Palestine

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• SOURCE: TIME
  11/3/2021
  

  How Christian Archaeologists Fed Today's Strife in Jerusalem

  by Andrew Lawler

  The incursions of 19th century Christian archaeologists onto Jerusalem's historic acropolis created a sense of seige on the part of Palestinian Muslims, which is echoed today in ongoing conflict over the city's religious sites. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/14/2021
  

  Opinion: The Palestinian Political Class has Become a Heavy Burden on the People

  Two observers of the Palestinian political scene argue that the leading factions of Hamas and Fatah are more motivated to maintain their own power than to support a growing, youth-led Palestinian movement for justice. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  6/12/2021
  

  The Complicated History Behind BLM's Solidarity With The Pro-Palestinian Movement

  "We need to understand that Black identification with Zionism predates the formation of Israel as a modern state," says Robin D. G. Kelley, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies social movements.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  6/8/2021
  

  UK Education System Struggles to Prepare for Exams as Israel-Palestine Conflict Scares Publishers

  Publishers have withdrawn materials needed for prep for the British exams in middle east history because of political complaints of bias both against Israel and the Palestinians. 

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• SOURCE: Times of Israel
  6/3/2021
  

  Solomon's Peace Accord

  by David Marks

  Can Israelis and Palestinians imagine and implement a Solomonic peace? 

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• SOURCE: Eurozine
  6/3/2021
  

  The Unbearable Easiness of Killing

  by Arie M. Dubnov

  "As a colleague justly commented, it is only helpful to call a situation ‘complicated’ if one is committed to unfolding the package, willing to examine its contents and prepared to be surprised by what one finds hidden inside."

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• SOURCE: Contingent
  5/28/2021
  

  Because of Palestine

  by N.A. Mansour

  "It is because I am Palestinian that I can tell you that objectivity—in history-writing, in the archives, in museums—does not exist."

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• 5/30/2021
  

  The Settler Colonialist Frame Helps Clarify What's at Stake in the Middle East for Israelis, Palestinians, and Peace

  by Jeff Kolnick

  Looking at the recent resurgence of armed conflict between Israel and Hamas as part of a project of settler colonialism clarifies the nature of the conflict, and suggests that the immediate cessation of eviction of Palestinians is essential for peace. 

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• 5/23/2021
  

  For Israel and the Palestinians, Reconciliation Must Precede a Peace Process

  by Alon Ben-Meir

  If the recent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas holds, many may be tempted to push for renewing a negotiated peace process. This is skipping the vital and difficult work of reconciliation that is necessary to a just peace.

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• 5/23/2021
  

  Jerusalem: A Divided and Invented City

  by James A.S. Sunderland

  Both Hamas and the Israeli right base their claims to Jerusalem on understandings of the city as shaped by the orientalist and segregationist values of British governors during the Mandate period, and not on the city's longer heterogenous and multicultural history. Peace activists look to that history as an example of coexistence. 

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• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  5/20/2021
  

  In Israel, the Violent Legacy of 1948

  by Benny Morris

  "The chaos in the towns of Lydda, Ramle, Haifa, Umm al-Fahm and Acre is a dim echo of the civil war between Palestine’s Jewish and Arab communities that engulfed the country during the first months of the 1948 war."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/18/2021
  

  This is a War Israel Can’t Win

  by Max Boot

  Post columnist Max Boot argues that the current cycle of attacks and reprisals are symbolic political gestures, and that Israel should declare that it's made its point and resume the work of political normalization with its Arab neighbors and political concessions with the Palestinian Authority that marginalize Hamas.

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  5/17/2021
  

  Middle East Historian: Biden Administration is 'Complicit in Shielding Israel' from International Pressure

  Historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the conflict with Andrea Mitchell and argues that the Biden administration's support is protecting Israel from pressure from other nations to stop air strikes in Gaza or negotiate with Hamas.

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• SOURCE: KPFA
  5/17/2021
  

  Rashid Khalidi on Palestinian History: From The Ottoman Empire to Settler Colonialism

  Middle East historian Rashid Khalidi speaks with Pacifica Radio's Politics and Letters on the history of Palestine.

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• SOURCE: New York Times`
  5/14/2021
  

  In Israel’s Rising Violence, Ripples From 1948

  The eruption of communal violence between Jews and Arabs in Israeli towns with mixed populations is a legacy of the events of 1948, when, in the context of war, many towns' Arab populations were purged (historians debate the degree to which this was planned, or part of Israeli state policy). 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  5/12/2021
  

  Why the Al-Aqsa Mosque has Often been a Site of Conflict

  by Ken Chitwood

  "Controlled access to the site reminds Palestinians of their relative powerlessness in their ongoing land disputes with Israeli authorities. At the same time, attacks at Al-Aqsa resonate with Muslims across the world who react with horror to what they see as the desecration of one of their most sacred sites."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/10/2021
  

  Sheikh Jarrah Highlights the Violent Brazenness of Israel's Colonialist Project

  by Noura Erakat and Mariam Barghouti

  Media attention to the recent actions of Zionist settlers displacing Palestinian occupants of East Jerusalem should not give the impression that this activity is new. The authors argue it is part of a process that has been continuous since 1948. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  5/11/2021
  

  Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return

  by Peter Beinart

  Peter Beinart argues that the history of the Jewish people and the events of 1948 compel Israeli political leaders and American and world Jewish organizations to recognize a right of return for displaced Palestinians as part of a resolution to the current crisis in East Jerusalem. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  5/13/2021
  

  The World of Edward Said

  by Esmat Elhalaby

  Previous biographies of the Arab scholar and Palestinian advocate Edward Said have either reduced him to his more provocative political statements or treated those politics as a pose. A new biography by Timothy Brennan examines the connections between intellectual life and a global community of activists. 

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  1/12/2021
  

  Israeli Rights Group: Nation Isn't a Democracy but an "Apartheid Regime"

  B'Tselem declared that "the traditional view of Israel as a democracy operating side-by-side with a temporary Israeli occupation in the territories 'imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects ... has grown divorced from reality'." The Israeli embassy in London dismissed the finding.