Abstract
Many scholars agree that the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is one of the world’s longest running and most intractable conflicts. But that is where the consensus ends. When does the conflict date from and what are its proximate causes? Should it be dated to the start of the Zionist movement and the settling of Palestine by Jewish immigrants at the turn of the last century, the first Arab uprising in 1926, or the much larger 1936 uprising? Perhaps the conflict started with the end of the British Mandate in 1947, the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, and the start of the Palestinian refugee crisis? Or, perhaps, it began in earnest after the 1967 War when Israel captured the East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and others. Scholars even disagree on how to categorize the conflict. Is it territorial? Sectarian? Civilizational? Religious? Economic? And what of the various efforts to resolve the conflict over the years? Why have some of these efforts succeeded in forging peace between Israel and its neighbours while others—particularly those to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict—have failed. This course seeks to address these and other questions analytically.