How Did We Get Here? A Deep Dive into the History of Israel and Palestine
The Hamas-engineered massacre of October 7, 2023 stunned and shocked Israel and the Jewish world to the core. It triggered a massive Israeli response that has reduced large parts of northern Gaza to rubble. Supporters of Israel and the Palestinians are more bitterly divided than ever, around the world and especially on college campuses. What are the roots of today’s conflict? And what does it portend for the future of the region?
To gain insight into this latest stage in a brutal and divisive conflict that has ebbed and flowed for over a century, Fordham University’s Center for Jewish Studies is sponsoring a four-part series on the history of the conflict with Dr. Hussein Ibish and Prof. David Myers. In 2017-2018, Ibish and Myers came to campus to deliver a three-part series on the history of this conflict. Five years later, they return to Fordham to offer an in-depth perspective on the history of Israel-Palestine in light of the current moment.
Dr. Hussein Ibish is a Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW). He is a weekly columnist for The National and previously served as a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine.
Prof. David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor and Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair of Jewish History at UCLA. The author and editor of many books, he directs the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy and the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate.
The event series is co-presented by the Center for Jewish Studies, Center for Religion and Culture, Department of History, the International Studies Program, and the Middle Eastern Studies Program.
Part 1: Arabs and Jews: 1882-1948
Recommended readings for Part I:
Gur Alroey, An Unpromising Land: Jewish Migration to Palestine in the Early Twentieth Century (Stanford University Press, 2014)
David Cesarani, “Anti-Zionism in Britain, 1922–2002: Continuities and Discontinuities.” Journal of Israeli History 25, no. 1 (March 2006): 131-160. https://doi.org/10.1080/13531040500502692
Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948 (University of California Press, 2008)
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (Columbia University Press, 1997)
_______, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Beacon Press, 2006)
_______, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (Metropolitan, 2020)
Walid Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1987)
_______, All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992)
Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
Derek Penslar, “Is Zionism a Colonial Movement?” in Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (Routledge, 2006)
Tom Segev, One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs under the Mandate (New York: Metropolitan, 2000)
Anita Shapira, Israel: A History (Chicago University Press, 2012)
Margalit Shilo, “The Immigration Policy of the Zionist Institutions 1882–1914,” Middle Eastern Studies 30 (1994): 597-617 http://www.jstor.org/stable/4283659
Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999)
Part II: 1948-1967
Tuesday, February 20th, 2024 at 1PM (webinar)
Part III: 1967-2023
Tuesday, March 19th, 2024 at 6PM (in-person and live streamed)
Part IV: October 7th and the Aftermath
For additional resources related to the aftermath of October 7th and the subsequent war click here.