As has become evident virtually every year, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict retains its capacity to mobilize both sides against each other. Why are Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews unable to resolve their differences? This course uncovers some of the deeper explanations as to why the conflict persists, even as it changes over the decades.

Part of the Zionist cultural project involved creating a new Jewish masculinity that would replace the diasporic "sissy Jew" with a strong, healthy new "Jewry of Muscle." Using literary and cinematic sources, we will analyze how these Zionist and Israeli cultural productions served to build (and sometimes undermine) this new model of Jewish masculinity.

Addresses the main issues in Israeli politics and society by focusing on the role of Zionism in the Jewish state, the institutional foundations of Israeli democracy, the main political parties and blocs and their different ideological principles and visions, as well as the main social groups, movements, and institutions that comprise Israeli civil society.

What are the United States' interests in the Middle East? Who and/or what determines those interests? How are these interests pursued? This course will provide an overview of American diplomacy in the Middle East as it unfolded since the mid-1940s with an emphasis on the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflicts. We will first examine the overarching ideational and institutional factors that shape and guide U.S. foreign policy, and then turn to analyze major issues and challenges American diplomacy faces in the Middle East. The course seeks to integrate U.S. foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict into a broader analytical framework dealing with mediation, conflict resolution and management, alliance and politics, and patron-client relations.