Philip Metres

Israeli/Palestinian Literature Project

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Rationale:  

Initiated in 2006, this website is a supplement to EN299 Israeli and Palestinian Literatures, functioning both as resource of links to websites providing a variety of viewpoints on the history and literature of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, and as an archive of interviews and projects by John Carroll students. 

The goals: to track the personal and national narratives of these two peoples, whose conflict is neither eternal nor inevitable, and to provide the impetus for readers to be part of the solution to the conflict.

Israeli/Palestinian Literature Course Description:

"Israeli/Palestinian Literatures" is a course that illuminates the ways in which Palestinians and Israelis narrate their personal and national stories in literature, staking a claim to a certain way of being and of belonging to the land which they co-inhabit.  We will examine these two national narratives through the eyes of the poets and writers with an eye to some of the following questions: 

1.  How is narration itself—the ability to speak one's story on one's behalf—complicated by the problem of war, terrorism or military occupation?
2.  How do these narratives frame our understanding not simply of an individual's subjectivity, but also of a national subjectivity?  How have they shifted over time? 
3.  How do these narratives complicate how "the Arab," "the Jew," etc., have been represented in mass media?  In other words, what does this literature teach us that American mass media representations have not?
4.  What sorts of answers to the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict does this literature provide?   

Selected Bibliography

Yehuda Amichai.  Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai.
Mahmoud Darwish.  The Adam of Two Edens.
David Grossman. The Smile of the Lamb.
Ghassan Kanafani. Men in the Sun.
Sahar Khalifeh. Wild Thorns.
Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (ed. Salma Jayyusi).
Course Reader

Community Participation

"Israeli and Palestinian Literatures" thrives when local community members have participated in our understanding of the conflict by visiting the class or offering to be interviewed by students.  If you would like to be a resource for the class, please email me at pmetres@jcu.edu to volunteer.  Thank you in advance for your support.  I am particularly interested in people who have direct experience in Israel/Palestine, and those who have participated in dialogue, peacebuilding, and reconciliation efforts.

Student Final Projects

The following final projects--interviews, media analyses, and creative projects--reflect a diversity of student viewpoints and analyses on representations and narratives of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  Please note: these projects do not represent the perspectives of the professor, but rather demonstrate the students' struggle to make sense of the very different ways in which the story of the conflict is told.  As such, as with all the links on this page, readers must consider each piece partial (sometimes, in both senses of the term), and therefore must determine the validity of the assertions for themselves. 

Web Resources

Historical Background:

  • Wikipedia.org: A brief history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
  • BBC: A history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with maps.
  • CNN: A history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in video clips.

News and Alternative Media:

Representations & Media Analysis:

Israeli & Palestinian Peace/Human Rights Activism:

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  • B'TSELEM: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
  • Peace Now: A group that focuses on peace between Israel and its neighbors.
  • Breaking the Silence: An organization of discharged Israeli soldiers committed to informing the public of the injustices committed in the occupied territories.
  • Jewish Voice for Peace: A progressive community of activists inspired by the Jewish tradition to work together for peace and justice between Israelis and Palestinians.  See also Mitchell Plitnik's blog.
  • International Women's Peace Service: An international peace group who works on the ground for a just peace in Israel/Palestine.
  • The Electronic Intifada: Publishes news, commentary, analysis, and reference material about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian point of view.
  • Palestine Monitor: News updates, editorials, and information from a perspective sympathetic to the Palestinians.

Literature, Photography and the Arts: