(POSC 325)
The Politics of the
Arab-Israeli Conflict
Final Term Paper
Assessing Israeli-Palestinian
Politics after October 7
due Wednesday, May 15 by 11:59pm on Canvas
Write a 4-5 page essay
assessing possible approaches to addressing the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. You should consider how Israel
and Palestinians might move towards a peaceful resolution of their conflict –
either temporary or more permanently – given the ongoing crisis that began with
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Your paper should consider this terrorist attack, Israel’s military
response and ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza strip, the resulting humanitarian
crisis in the Gaza strip, and the broader international crisis this has
provoked.
Your proposal should be
based on course readings and lectures (including Professor Burstein’s and
Ghaith al-Omari’s guest talks). You do not
need to do additional research.
Use your previous paper as a
starting point, and drawing on our course review of other wars, peace
agreements, and ongoing conflicts – identify the key opportunities and
obstacles to achieving a peace agreement.
Once you identify these key opportunities and obstacles based on our
course review of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, reflect on how they
might have changed or how they might have been reaffirmed by the current war
and resulting crises.
Your paper should
specifically address each of the following:
–
Borders: should there be a one-state or two-state
solution? In either case, where should
the borders be drawn? 1967 green-line? 1949 armistice agreement? Some other set of borders? What should happen with Gaza?
–
Security: how should security be handled? For a two state solution – for Israel and
Palestine each. In a one state solution,
for Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinian Arabs, Christians. In either case – for neighboring nations. How might security be addressed with regards
to Gaza and Israel now?
–
Refugees: how should the issue of Palestinian refugees
be handled – here focus on the “right of return” and UN Resolution 194. In a one state solution, how should Jews,
Palestinians, Christians be treated in terms of making that country their
homeland? In either a one-state or
two-state solution, how would those millions displaced by the Gaza war be
addressed?
–
Jerusalem: regardless of whether or not you propose a
one-state or two-state solution – how should Jerusalem be handled? Should it be divided into Jewish and Arab
areas as it is now? Should it be
internationalized? Etc.
–
Leadership: considering the history of the conflict, how
would you assess the current leadership of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza in
terms of their capacity to get to some resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict (temporary or long-term)? What
kinds of leadership would be necessary to get to a resolution – think about
Israel’s politics, the future governance of Gaza, and the future of the
Palestinian Authority.
Finally, your paper should
highlight the differences in the Palestinian and Israeli narratives of their
past experiences with peace and conflict, and also consider contemporary
political realities for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Citations: Use the American Political Science Association (APSA) formatting. For details on how to properly use APSA
ctation and reference formatting, see the following:
The online APSA style manual is at:
https://connect.apsanet.org/stylemanual/
Professor Burstein’s guest
talk: ( IMPORTANT SOURCE)
NOTE TO WRITER: Greeting’s Dylan please see attached below all course sources that should be considered for this paper, please review the youtube guest talk it is vey essential. This paper’s citation should be written in ( APSA formatting and you should use the recources you require. In addition I incorporated the paper your wrote for the Oslo Agreement for this course as well to become inspired as suggested in the assignment instructions by my proffesor. Please review all documents.