Question of the Week: Recognizing the Narrative of the Other

During the first two weeks of the semester, we have discussed in class the background to the conflict and the centrality of the land of Palestine/Eretz Yisrael in the Muslim and Jewish traditions. We have learned that more often than not, the Jewish/Israeli and Arab/Palestinian narratives contradict each other.

The question we will discuss online this week is:

When thinking about the conflict between Israel and its neighbors, should one understand and recognize the historical narrative of the other even without agreeing with it? If so, why?

Guardian exposes secret papers from Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

The Guardian, a British newspaper, published yesterday (1/23) 1600 documents leaked to the Qatar-based news network al-Jazeera about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from the last decade. The documents are available on their website, and although their content is not too surprising, they are very interesting to read.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers