A History of Israel
The George Washington University
Spring 2014
History 3820.10
TR 3:45 - 5:00PM
MON 251
Prof. Daniel Schwartz
Phillips 317
(202) 994-2397
Office Hours: T 1:30-3:30, R 5-6, or by appointment
This course is a political, social, and cultural history of modern Israel from the origins of Zionism in the late
nineteenth century to the present. It aims to provide students with a deeper grasp of the personalities, events,
forces, and structures that have shaped modern Israel. Emphasis will be placed on the development of historical
understanding through close engagement with major debates pertaining to the subject of the course. We will
explore debates in Israel’s history, like those between different streams of Zionism, or between proponents and
opponents of a written constitution, or between conflicting visions of Israel as a “Jewish” state. We will also explore
debates among historians and sociologists of Israel/Palestine, such as the debate over the 1948 war, or over
whether Zionism should be considered a colonial movement. Some of the debates we will study involve issues that
were once fiercely contested but now appear more or less settled; most—like the debate over the compatibility of
Israel’s “Jewish” and “democratic” self-definition—remain timely and relevant.
Learning Objectives
This course has several learning objectives that will serve as the basis for assessment. Students will be evaluated
on their ability to:
 Demonstrate a grasp of the history of Israel that goes beyond the surface of events to explain underlying
ideas, controversies, patterns, and structures.
 Reason historically, e.g. by thinking contextually and concretely, avoiding unwarranted generalizations and
anachronisms, perceiving change and continuity over time, considering how historians with divergent
orientations (political, social, intellectual) might approach and explain the same historical phenomenon
differently, appreciating complexity, periodizing, etc.
 Imagine themselves into the point of view of some of the groups and individuals we will encounter in our
course, showing an ability to “see” things from different perspectives and to present these perspectives in a
way that is nuanced, concrete, and historically plausible.
 Argue positions on some of the major debates in Israeli historiography, in class discussions and in
particular in the formal in-class debates. (See “Requirements”)
 Analyze both primary and secondary literature (historiography) critically, e.g. by attending to things like
context, structure, and argument, distinguishing thesis from supporting evidence, considering alternative
explanations for given data, discerning possible authorial biases, etc.
 Work collaboratively, as part of a debating team.
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Requirements:

Preparation and Participation (15%). This class will combine both lecture and discussion. I encourage
everyone to come to class prepared to contribute in a constructive manner, by posing and responding to
questions, making comments, sharing insights, asking me to clarify something I have said, and just in
general demonstrating a high level of engagement. The reading will typically average between 100-150
pages per week. Attendance is mandatory. Three or more unexcused absences—or repeated lateness to
class—will reduce your grade for attendance and participation. NB: your grade for attendance and
participation will be based on both attendance and participation. Exemplary attendance alone is no
guarantee of a top mark in this category.
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Debate (20%). Every student must participate in one of the formal in-class debates that will be held this
semester. I explain this requirement in great detail in a separate handout that will be distributed the first
day of class and posted on Blackboard. The first debate is scheduled for the fourth week of classes; the last
debate will take place at our second-to-last meeting.
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Midterm Exam (15%). A 75-minute midterm exam will be administered in class on Thursday, March 6.
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Term Paper (25%). A 3,000-word research paper is required of all students. The paper will be due in class
on Thursday, April 10. Your grade will be reduced by one-third for every 24-hour period it is late.
Extensions will be offered only in true cases of medical or family emergency. I explain this requirement
further in a handout that will be distributed by the end of the first month of class.
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Final Exam (25%). A two-hour final exam will be administered in class on a date to be determined by the
registrar.
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The unauthorized use of laptops, smartphones, tablets, or any other form of electronic technology during
class is strictly prohibited and will negatively affect your Attendance and Participation grade.
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Academic dishonesty, be it plagiarism or cheating on an exam, is a serious university offense. While you are
allowed, even expected at times (e.g. in the debates and on the research paper), to assimilate the work and
ideas of others, you must give credit to your sources when appropriate. Furthermore, unless you make
clear that you are quoting someone (which should be done sparingly in any case), you need to use language
that is incontrovertibly your own. I will be available to answer any questions you might have about the
nuances of how and when to cite, but know from the outset that I am obliged to report suspected cases of
plagiarism and cheating. Be sure to familiarize yourselves with both the Chicago Manual of Style (15th
edition) and the GW Code of Academic Integrity, which can be found at
http://www.gwu.edu/~ntegrity/code.html.
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In order to receive accommodations on the basis of disability, students with special needs must give notice
and provide proper documentation to the Office of Disability Support Services, Marvin Center 436, 9948250.
Readings:
The following readings have been placed on reserve at Gelman Library and should be available for purchase at the
GW Bookstore:
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Anita Shapira, Israel: A History (Brandeis, 2012)
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Eran Kaplan and Derek J. Penslar, The Origins of Israel, 1882-1948: A Documentary History (Univ. of
Wisconsin Press, 2011)
Itamar Rabinovich & Jehuda Reinharz (eds), Israel in the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Brandeis UP, 2007) [IME]
*Donna Rosenthal, The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land (Free Press, 2008)
In the list of assignments for each class below, you will also find readings that are posted on Blackboard under
Electronic Reserve [ER], or that can be found on the Gelman Library online index of Electronic Journals [EJ], or that
are available online as a Gelman Library Electronic Book [EB].
Schedule of Classes:
I.
THE ORIGINS OF ZIONISM AND THE “NEW YISHUV” TO 1917
T
Jan 14
Introduction
R
Jan 16
Sources of Modern Jewish Nationalism—The European Context.
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T
Jan 21
Political Zionism and Its Critics
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R
Jan 23
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Jan 28
Jan 30
IME, doc. 1 (“Manifesto”)
Eran Kaplan and Derek Penslar (eds), The Origins of Israel, 1882-1948: A Documentary
History, pp. 3-17, docs. 1 (“Letter of Complaint, etc.”) and 3 (“The Rothschild
Administration”)
Shapira, pp. 27-42
Socialist-Zionism, the Second Aliyah, and the “Pioneering” Ideal
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R
IME, docs. 2 (“Auto-Emancipation”), 3 (“A Solution the Jewish Question”), 4 (“The Basle
Program”), 5 (“The First Zionist Congress”)
Shapira, pp. 16-24
Ottoman Palestine and the Roots of the ‘New Yishuv’
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T
Shapira, Israel: A History, pp. 3-16
Shapira, pp. 42-62
Manya Shochat, “The Collective, 1904-1909: Memoir,” IME, pp. 25-28
A.D. Gordon, “The Religion of Labor” [ER]
Kaplan and Penslar, docs. 5 (“Outline for an Agenda”), 6 (“Platform and Proposal for a
Platform), 10 (“Letters from an Anonymous Farm Wife of the First Aliyah”) and 11
(“Pioneer Women of the Second Aliyah”)
The Balfour Declaration and the Creation of the British Mandate
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IME, docs. 7 (“Balfour Declaration”), 8 (“Zionist Manifesto”), 9 (“Churchill White Paper”),
10 (“Mandate for Palestine”)
Hussein-McMahon Correspondence
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hussmac1.html
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Jonathan Schneer, “Origins of the Balfour Declaration: An Unexplored Dimension,” in
Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2006-2007, pp. 7-24 [ER]
Shapira, pp. 67-78
II.
UNDER THE MANDATE, 1918-1948
T
Feb 4
Immigration and Settlement; Yishuv Politics and the Rise of the Left-Right Divide
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R
Feb 6
The Invention of a New Hebrew Culture
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T
Feb 11
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Feb 13
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Feb 18
Shapira, pp. 79-98
Yitzhak Epstein, “The Hidden Question,” in JMW, pp. 631-635 [ER]
Kaplan and Penslar, pp. 205-209, docs. 40 (“Response to the Arab Riots”), 42 (“On the
Partition of Palestine”), 44 (“Ihud”), 45 (“On the Iron Wall”)
IME, docs. 12 (“Peel Commission”), 13 (“The Arab Awakening”), 14 (“MacDonald White
Paper”)
DEBATE: Was pre-State Zionism a Form of Colonialism?

T
Shapira, pp. 133-152
Avraham Shlonsky, “Toil” [ER]
Haim Hazaz, “The Sermon,” in JMW, pp. 700-702 [ER]
Kaplan and Penslar, pp 167-170, docs. 20 (“Tel Aviv”), 21 (“Tel Aviv as a Jewish City”),
30 (“How to Spread the Use of Hebrew”), 31 (“Purim Celebrations in Tel Aviv”), 36 (“The
Hebrew University”)
Arab Nationalism, British and Jewish Responses. The One State/Two State Question.
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R
Shapira, pp. 103-122
Ahdut Ha-avodah, “Proposal to the General Assembly of the Workers of Eretz Israel”
(1919), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (eds), The Jew in the Modern World
[JMW], 3rd edition, pp. 663-666 [ER]
Kaplan and Penslar, pp. 87-93, docs. 15 (“Song of the Valley”), 22 (“Platform for the
1931 Elections”), 23 (“Thou Shalt Not Wear Shaatnez”), 24 (“Betar and the Zionist
Revolution”), 27 (“Rabbi Herzog on the Chief Rabbinate”), 28 (“Public Announcement”)
Ran Aaronsohn, “Settlement in Eretz Israel, A Colonialist Enterprise? ‘Critical’
Scholarship and Historical Geography,” Israel Studies 1:2 (Fall 1996): 214-229 [ER]
Gershon Shafir, “Zionism and Colonialism: A Comparative Approach,” in Ilan Pappé (ed),
The Israel/Palestine Question: Rewriting Histories (London, 1999), pp. 81-96 [EB]
The Holocaust and the Struggle for Statehood
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Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001), chap. 11 [ER]
Eviatar Friesel, “On the Myth of the Connection between the Holocaust and the State of
Israel,” in Israel Affairs 14:3 (2008): 446-466 [EJ]
Dan Michman, “The Causal Relationship between the Holocaust and the Birth of Israel:
Historiography between Myth and Reality,” Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish
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R
Feb 20
The War of Independence, 1947-1949: History and Memory
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T
Feb 25
Perspective: Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches, and Fundamental Issues
(London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003), 303-328 [ER]
IME, docs. 15 (“Biltmore Program”), 19 (“Resolution 181”)
Shapira, pp. 155-178
Kaplan and Penslar, pp. 339-343, docs. 57 (“The Silver Platter”), 59 (“Public Opinion
during the 1948 War”)
IME, docs. 22 (Ben-Gurion, The War of Independence, May 1948, Memoir), 26
(“Resolution 194”)
DEBATE: Did Israel Pursue a Deliberate Policy of Expelling Arabs in the 1948 War?
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Benny Morris, “The Origins of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” in Laurence J.
Silberstein (ed), New Perspectives on Israeli History (New York, 1991), pp. 42-56 [ER]
Avi Shlaim, “The Debate about 1948,” in Ilan Pappé, ed., The Israel/Palestine Question:
Rewriting Histories (London, 1999), 171-92 [EB]
Efraim Karsh, “Were the Palestinians Expelled?”, Commentary (July/Aug 2000): 29-34
[EJ]
Ari Shavit, “Lydda, 1948: A City, a Massacre, and the Middle East Today” [ER]
III.
THE CHALLENGES OF STATEHOOD, 1948-1967
R
Feb 27
From Yishuv to State: The Creation of Israeli Democracy
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T
Mar 4
Shapira, pp. 179-207
IME, docs. 17 (“Status Quo Agreement”), 21 (“Proclamation of the State of Israel”), 27
(“Jewish Religion and Israeli Democracy”), 28 (“The Debate on a Constitution”), 29
(“The Law of Return”); Appendix 3
The Mass Immigration and the Memory of the Holocaust
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Shapira, pp. 222-270
Henriette Dahan-Kalev, “‘You’re So Pretty—You Don’t Look Moroccan,” Israel Studies 6,
no. 1 (2001): 1-14 [ER]
IME, docs. 30 (“The Absorption of Immigrants”), 31 (“The German Reparations”), 44
(“The Development Town”), 45 (“Social and Ethnic Tensions in Wadi Salib”), 46 (“The
Capture of Eichmann”); Appendix 7, 8
R
Mar 6
MIDTERM EXAM (75 minutes)
T
Mar 11
SPRING BREAK
R
Mar 13
SPRING BREAK
T
Mar 18
The Politics of Security: Borders, Militarism, and the Sinai War

Shapira, pp. 271-291
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R
Mar 20
IME, docs. 32 (“The Transformation of the Israeli Army”), 39 (“The Clash with BenGurion over Defense Policies”), 42 (“The Background to the Sinai Campaign”)
A Tale of Two Wars: The Legacies of 1967 and 1973
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Shapira, pp. 295-354
IME, docs. 65 (“The Land for Peace Principle”), 67 (“The Khartoum Resolutions”), 68
(“Resolution 242”), 69 (“The Palestine National Charter”), 75 (“The Yom Kippur War”),
76 (Agranat Commission), 86 (“Resolution 338”)
IV.
“GREATER ISRAEL OR “LAND FOR PEACE”?
T
Mar 25
The Occupation and the Rise of the Settlements
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R
Mar 27
The Begin Years
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T
Apr 1
IME, docs. 61 (“Administering the WB”), 62 (“The Conflict between Dayan and Sapir”),
80 (“The Ideology of the National Religious Party”), 77 (“Protest Movements”), 81
(“Gush Emunim”), 84 (“Peace Now”)
Gideon Aran, “From Religious Zionism to Zionist Religion: The Roots of Gush Emunim,”
Studies in Contemporary Jewry II (1986): 116-43 [ER]
See http://www.btselem.org/maps for most up-to-date maps of the West Bank,
Settlements, and Separation Barrier
Shapira, pp. 357-390
IME, docs. 79 (“Prospects for the New Government”), 85 (“The 1981 Elections”), 100
(“Speeches to the Knesset”), 108 (“The War in Lebanon”), 109 (“Kahan Commission
Report”)
War and Peace in the Age of Intifada and Oslo
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Shapira, pp. 411-449
IME, docs. 117 (“Hamas Covenant”), 118 (“The Madrid Middle East Peace
Conference”), 120 (“Speech to the Knesset”), 133 (“Oslo Accords”), 137 (“Oslo II”),
138 (“Amendment to PNC”)
R
Apr 3
DEBATE: Were the Palestinians at Fault for the Failure of Camp David in 2000?
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IME, docs. 142 (“Clinton Parameters”), 143 (“Evolution of Palestinian-Israeli
Negotiations”), 144 (“Sharm-el-Sheikh Finding Committee”).
Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors,” New York
Review of Books (9 August 2001)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/aug/09/camp-david-the-tragedy-oferrors/
Dennis Ross, Gidi Grinstein, Hussein Agha, Robert Malley. “Camp David: An Exchange,”
NYRB (20 September 2001)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/sep/20/camp-david-an-exchange/
“Camp David and After: An Exchange (1. An Interview with Ehud Barak),” by Benny
Morris, NYRB (13 June 2002)
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
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/jun/13/camp-david-and-after-anexchange-1-an-interview-wi/
“Camp David and After: An Exchange (2. A Reply to Ehud Barak),” by Hussein Agha and
Robert Malley (13 June 2002)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/jun/13/camp-david-and-after-anexchange-2-a-reply-to-ehud/
“Camp David and After: Continued,” Benny Morris, Ehud Barak, reply by Robert Malley
and Hussein Agha (27 June 2002)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/jun/27/camp-david-andaftercontinued/
V.
ENDURING QUESTIONS AND DIVIDES
T
Apr 8
Ethnicity and Israeli Identity: Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Russians, and Ethiopians



R
Apr 10
Shapira, pp. 391-411, 453-460
IME, docs. 64 (“Black Panthers”), 82 (“A Soviet Intellectual Abroad”), 113 (“Quanderies
of an Israeli Minister of Absorption”), 114 (“The Ethiopian Emigration”), 124 (“Aryeh
Deri’s Speech”), 127 (“A Russian Immigrant Looks at Israeli (or Jewish?) Culture”),
appendix 10
Rosenthal, The Israelis, chaps. 5-8 (recommended)
Religion, Politics, and Society: Secular, Traditional, Orthodox, and Ultra-Orthodox

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IME, docs. 80 (“Ideology of the NRP”), 110 (“On Behalf of Plualism”), 119 (“Meimad
Position Papers”), 125 (“Report on the Conversion Law”)
David Remnick, “The Party Faithful,” The New Yorker, January 21, 2013 [ER]
Yehuda Mirsky, “Fathers and Sons,” The Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2013 [ER]
Rosenthal, chaps. 9-11 (recommended)
RESEARCH PAPER DUE IN CLASS
T
Apr 15
PASSOVER
R
Apr 17
The Arab Minority

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IME, docs. 51 (“From Israeli Arabs to Israel’s Palestinian Citizens”), 83 (“National
Command for the Defense of Arab Lands”), 126 (“Arab Citizens of Palestine’), 130 (“Orr
Commission”)
Rosenthal, chaps. 12-15 (recommended}
T
Apr 22
PASSOVER
R
Apr 24
DEBATE: Can Israel be Both a “Jewish” and a “Democratic” State?


“Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty” (1992)
http://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic3_eng.htm
IME, docs. 122 (“United Mizrahi Bank v. Migdal Cooperative Village”), 125 (“Report on
the Conversion Law”), 131 (“The Israeli Supreme Court from the 1980s Onward”)
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T
Apr 29
Sammy Smooha, “Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype,” Israel Studies 2, no. 2
(1997): 237-254 [EJ]
As’ad Ghanem, Nadim Rouhana, and Oren Yiftachel, “Questioning ‘Ethnic Democracy’: A
Response to Sammy Smooha,” Israel Studies 3, no. 2 (1998): 253-267 [EJ]
Ruth Gavison, “The Jews’ Right to Statehood: A Defense” Azure 15 (2003): 70-108
http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=239&page=all
Facing the Future—Israel’s Domestic and International Challenges
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TBA
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