Category: WK11: Israel-Palestine

This week we closely engaged with Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine and Phyllis Bennis’ Understanding Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. Both these pieces in conversation with each other offer a framework and important socio-cultural and legal history for understanding the “conflict.” The use of “conflict” to describe the relationship between Palestine and Israel has also been critiqued, given the clear deprivation of autonomous power for the Palestinian people. Nonetheless, as articulated by Edward Said, we come to know the “Palestinian Question” as a question intimately involving self-determination as Israel and the West have cultivated an image “to deny their humanity and legitimacy.” Said further elaborates how Palestinians have essentially been erased from history, and what little history is presented, is framed with a negative light on Palestinians. The reading by Phyllis Bennis’, similarly covers the socio-cultural and historical construction of the issue; however, it does it in a manner of a question and answer format. While this format could be somewhat helpful to someone who has little to no knowledge about the complex relationship between Palestine and Israel, the questions could fall short or provide a particular framing of Palestinians. Three common themes that we found in both readings were zionism/colonialism, representation and agency. These themes interact quite closely in how the narrative about Palestinians is constructed, and more specifically, Said explains how Palestinians have taken it up for themselves to engage in practices that preserve Palestinian identity, culture and history as the West does not take much interest in the cause. In all, I believe Said sums up his argument with the simple rhetorical question of “By what moral or political standard are we expected to lay aside our claims to our national existence, our land, our human rights?” (xvii / pdf 17). Colonialism and the expansion of empire often confines moral and political standards to a small margin by which causes such as Palestine are seen as obscure, as they further their attempts to expand empire by controlling the narrative. As I have engaged with the question with my research project, a quote from Dr. Sarah Ihmoud stands out as she articulated that “Palestine is a paradigm for our alternative futures that we are working to create” during a CentroPR webinar titled “Beyond Borders: Traversing Settler Colonial Logics.” I think this quote provides a point to further explore the relationality of the Palestinian Question and further explore land as we have done so thus far in this class.

After reading, The Question of Palestine and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict I was able to analyze the two different strategic approaches to educating the audience on the history of Palestine and Israel from two different perspectives. The Question of Palestine by Edward Said took an approach that discussed the historical context of Palestine and how the usage of Western history records connects to the Zionist agenda as European countries have often taken part in failing to acknowledge Palestine and the native people. Edward Said, as a Palestinian himself, addresses at the start of the book that the intent is to educate people on a concept that has been misconstrued and connected directly to the effects of colonialism. On the other hand, Understanding the Palestianian-Israeli Conflict alludes to the understanding that the challenges within the situation have equal platforms of power and does not acknowledge the marginalization of the Palestinian people or the erasure of their history due to intention to invalidate the community standing. As a reader it is evident that the language of Bennis is less complex as the “conflict” is broken down into questions for an audience that may not have had experience learning about the topic. Quite often the author attempts to balance the situation in the book through claims including “The violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories has come from both sides” (Bennis 2). This wording alludes to the fact that a conflict as mentioned in the title is an equally challenging situation and does not fully address the difference in power and support between Israel and Palestine. While simplifying language to better educate an audience about a situation that they may not have been educated on in the past, it can often lead to a lack of historical context, leading to misinformation. This question-and-answer format is flawed as an audience can pick questions that interest them which can shape a misconstrued understanding of the history and overall ignore the full message Bennis is attempting to address in her piece. Said takes an approach that is from resistance from a system that refuses to unpack the large history and goes into detail about the history of Palestine to keep the records alive and to educate the audience of information that may have been hidden or switched around based on media, educational courses, or government perceptions.

  In The Question of Palestine Robert Said presents the conflict by humanizing Palestinians who are often painted as barbaric terrorists, a common stereotype of Arab countries. He goes about debunking many myths about the history of the conflict and how these false narratives have tried to delegitimize the reality of Plaestinians. This book reminds me of C.S Lewis Screwtape Letters because it presents what the enemy tries to do to undermine believers in the same way Said is trying to show how these myths undermined the Palestinian identity and movement. In Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Bennis a paper that attempts to answer common questions associated with this conflict in a straightforward and simple way. I don’t think these two papers have anything in common other than the topics they discuss, I believe that Said did a more analytical and in-depth understanding of the conflict than Bennis. In my opinion, the taking of some of the sections or questions were inappropriate in Bennis’s essay specifically “Are Palestinians terrorists or are they supporters of terrorists?”, this specific questions is framed to continuously tie Palestinains to terrorism in some way instead of tying them away from them, even after reading the section the answer did not fit with titling because they could have said “or neither”  at the end but instead they created a framing that perpetuates a lot of stereotypes. Said paper filled a gap in knowledge on this topic because most information about this conflict is from people who are in support of Israel in some way but rely on information from a Palestinian perspective because that would humanize the other side and that makes it harder to continue the abuse they are currently experiencing. Bennis’ perspective and information was nothing new or different but rather tried to present himself or the information he gave as “neutral” to both sides but in reality if you read the titles and the answers he is trying to paint a subliminal image that Palestinians can’t help themselves and Israel has to help them even if that means defending itself. His piece reminds me of this lyric in Hamilton where king George is singing to his objects and says “I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love” because that is what the white savior complex is trying to do in this conflict.