excerpt of the TEACHING GUIDE for GAZA IN Context
This pedagogical project aims to rehabilitate the question of Gaza within an Israeli settler-colonial framework. Israel first tried to occupy the Gaza Strip in 1956, but was forced to withdraw its forces in response to pressure from the Eisenhower Administration after only four months. Later, when it occupied it in 1967, the Israeli Knesset endorsed the annexation of the Gaza Strip in a secret cabinet meeting shortly after the close of the 1967 War.
After repeated and failed attempts to pacify the native Palestinian population, Israel began to shift its policy towards the coastal enclave. Since 1991, it has isolated, de-developed, and contained the territory and its population. Israel intensified its policy during the Second Palestinian Uprising between 2000-2005, which culminated in unilateral withdrawal in 2005. While Israel has framed the withdrawal of its settler population and military installations as the termination of its occupation, it has maintained control of its air space, its seaports, its electro-magnetic sphere, and its population registry, as well as the entry and exit of all goods and people. Legal scholars as well as the International Criminal Court, in
dicta, have argued that Israel’s ongoing authority amounts to effective control and thus its ongoing role as an Occupying Power. In contrast, since 2005, Israel has treated the Gaza Strip as a sui generis entity: it is neither occupied territory nor is it an independent state, it is a “hostile entity” unlike anything else that exists. This framing has had manifold ramifications.
In practice, Israel has adopted intermittent, counterinsurgency campaigns aimed at diminishing the capacity of the captive Palestinian population to militarily resist Israel’s structural violence. Conceptually, it has set Gaza apart from the rest of the Palestinian-Israel conflict so that there is no continuity between Israel’s wars waged upon it and its treatment of Palestinians throughout Israel as well as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Together, the practice of systematic war and the framework of unique distinction have set the Gaza Strip apart from the questionof Palestine and transformed it into a national security question. By emphasizing the role of Hamas and diminishing the question of Palestine, Israel has collapsed conditions in Gaza with asymmetric conflicts, or what has come to be known as the “global war on terror,” thus eliding the consequential distinctions between Palestinians and other non-state actors. This pedagogical project is an attempt to re-frame the issue in order to place greater emphasis on the broader question of Palestine and to explain Israel’s policy towards the Gaza Strip in that context.
The following Teaching Guide is comprised of four parts:
Each part can be taught separately along with one of the film’s four parts. Alternatively, it can be taught as a single unit in the course of one class or workshop to understand the conflict with a particular emphasis on the Gaza Strip. Due to the spectacle and horror of warfare, lay audiences may be more familiar with Israel’s repeated military operations, making Gaza a gateway to understanding the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The materials below can be used together and/or separately and can be supplemented using the Bibliography as well as the JadMag.
Part I: Settler Colonialism
[To be paired with Part 2 of film]
Lesson Objectives & Pedagogical Goals
Suggested Reading List & Resources
[See more inside...]
After repeated and failed attempts to pacify the native Palestinian population, Israel began to shift its policy towards the coastal enclave. Since 1991, it has isolated, de-developed, and contained the territory and its population. Israel intensified its policy during the Second Palestinian Uprising between 2000-2005, which culminated in unilateral withdrawal in 2005. While Israel has framed the withdrawal of its settler population and military installations as the termination of its occupation, it has maintained control of its air space, its seaports, its electro-magnetic sphere, and its population registry, as well as the entry and exit of all goods and people. Legal scholars as well as the International Criminal Court, in
dicta, have argued that Israel’s ongoing authority amounts to effective control and thus its ongoing role as an Occupying Power. In contrast, since 2005, Israel has treated the Gaza Strip as a sui generis entity: it is neither occupied territory nor is it an independent state, it is a “hostile entity” unlike anything else that exists. This framing has had manifold ramifications.
In practice, Israel has adopted intermittent, counterinsurgency campaigns aimed at diminishing the capacity of the captive Palestinian population to militarily resist Israel’s structural violence. Conceptually, it has set Gaza apart from the rest of the Palestinian-Israel conflict so that there is no continuity between Israel’s wars waged upon it and its treatment of Palestinians throughout Israel as well as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Together, the practice of systematic war and the framework of unique distinction have set the Gaza Strip apart from the questionof Palestine and transformed it into a national security question. By emphasizing the role of Hamas and diminishing the question of Palestine, Israel has collapsed conditions in Gaza with asymmetric conflicts, or what has come to be known as the “global war on terror,” thus eliding the consequential distinctions between Palestinians and other non-state actors. This pedagogical project is an attempt to re-frame the issue in order to place greater emphasis on the broader question of Palestine and to explain Israel’s policy towards the Gaza Strip in that context.
The following Teaching Guide is comprised of four parts:
- History of Israel-Palestine
- Settler Colonialism
- Situating Gaza
- Structural Violence
Each part can be taught separately along with one of the film’s four parts. Alternatively, it can be taught as a single unit in the course of one class or workshop to understand the conflict with a particular emphasis on the Gaza Strip. Due to the spectacle and horror of warfare, lay audiences may be more familiar with Israel’s repeated military operations, making Gaza a gateway to understanding the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The materials below can be used together and/or separately and can be supplemented using the Bibliography as well as the JadMag.
Part I: Settler Colonialism
[To be paired with Part 2 of film]
Lesson Objectives & Pedagogical Goals
- Define and understand settler-colonialism; distinguish it from colonialism.
- Understand how Israel and Palestinians is a case study of settler-colonialism by understanding Palestinian presence and claims for a nation-state as well as the rise of Zionism as a Jewish nationalist movement.
- Draw parallels between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians across various jurisdictions i.e., civil, military occupation, counterinsurgency.
Suggested Reading List & Resources
[See more inside...]