KHC HC 302: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Challenges: Forced Displacement

Section: The Protracted Palestinian Diaspora

Spring 2021

Carrie Preston Section Hours: Thursdays, 9:30 – 10:45am

cjpresto@bu.edu
617-358-5900
Office: 91 Bay State Road
Kilachand Hall Suite 115

Office hours: W 2:00 am-3:00 pm By Zoom: https://bostonu.zoom.us/j/95773234842

Th 10:45 am-11:45 pm

In 1948, the establishment of the state of Israel ignited the first Arab-Israeli War, and a year later
750,000 Palestinians had been displaced and the territory was divided into three separate parts:
the State of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank (of the Jordan River). Subsequent wars,
conflicts, and incursions have produced additional refugees, and today there are over 5.5 million
Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the
branch of the UNHCR that supports Palestinians (and counts all descendants of Palestinian
refugees as refugees). Rather than crisis, we might more accurately characterize the Palestinian
situation as a protracted diaspora.

The ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is not just a battle over land; it also
engages religious, ethnic, and racial identities that have been further shaped by long histories of
persecution and settler colonialism. Israel/Palestine has received more public, political, and
scholarly attention than any other conflict in the world, and it is still an unresolved, devastating
example of the failures of international law and diplomacy. Many of us will come to this section
with strong feelings and beliefs about the Palestinian situation. We will disagree with each other,
and we may feel despair before the complexity of the challenges we raise and the suffering we
contemplate. I ask that we all strive to create a supportive environment in which we can discuss
our views with generosity and a willingness to learn from each other. We will respect ideas and
beliefs that differ from ours. We will engage compassionately with our classroom community
and beyond.
o Please: Be on time and respect the time of your faculty and colleagues.
 Be prepared. Do the reading. Complete the assignments.
 Listen for understanding, not for opportunities to tear down and attack.
 Contribute to discussion concisely and encourage classmates to speak.
 Turn off chat and all social media accounts. In this distanced and often
isolating pandemic, please respect the time we have together and invest in
the space we share.

WEEK 1: Introduction to the Course

1/28/21 Read: Susan Akram, “UNRWA and Forced Migration,” Ch. 18 in Oxford
Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, eds. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, et. al.
Read: Elizabeth Alexander’s Op-Ed, “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine” and Bret
Stephens’ Op-Ed, “The Progressive Assault on Israel” both in The New York Times
  Section expectations and discourse ethics; confronting our biases and assumptions
 Brainstorm ideas of justice and ideas of ethics
 Introduction to the protracted Palestinian diaspora
 Discuss Op-Ed Assignment

WEEK 2: Modern Statehood & Citizenship

2/4/21 Read: Marmoud Darwish, “ID Card,” printed in Vivian Eden’s “The Marmoud
Darwish Poem that Enraged Lieberman and Regev,” in Haaretz (Jul 21, 2016):
https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/how-mahmoud-darwish-enraged-lieberman-1.5413700
and Yehuda Amichai, "Jews in the Land of Israel" from The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
(2015): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58629/jews-in-the-land-of-israel
 History of Palestine, history of Israel
 National aspirations and ethnic/religious self-definitions of Palestinians and Jews
 Who defined the borders of these and other nations?
 Should citizenship be the basis for rights?
 Due: Team Member Self-Study

WEEK 3: Introduction to the Law of Forced Migration

2/11/21 Read: Riccardo Bocco, “UNRWA and the PALESTINIAN REFUGEES:
A History within History,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 28.2-3 (2009), 229–252.
 Definitions of internal displacement, refugees, migrants, human trafficking – all
complicated in the Palestinian context
 Legal frameworks defining Palestinian Diaspora: UNRWA Mandate, Definition of
“Palestinian refugee” (237), “Declaration of Principles” in Washington DC (September
1993) and the “Gaza and Jericho first” Accords in Cairo (May 1994) (240), Oslo
Accords, UNGA Resolution 194
 Who gets to make the laws, resolutions, and accords?
 Due: Op-Ed Rough Draft

2/18/21 Panel Discussion – Meet in Kilachand Hall Commons

WEEK 4: Refugees, Racialization, and Identity

2/25/21 Read: Ronit Lentin, “Race and Surveillance in the Settler Colony: The Case of
Israeli Rule Over Palestine,” Palgrave Commun 3, 17056 (2017): 1-10.
 Racialization in Israel/Palestine
 Defining race vs. ethnicity vs. religious group
 What has been the lasting impact of colonization, decolonization, and settler colonialism,
on race in Israel and Palestine and the Middle East more generally?
 Is this apartheid?
 Due: Context Paper A. Legal, historical, and political context

WEEK 5: Gendered Critiques of the Refugee Regime

3/4/21 Read: Sarah Ihmoud, “Murabata: The Politics of Staying in Place,” Feminist
Studies 45.2-3 (2019): 512-540. Focus on the “Introduction” through pg. 520 and “Gendered
and Sexual Violence” pg. 528 – 533. We will discuss the controversy over the potential hiring of
Dr. Ihmoud, a controversy you can read about in many pieces including The Free Press
https://dailyfreepress.com/blog/2019/11/15/bu-womens-gender-and-sexuality-studies-potential-
hire-accused-of-anti-semitism/ Ihmoud’s most controversial publication is here:
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31481
 Gender-based violence and war, settler-colonialism, occupation, and resistance
 Indigenous feminism and resistance
 Jewish and Muslim feminisms
 Academic freedom and the Israel/Palestine conflict
 Due: Op-ed peer review

WEEK 6: Health Dimensions: The Arava Institute Dialogue Project

3/11/21 Israeli and Palestinian-Jordanian alumni of the Arava Institute for Environmental
Studies will lead a conversation that highlights the transformative use of environmental
peacebuilding at the Arava Institute and discuss how dialogue unearths the roots of geopolitical
conflict.
Read: Matthew Kalman, “In an Israeli Desert, a Modest Effort to Build an Environment
for Peace,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 28, 2013:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/in-the-israeli-desert-a-modest-effort-to-build-an-environment-
for-peace/;
Hadeel Abdelhy and Snjidah Ahmed, “Environmental justice, not dialogue, for Palestinians”
(10.28.18) in The Duke Chronicle: https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2018/10/israel-
palestine-duke-university-environmental-justice-not-dialogue-for-palestinians
Josh Curtis and Alex Frumkin, “Dialogue and environmental justice for Israel and Palestine”
(11.1.18) in The Duke Chronicle: https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2018/11/j-street-u-
duke-university-dialogue-and-environmental-justice-for-israel-and-palestine
 How does the Arava Institute attempt to use environmental research, engineering, and
activism for peacebuilding efforts?
 As many of you learned in 301, climate change is typically a cause for war and conflict;
can it also be a solution?
 Normalization and anti-normalization: Why are these terms relevant to the Arava
Institute?
 How does the Dialogue Project fit into the goals of the Arava Institute and the concerns
about normalization?
 Due Op-ed Rewrite

WEEK 7: Health Dimensions: Trauma and Resilience

3/18/21 Wellness Day: No Class, No Assignments

WEEK 8: Refugee Voices and Narratives

3/25/21 Read: Alasdair Soussi, “Voices of the Palestinian diaspora: Nakba is an open
wound,” in Al Jazeera (8 May 2018): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/voices-
palestinian-diaspora-nakba-open-wound-180507142638726.html
 Refugee stories and experiences – who holds the mic?
 Who benefits from telling stories? Refugees, artists, funders, or aid agencies?
 Midterm course evaluation
  Due: Context Paper B: Health, trauma, resilience; cultural, racialized, class-based, and
gendered contexts

WEEK 9: Technology and its Limits

4/1/21 Read: Megan Giovanetti, “How Tech StartUps are Firing up the Palestinian
Economy,” Ozy (October 1, 2019): https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/palestinians-
turn-to-tech-innovations-to-fire-up-their-crumbling-economy/96955/
 Diagnostics, medicines delivery and administration, expectant mother and maternal
health services
 Tech solutions: can technology do harm?
 Due: Needs Assessment

WEEK 10: Hands-on Critique of Engineering Interventions

4/8/21 No Readings
 Team-building workshop
 Due: Problem Statement

WEEK 11: The Arts and Arts Therapies

4/15/21 Read: Newton, Creede. “Palestinians Performing Therapy through Art,” Al
Jazeera (26 April 2013)
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/04/2013418121827803985.html
Ismail Khalidi, “A Stone’s Throw” (2019)
 Due: Context Paper C: Technological challenges and limits of attempted solutions

WEEK 12: Economics Factors and Stakeholders

4/22/21 Read: Diana Allan, “Commemorative Economies and the Politics of Solidarity in
Shatila Camp,” in Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and
Development 4.1 (2013): 133-148. Focus on pgs. 133 – 140.
 How do humanitarian efforts become a tourist industry, and why is this worrisome? What
is voluntourism?
 Why do the commemorative efforts in Shatila influence Palestinian politics/resistance?
 Due: Rough Draft, Intervention/Design/Policy Paper

WEEK 13: Solutions, Policies, and Interventions Proposed by Student Teams

4/29/21 Read: Mark Stone, “Israel urges world to follow its rapid vaccine rollout, but
Palestinians are left waiting,” Sky (January 11, 2021): https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-
israel-urges-world-to-follow-its-rapid-vaccine-rollout-but-palestinians-are-left-waiting-12184489
 Revisiting the question of ethics: Does Israel have the ethical responsibility to supply
Palestinians with the COVID vaccine? Who will pay? Who will administer the vaccine?
 What does the [post-pandemic] future look like for Palestinians?
 Due: Final reflection on Team Performance
 Due: Final Draft, Intervention/Design/Policy Paper