (Apr.24) – Memory and History of the Jews of Islam
Nurith Geretz and George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema, Edinburgh University Press,
2008, pp.11-58
Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation, University
of Texas, 2010, pp.105-162
Film: "The house on Chelouche Street", Director: Moshe Mizrahi, Israel 1973.
Documentary Film: Iraq-N'-Roll, director: Gili Gaon, 2011
Class 14 (May.1) – Between Majority and Minority: The Arabs in Israel
Sammy Samooha, "Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel: A Deeply Divided Society", in:
Anita Shapira (ed.), Israeli Identity in Transition, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004, pp.3167.
Shira Robinson, Citizen Strangers, Stanford University Press, 2013, pp.68-112
Hillel Cohen, Good Arabs, University of California Press, 2010, pp.65-94
Amal Jamal, The Arab Minority Nationalism in Israel, Routledge, 2011, pp. 77-107.
Class 15 (May.8)– The Mediterranean, Levantine and Semitic Options
"The New Hebrew Nation (The Cannanite outlook): Interview with Yonatan Ratosh",
in: Ehud Ben Ezer (ed.), Unease in Zion, Jerusalem Academic press, 1974, pp. 201234.
Yaacov Shavit, "The Mediterranean and Mediterraneanism: The Origins, Meaning
and Application of a Geo-Cultural Notion in Israel", Mediterranean Historical
Review, 3/2 (1988), pp. 96-117.
Alexandra Nocke, The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Israeli Identity, Brill:
London and Boston, 2009, Chapter 4.
Gil Z. Hochberg, ‚‘‘The Mediterranean Option: On the Politics of Regional
Affiliation in Current Israeli Cultural Imagination", Journal of Levantine Studies, 1
(2011), pp. 41-65.
David Ohana, "The Mediterranean Option in Israel: an Introduction to the Thought of
Jacqeline Kahanoff", Mediterranean Historical Review, 21/2 (2006), pp.239-265.