Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

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The October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by the Islamic militant group known as Hamas surprised and shocked the world. The sheer scale of the invasion and retaliation by Israel signals that the region has entered a new phase of conflict. It’s hard to watch, even from a safe distance, without wondering how and why people can be so barbarous. At JSTOR Daily, where educators are top of mind, we wonder how we can help teachers and all students of the world begin to understand the long, complicated history that led here. We hope the following stories and scholarship they’re based on provide some of the historical and cultural context that we all need to start conversations in the classroom and out. As always, the scholarship on JSTOR that we link to is freely available for all readers.

The Map That Created The Modern Middle East

Matthew Wills

May 13, 2016

The Sykes-Picot remade the Middle East for British and French control. A century later, their legacy is a disaster.

Globe showing area referred to as the Middle East

Making the Middle East

Matthew Wills

March 2, 2015

Two scholarly perspectives on the making of the Middle East.

Border between Mexico and US reaching into the pacific ocean

Border Walls are Symbols of Failure

Eric Schewe

February 28, 2019

From feudal fortresses to contemporary border barriers, walls have always offered more symbolic value than real protection.

Electrifying the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Matthew Wills

September 14, 2023

Jewish immigrants and British authorities tried to sell electrification as a matter of business while Palestinian Arabs viewed it as a Zionist nation-building project.

A group of Royal Irish Constabulary officers

Britain’s World Police in Mandate Palestine

Matthew Wills

April 12, 2020

As colonized peoples challenged the imperial powers after World War I, British veterans were tapped to become a ruthless police force.

Two pages from the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah, 1296

How to Revive a Dead Language

Livia Gershon

December 22, 2020

Although it was the language of sacred texts and ritual, modern Hebrew wasn't spoken in conversation till the late nineteenth century.

From the cover of the NYRB edition of Arabesques

Arabic Hebrew, Hebrew Arabic: The Work of Anton Shammas

Matthew Wills

January 11, 2023

Within the alienated and antagonist cultures inside Israel’s borders, Arabic and Hebrew—related, but mutually unintelligible languages—cross-fertilize each other.

Revisiting Yeshayahu Leibowitz

Moti Mizrahi

October 18, 2023

The late Israeli thinker spoke of the occupation's moral cost for both sides of the conflict. A philosopher considers how his nuanced arguments hold up in 2023.

A view of part of the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim on January 28, 2020 in Maale Adumim, West Bank.

Settlements and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Background Reading

Eric Schewe

May 19, 2021

Scholarship about Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian territories provides historical context for recent violence in the region.

Khirbet Khizeh Courtesy of Delcan & Company

1949 Israeli novel Khirbet Khizeh reissued by FSG

Leah Falk

November 7, 2015

Israeli writer S. Yizhar’s 1949 novella Khirbet Khizeh, first published in English in 2008 and recently reissued in English by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.