Possible Solution to the Land Dispute of the land between "The Sea and the River"

It seems very presumptuous for someone like me, who as limited experience in the city of Jerusalem and Israel, to conjecture on what the solution to the land dispute should be? I hope someday to see a lasting peace to fall over that land and the rest of the Middle East! Here is a viable plan for the land, that I think would have a descent chance at peace.

My plan would be a two state solution with the sharing of Jerusalem.  I would maintain the boundaries as the currently are, for the sake of not redrawing them again and having to move people. I would require that all of the Israelis who are settled in the West Bank to LEAVE immediately. I would close all of the settlements there, and return the settlements' land to the Palestinian authority. Palestine would have to have a democratic and legitimate government, and that would be one of my first requirements before the plan would be implemented!!!

Next I would require that all governance and national administration for BOTH the Israeli side and the Palestinian side be completely vacated from Jerusalem. That means, while drastic, that the Israelis cannot have  their capital in Jerusalem and the same for the Palestinian government. I believe that the next step would be to issue passports to the Palestinians, recognized by the Israelis and the rest of the world! Additionally, there should be free travel both to and from Israel and the West Bank for both passport holders!

I believe that people like Amer's family should be paid for the loss of their land. This clearly will create much friction; but those who have occupied houses and land of other people should have to pay for it, even if that requires multiple mortgages etc.

Clearly this is not a win win situation, but regarding this dispute, I do not see viable win win situations!

Armstrong 14-18

What a vast portion of history she covered in these 135 pages. I was amazed exactly how fast we came upon the modern part of this history. She was talking about Jihad, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Ottoman take over, and all of a sudden, 3 chapters later, she mentioned Binyamen Herzel and zionism in the late 1800s and we were in modern history. Dr. Horowitz said Wednesday, you all will be surprised how fast you are in modernity; that was right.

This was very valuable book for me to read. Obviously Armstrong said the repetitive things, left out details (she had to!), jumped from one issue to the next in two sentences, however she did cover roughly 4000 years of history in 430 pages. I enjoyed the book, I guess the right thing to do is consider it as ONE single source in a world of a million points of view. But in-exhaustive as it may be, I can say that I learned much from reading this book. I had many many gaps, per se, in my knowledge of this city and about Israel/Palestine in general. Armstrong's book filled them in! I can now recite the difference between the "Six Day War" and the "Yawm Kibbur War," and their approximate dates. I had previously heard these histories from different people including a Jewish friend of mine from Havard and a Maronite Lebanese Professor friend from NYU. As you can imagine, their perspectives were different as were their recount of the happenings of these wars. Not to say that Armstrong was unbiased regarding those two wars, its just her perspective of them is jaded differently from my two colleagues.

I found mostly in reading this book, I did indeed google search several different concepts. For example, when there was a topic mentioned in the book, of which I had not heard, I searched it which taught me more than just the words that Armstrong put on the page.

This was a worthwhile book!

Jerusalem from Muslim Influence to the Crucades

This is the part of Jerusalem's history which I am better familiar with. From studying history of the Arabs, the Jahilliya, and MuHammad's first waHee, I can say I had a better handle on what was going on with the Arabs at this time than with the Judeo-Christian perspective from before.

I was familiar with when MuHammad received his first inspiration from the angle Gabriel in the cave in Northern Saudi Arabia; however, I was unfamiliar with the night journey. I mean I had heard about it, but I did not know that he is said to have ridden the horse Burqaa2. From this reading, I can better understand the meaning of Jerusalem to the Muslim tradition.

I did not know/understand why that city was important to the Muslims. I mean I had heard of the Caliph who built the Dome of the Rock. But I did not know that the khulafaa2 al rashideen had goings on in Jerusalem. I guess I had thought that they were just hanging out in Damascus or Baghdad, like the Ummayids or Abbassids, respectively! But it was interesting to have their history cemented in my mind with respect to Jerusalem. I think I can have better grip on what they did there.

Those Caliphs really did interact with the ancient holy sites! For instance Armstrong does mention how the Caliphs 'Umar and 'Uthman respected the temple mount area, that is why there is masjid al 'aqsaa and qubbat al sakhra there now. I was not awar of the term "dhimmis," which is apparently a term which means non-muslims (jews and christians) living in and around Jerusalem who had to pay taxes to the Muslim regimes. I did not know that that the the Muslim Caliphs controlled Jerusalem. This was a good learning experience.

Response to Parallels and Paradoxes

Miss. Said,

Question 1: I am just curious about literary criticism. What sort of drew you to the field? Did you grow up reading a great deal of literature and just developed a critical mind toward the authors? Or did you need to study, in depth in a formal education, literature and its elements to be able to have  basis for your work as a critic?

Question 2: Might you know why your late husband and Mr. Barenboim decided to utilize an orchestra as a way to bring together the youth of the Israeli/Palestinian divide?




Response to readings:

The article written by Noura Dabdoub had some great points in it, as she discuses the idea of a homeland! This piece seems to be unbiased, and sort of lays out a narrative of what has happened in modern history since the founding of the state of Israel. It was good to see the quote from the Israeli constitution. I have never actually read that document, so it was thought provoking to read that small excerpt from it. From that small paragraph, I can see Israeli patriotism taking form. I guess I compare it to our own constitution, in the the USA, our constitution is the backbone of our patriotism!

You really gave us a good mix of history in that article. I think it would be difficult to put a lot of history in a paper like this with limited space.

Parallels and Paradoxes:

This article raises a few questions. I thought that the way it was written was very positive and upbeat about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I could not help wondering why the writer steered clear of talking about what the issues, between the two sides, really were.

I feel like as he wrote this, Mr. Guzelimian maybe overemphasized the friendship between Mr. Said and Mr. Barenboim. I realize that they were probably good friends, its just maybe the author could have said: these gentlemen and their friendship is a model which all Palestinians and Israelis should/could follow.

I certainly agree that we need to encourage friendship between the two sides. I feel like that would be a great way to step towards peace.  My issue with this article is, maybe let us not overlook the bleak nature of the conflict right now! Maybe people like Mr. Guzelimian can and should remain positive, but also criticize the situation now.

I certainly do not think Mr. Guzelimian overlooked the conflict in Israel and the West Bank, I think he probably wanted to emphasize the friendship between Mr. Said and Mr. Barenboim. That is probably fair, the article is about their accomplishments and not about the strife!!!

Analysis of chapters 8 and 9, Aelia Capitolina and The New Jerusalem

I fell like in these two chapters, she just delves right into the content. I find it difficult to go from one chapter to the other, because it is almost as if she is trying to follow the sequence of time, but she does not do a good job of tying all of the events together. I sort of loose track what is happening at what times. She starts mentioning random names, which I do remember, like Titus, Vespasian, and Hadrian and mentions a few important things which those guys did, but she does not come out and say this is the order that they were in.

Maybe the onus is on me! When I am reading this book, I sometimes have to search events, people, and actions which she mentions to sort of connect everything for myself. I feel like she throws so much detail, which is good, but as she is dumping events and names on the reader I am not understanding the connections. It is like we were talking about the Babylonians a chapter ago, which she did not explain what was going on and why they invaded Jerusalem, and then all of a sudden the Romans pop up and they are trying to conquer the city.


On page 163, she starts mentioning Bar Koseba and his revolt, but she spends hardly any time on him, yet still mentions his uncle/priest. To me, the questions is, why does she mentions details like his uncle but wont further talk about Bar Koseba? Apparently this revolt was because the Israelites were fired up about something, then the Romans quashed their rebellion. She says that after this, the Jews were a "defeated race." Is it right to call the Jews a race? I think so, but I have heard that some people do not consider them a race because they come from Judaism which is a religion.

Chapters 5-7

Chapters 5-7 began the discussion on the diaspora of the Jews in late BC. I thought that these chapters were slightly more dry than the ones before; they probably had the same amount of details as before, however I just did not enjoy them as much.

The maps in these chapters are a good frame of reference to show us what was where, at this time period. I do understand where the old city's walls are currently, however every time I open this book it shows me more about what was where in the old city. I did not realize that Golgatha was outside of the Upper City and the Lower city, but is inside of the current city walls. It is kind of confusing to think where is all of this stuff. I did know that Christs' tomb and Golgatha were outside of the old city, but now they are inside of the current "old city."

The author also describes how the city and region of Israel was governed and controlled, after popular kings like Solomon and David. I did not realize that the guys like Ezekiel and Nehemiah actually had a lot of political influence. I thought that they were just writer/scribes, but the way she describes them, they seemed like more than laymen.

Not to go out of chronological order, but I just remembered from chapter 5 she talks about the destruction of Solomon's temple with the loss of the gold and cedar trees. This destruction happened, only to be rebuild by Herrod years later. I still do not understand how Herrod's reconstruction was said to be the second temple but she says it was the actual third temple? I got lost on who built the second temple and why Herrods temple was not considered the third? Moreover, why was it important for Herrod's temple to be the second and not the third? Pg. 128-129

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 1-4 were very long. 80 pages is a lot of material, however with respect to Jersualem's history, it probably is fitting. I thought that the material seemed pretty dense, however in the same breath refreshing. It was fantastic to have the history, of what is present day Israel, compiled in front of me. I thought it was mostly holistic, or at least as complete as four chapters can be on history.

Karen Armstrong does thorough job of summarizing of the people who controlled the land North of the Sinai and West of Jordan during the time before Christ. Obviously it is impossible to know exactly who controlled what piece of land when. However, she does give the less-informed reader a solid frame of reference.

These chapters are pretty much the reason why I chose to take this course. I wanted the old history of the conflict. From my education in Arabic history, I understand what was going on in that region starting in the late sixth century, however prior to that I was not well informed.

Her perspective, or at least the third person viewpoint, from which she writes is kind of like she is narrating what is happening from a non-bible viewpoint. What  I mean is that, my perceptions of the Israelites, at this time period, is mostly from a christian, old testament education. This piece allowed me or showed me how to look at the Israelites exodus from Egypt, in a different way.

Historical readings for second week of class

These readings were very much insightful. I feel like I had a better than average knowledge of Jerusalem's history and the Arab-Israeli conflicts before; however, these few articles, specifically Pressman's really brought everything together.

I realize that these four articles/papers are written by people who are certainly involved personally in the conflicts, however the degree of biased that one might assume to detect throughout each piece, in my opinion, is not extraordinarily present. I expected much more one sided information. In my opinion Pressman's piece wraps up or summarizes Israel from 1861 to 2005. I totally enjoyed reading his piece, I felt as if all of the important names in contemporary Arab World history were defined and discussed. People like Ben Gurion, Gamal 3bd Al Nasser, 7afiz Al 'Assed, Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and the like, obviously played key roles in the so called peace process or road to such which our leaders have tried to establish. It was very beneficial to read about all of these people, sort of combined, in one article. From my perspective, the author takes a microscope and points it towards Israel and the Arab World and discusses what happened from the onset of modern conflict in May of 1948, up until now.

The way that Reba V Rubin articulates Jerusalem from the era of the Jebusites and Babylonians is also very beneficial. I remember some of these names from studying the Old Testament, when I was younger, however reading about the Assyrians and Philistines and Caananites helps to bring who those people are into understanding. I certainly remember studying those peoples, but I did not know that the Jebusites were a group outside of Jersulames walls, in the suburbs who are relatives of modern Palestinians.

These articles were very valuable.