Israeli—Palestinian Conflict Bibliography: Addendum

 

In light of my exchange with Bob Hockett in the comments to the post on East Jerusalem below, I wanted to make available some readings relevant respectively to the “One-State Solution” and the city of Jerusalem as a supplement to the Israeli—Palestinian Conflict Bibliography:

·         Avnery, Uri and Ilan Pappé. “Two States or One State,” A debate sponsored by Gush Shalom (June 11, 2007): http://ilanpappe.com/?p=58

·         Cobban, Helena. “Breakout: Hamas and the End of the Two-State Solution,” Boston Review (May/June 2008): http://bostonreview.net/BR33.3/cobban.php

·         Judt, Tony. “Israel: The Alternative,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 50, No, 16 (Oct. 23, 2003): http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671

·         Lazare, Daniel. “The One-State Solution,” The Nation (Oct. 16, 2003): http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031103/lazare/single

·         Makdisi, Saree. Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008: 281-298.

·         Tilley, Virginia. “The One-State Solution,” London Review of Books, Vol. 25, No. 21 (6 November 2003): http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n21/virginia-tilley/the-one-state-solution

           

·         Armstrong, Karen. Jerusalem: One City Three Faiths. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

·         Asali, Kamil J., ed. Jerusalem in History. New York: Olive Branch Press/Interlink, 2000. 

·         Cheshin, Amir S., Bill Hutman, and Avi Melamed. Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

·         Cline, Eric H. Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004.

·         Elad, Amikam. Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994.

·         Elon, Amos. Jerusalem: City of Mirrors. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1989.

·         Elon, Amos. Jerusalem: Battleground of Memories. New York: Kodansha International, 1995.

·         Friedland, Roger and Richard Hecht. To Rule Jerusalem. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

·         Grabar, Oleg. The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

·         Margalit, Avishai. “The Myth of Jerusalem,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 38, No. 21 (Dec. 19, 1991).

·         Peters, F.E. Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.

·         Peters, F.E. Jerusalem and Mecca: The Typology of the Holy City in the Near East. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

·         Romann, Michael and Alex Weingrod. Living Together Separately: Arabs and Jews in Contemporary Jerusalem.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.

See too the Jerusalem Quarterly (JQ), the only journal dedicated to the history and life of the city of Jerusalem: http://www.jerusalemquarterly.org/ 

 

 

Comments

[Robert Hockett]

Thanks, Patrick,

I certainly don't mean to imply that the 'Christian' offshoot is anything less than the one with by far the most disgusting track record where triumphalist abuse of its forebears is concerned. It's one of the reasons I am especially loath to point my finger in connection with current controversies. Also, do please know that I for my part do not employ the 'anti-s' term that you mention here, as doing so involves a serious charge about motives that I seldom if ever feel confident about leveling. Your other points here are of course all well taken, but I think that I probably have a different empirical take than you on what kinds of argument, addressed to Israeli officials, are apt to build or maintain sufficient confidence as I think must be built and maintained for negotiations ultimately to bear fruit. As ever, I might well be wrong as an empirical matter, but different such assessments are what make horse races, as they say, as well as nice diverse fora like ours.

All best and thanks again,
Bob

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Bob,

As a generalization, the "very nasty track record" you refer to is far more applicable to the Christian tradition and not the Islamic tradition as such. And so-called anti-Semitism (so-called, as Arabs are a Semitic people as well: we need a better term here), to the extent that it exists, is fueled more by political variables than religious beliefs among Muslims in the Middle East today. If the political conflicts were resolved anti-Semitic sentiment (such as it exists) would, I believe, dramatically decline if not disappear.

When Arabs come to outnumber Jews in the state of Israel (euphemistically referred to as Israel's 'demographic problem'), a very real possibility, does that presage a "final solution?"

Those who don't want a one-state solution should be pressuring Israel to assure that a future Palestinian state will be a meaningul or viable one: to date, Israel is doing everything in its power (e.g., the settlements and all the myriad geo-political, structural and institutional paraphenalia that follow in their wake) to assure that this will NOT be the case. For the ugly details, in addition to Makdisi, please see Adi Ophir, Michal Givoni, and Sari Hanafi, eds., The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Territories (New York: Zone Books, 2009).

[Robert Hockett]

Thanks very much for the terrific further thoughts, Patrick, and for the cites to further reading. I should make plain that I don't mean here to attempt to justify the building of further settlements in East Jerusalem, let alone the timing of the most recent announcement of intent to do so. Nor do I wish here to criticize these decisions, for that matter. For these are matters about which I generally find myself strongly inclined to abstain from forming strong opinions, for a number of reasons that I'll post on some time in future. My only concern here is to say that in my (ever fallible) view, the faith traditions that are offshoots of the Jewish tradition have a very nasty track record when it comes to their treatment of their 'elder siblings in the faith,' as one pontiff put it, and reluctance to acknowledge the special significance of Jerusalem to Jewish faith and identity, against that lamentable historical backdrop, I think is bound to cause stalemate in the process of seeking a modus vivendi. I also think that, well into the indefinite future, suggestions of a 'one state solution' will be non-starters. 'One state solutions' simply have too tight an historic correlation with 'final solutions' -- precisely the reason for Israel's founding. I might be predictively wrong, of course, but I truly don't think there is any alternative, for the foreseeable future, to the two state model.

Thanks again for the thoughtful reflections!,
Bob