Week 4 (Apr. 1)

Link to class recording: https://brandeis.zoom.us/rec/share/lTHhuUQEt2ly3AvwRNNzY0mzGwu85lG3Syd0rvRZ5AnQgJx22VPM2_XprcJzZ5Y6.FMPYyq2w-oJ-60Jw

Link to slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RNI1uiEjT-3tvBYPLnylwLXevQwX0btuaHzJXqzpJi4/edit?usp=share_link 

Timeline: From the British Mandate to the War of Independence/Nakba

1922: League of Nations approves British Mandate for Palestine, including the Balfour Declaration; only a few months later are results of the King-Crane commission released, showing that most Arabs of Palestine wanted to be part of Syria
1929: Arab riots across Palestine kill 133 Jews in 7 days; 6 Arabs killed
1936: Arabs protest Jewish immigration, leading to six-month general strike; 81 Jews and 15 Arabs killed
1937: British Peel Commission proposes partition into a Jewish state (20%), Arab state (72%) and a British zone, which would require transfering 225,000 Arabs and 1,250 Jews to their respective states; both sides reject it
1937-9: Arab revolt resumes; 438 Jews killed by Arabs, at least 208 Arabs killed by Jews, 5,000+ killed by security forces
1939: After revolt supressed, British issue White Paper limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 over next five years
1939-45: World War II and the height of the Holocaust
1944: Zionist underground in Palestine launches insurgency against British rule
1946: Anglo-American Committee examines problems of European Jewry and Palestine; both Arabs and Jews reject resulting Morrison-Grady Plan, which proposed a universal federal trusteeship under the British
1947: British return mandate to United Nations, which eventually recommends and adopts a resolution to partition Palestine into a Jewish state (56%), an Arab state (42%) and an international zone (2%); Israel accepts, Arabs reject
1947-48: Civil war erupts between Arabs and Jews of Palestine, resulting in the underground Haganah taking physical control of sizeable parts of the future Jewish state and 300,000 Arabs fleeing their homes
1948-49: Israeli-Arab war results in Israel controlling 78% of British Mandate Palestine, Transjordan controlling the West Bank and Egypt controlling the Gaza Strip, after Israel signs armistice agreements with neighboring Arab states. The war also results in 700,000-800,000 Arab residents of Palestine becoming refugees and 60,000 Arab residents of Palestine becoming internally displaced persons inside Israel

Reading #1

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall" (1923): https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf

Guiding questions:
a)    What is Jabotinsky's attitude toward the Arabs of Palestine?

b)    What is his solution?

c)     What is his long-term vision for Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine?

Reading #2

Excerpts from "The Arab Awakening" by George Antonius, 1938, pp. 399-412.

Guiding questions:

a)    What are the main problems afflicting Palestine, according to Antonius?

b)    What is the solution?

c)    How does he foresee relations between Arabs and Jews?

Reading #3  

Excerpts from The Future of Palestine by The Arab Office, 1947, pp. 78-87.

Guiding questions:

a)    What are the main problems afflicting Palestine, according to The Arab Office?

b)    What is the solution?

c)    How do the authors foresee relations between Arabs and Jews?

Reading #4: Israel's Declaration of Independence, 1948
Available at: https://israeled.org/resources/documents/israel-declaration-independence/

Guiding questions:

a)    How does the document justify the establishment of a Jewish state

b)    What is the place of the Arabs in the new state, according to the declaration?

c)    How does it frame the relationship between Arabs and Jews?

Reading #5: "Statement by the Arab League..." and "Palestinian Army planned by Arabs"

Guiding questions:

a)    How do the documents characterize the establishment of a Jewish state

b)    How do they justify Arab opposition to the Jewish state?

c)    How do these narratives compare to your previous understanding of Arab attitudes toward Israel in 1948?

Maps: 1917 and 1948

Guiding questions:

a)    How would someone look at these two maps from a pro-Palestinian perspective?

b)    How would someone look at these two maps from a pro-Israeli perspective?

c)    How would someone look at these two maps from a pro-human perspective?

Maps: Two ways of looking at the Partition Plan and aftermath of the 1948 war 

Guiding questions:

a)    Which map represents the pro-Palestinian perspective?

b)   Which map represents the pro-Israeli persepctive?

c)    How would someone look at these two maps from a pro-human perspective?