One of the goals of the class, its leaders say, is to challenge the assumption
that there are only two extreme positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The class of 17 students meets weekly.

House Course Illuminates Complexities of Israel-Palestine Conflict
Student-led discussions provide information, perspective on controversial Palestine Solidarity Movement conference

By James Todd

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004 -- A student-led, half-credit course on the Israel-Palestine conflict is serving as a source of balanced information and analytical discussion amid the sometimes contentious debates sparked by the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) conference, held at Duke in October.

The house course, called “U.S. Policy and Israeli-Palestinian Relations,” brings together 17 students each week to review readings, discuss current events and occasionally listen to guest speakers. According to its student leaders, one of the goals of the class is to challenge the assumption -- one many students had coming into the course -- that only two extreme positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict exist.

“If it was an easy thing to understand, then an agreement would have been made a long time ago,” said sophomore Kyle Nishkian, one of the course’s two student leaders. “That’s the main thesis of the course.”

The other student leader, junior Nazaneen Homaifar, said students come to the class not to “shoot down ideas” but to discuss and analyze them. “We have some differing views, but really there are no extremist views,” she said.

Sophomore Maher Salahi, who holds duel citizenship in the U.S. and Syria, said his family was directly affected by conflict in the Middle East when family-owned land in the Golan Heights was annexed by Israel following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. He said he signed up for the course because he “just wanted to get an unbiased view.”

“Being Syrian, I’ve always thought it was the PLO, they’re the good guys, and the Israeli government is the bad guys,” he said. But after learning more about the failed peace accords between the two groups, he said he sees fault on both sides, although he remains pro-Palestinian.

Senior Kristen Aldebol was drawn into the issues surrounding the conflict when she was asked, as a student worker at Duke’s Freeman Center for Jewish Life, to research the PSM.

Aldebol, who is not Jewish, said the class has provided “a fair look at both sides.” The class inhabits “this middle ground that seems to be absent on a global scale,” she said.

“A lot of us are trying to form opinions,” said sophomore Christine Leach, who said she had yet to fully develop a position.

The idea for the course came from the Provost’s Office as one way to turn the controversy surrounding the PSM conference into “a teachable moment.” Over the summer, history professor Ylana Miller agreed to act as the faculty advisor for the course and approached Nishkian and Homaifar, both former students of hers, about leading it. By design, Miller attends only a few of the class meetings.

The course readings, selected by Miller, follow the U.S. involvement in the Middle East from Israel’s creation to the present. “The readings were chosen with two goals in mind: giving students access to a variety of perspectives and helping them develop skills to do critical reading and analysis,” Miller said.

Nishkian and Homaifar also introduce lessons on fresh campus controversies, which they say generate the most discussion. They estimate half the class attended events during the PSM conference weekend, events sponsored either by the PSM or the Joint Israel Initiative. Representatives of each group spoke to the class.

The class has had other guest speakers, including Bruce Jentleson, director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy who worked on Middle East security negotiations while at the U.S. Department of State.

At a recent meeting, guest speaker Bernard Avishai, a visiting professor in management and public policy, argued that because Israel began as a culturally distinct collective -- and not a European colony dependent on the labor of the local population -- the economy and social structure of present-day Israel could be separated from a Palestinian state.

Israel, he said, began as “a little place where Jews could ask modern questions in Hebrew.”

Nishkian and Homaifar take great pains to balance pro-Palestinian views with pro-Israeli ones and vice versa. For example, Nishkian passed out copies of a short paper claiming, among other things, that Americans hold Jews to a higher standard than they do Arabs. The paper was meant to contrast with a video the class watched the previous week that portrayed American news media as biased toward Israel.

A number of students said the course has served as a valuable source of information during the controversy surrounding the PSM conference.

“It helped me get grounded in the issue,” Nishkian said. “If it weren’t for this house course, I would have felt overwhelmed.”

Senior Pavan Bhatraju said he has noticed that his friends turn to him for information about the conflict because he is taking the course.

Homaifar, an American whose parents are from Iran, said she is “equally pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli.” However, she said, “Had I not been an active participant (in the course), I think I would have been more swayed to one side … the Palestinian side.”

A number of students agreed that respectful discussion, begun in the class about the contentious issue, carries over into wider campus debates.

“It always leaves this room,” Homaifar said. “It never stays here.”