Near East Studies

This course focuses on the objectives, methods, and consequences of media involvement in armed conflicts and the importance of armed conflict for the media, in both historical and contemporary perspectives. The course provides tools to analyze and understand different cultural, social, and technical aspects of the relationship between the media and armed conflicts, while also maintaining strong practical components. These practical components include the workshopping based introduction of key journalistic skills including developing sources, interviewing techniques, and writing with a focus on application within active conflict zones. This course includes multiple field visits and interviews with those involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other Middle Eastern wars and offensives. The course considers media interaction in low, medium, and high intensity armed conflicts.

This course focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: it looks at the roots and history of the question contextualizing it into regional and international political developments. The course covers the most important events that characterized the conflict providing a solid historic background for analyzing contemporary developments. Moreover, the course analyzes the role of international and regional actors into the making of the conflict while also highlighting the impact of the Palestinian issue into the Arab world. The first class provides the theoretical tools for a critical analysis of the conflict, the different actors, and their political role. This approach challenges the traditional mainstream paradigms around the Arab-Israeli crisis. The following classes are also informed by this critical approach: the analysis of important events such as the Suez crisis, the 1967 and 1973 Wars, the emergence of Palestinian resistance, the impact of the Cold War, and the role of international players explore the political dynamics behind the mere facts. Regional events impacted by the Arab-Israeli conflict such as the Black September and the Lebanese civil war are discussed in
order to highlight the influence and relevance of the Palestinian question on regional politics. Having built a historical background and critical understanding of the conflict, the last part of the course focuses on contemporary events and the emergence of new actors, new diplomatic strategies, as well as the popular mobilization that is characterizing current political developments. Finally, the course discusses possible solutions.