Beginning in the Fall of 2024, the University of Utah’s College of Humanities will offer a four-credit course on the long history between Israel and Palestine. This course is one of several developments in the Middle East Center. It will offer students in-depth coverage on the history of Israel and Palestine from the 19th to the 21st century.
History of Israel and Palestine
Students in the History of Israel and Palestine course will be “assessing the histories of nationalisms, colonialisms, war and violence, alongside the histories of ideologies, necessity, peace and diplomacy,” according to promotional flyers for the course.
Dr. Annie Greene, assistant professor in the history department and course instructor, explained that this course is exactly what it is labeled as: a history course.
“This is a history class. For those students who want to talk about recent events, I’m going to have to refer them to my colleagues in political science,” Greene said.
Greene plans to spend the majority of the course discussing the 19th century and most of the 20th century.
“How the events back then shaped what is going on today will be the very last weeks of the course,” Greene said. “Which is to say, can we do a history of yesterday yet? Is that even history?”
Greene emphasized the importance of setting aside personal beliefs about the Israel/Palestine conflict and taking time to recognize that history is written from the present. She also encouraged wondering about what perspective historians view events they are writing about.
“We have to read all of the primary sources that are available and all of the secondary sources that are available, which means we might not like the opinions of the sources we are reading,” Greene said. “In order to be good historians, we are not going to be able to have the option to say, ‘I disagree, I don’t want to read this source.'”
Creating the Course
Greene also acknowledged the intense nature of the course content.
“We’re going to be discussing violence throughout the semester … I have a blanket content warning, and I want students to take that seriously,” she said.
Previously, the U has offered noncredit courses covering the Israel/Palestine conflict. This includes courses offered by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. However, the Fall 2024 semester is the first time that a course covering the conflict will be available for credit. There is also a noncredit section of this course available.
“All over the United States, large universities that have a Middle East Center offer a course on the history of Israel and Palestine,” Greene said.
According to Greene, prior to the events of Oct. 7, 2023 in which Hamas launched an attack on Israel and killed more than 1,200 Israelis, the Middle East Center had already been planning to implement a course covering the history between Israel and Palestine. This was in hopes to increase student interest in the humanities and the Middle East Center.
But, Greene also pointed out that inevitably, the events of Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war increased student curiosity about the conflict.
“History is incredibly messy. I hope that I am able to answer as many questions as possible,” Greene said. “I also hope students leave this class with even more questions than before, which isn’t to say I hope to confuse them. But I hope that there’s an appreciation that adding more details and finding out new narratives and uncovering more voices means that we have even more questions than we even knew we could ask.”
