Brazil and Palestine: Sources of Identification / Brasil e Palestina: Fontes de Identificação
Programação
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Course Presentation, by Prof. Arlene Clemesha
A word from Birzeit, Palestine. By Amir Khalil, Prof. of Law, and External Academic Relations Officer
Opening Remarks, by Ambassador Alessandro Candeas, Representative of Brazil to Palestine
The lecture by Professor Sa'd Nimr will address the History of Palestine, focusing on the al nakba, that is, the event that in 1948 marked the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and its ongoing nature. Historic and historiographic debates surrounding this topic have attempted to silence the Palestinian voices, memories, and narratives, denying the event its place in history. The dynamics of erasing al nakba from history has also meant denying the Palestinian the status of victim, and exempting responsibilities for the crime that impacted so heavily over the destiny of the whole nation in 1948, and still weighs over the lives of all the descendants of the more than 700.000 Palestinians driven from their houses, lands and country.
Reading Assignment:
PAPPE, Ilan. An 'Alleged' Ethnic Cleansing?. In: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Ilan Pappe, Oneworld Publications Limited, Oxford, 2006.
PAPPE, Ilan. The Drive for an Exclusively Jewish State. In: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Ilan Pappe, Oneworld Publications Limited, Oxford, 2006.
Em português, veja:
PAPPE, Ilan. Os Dez Mitos Sobre Israel. São Paulo: Tabla, 2022. Trad. Bruno C. Mattos.
PAPPE, Ilan. A Limpeza Étnica da Palestina. São Paulo: Sundermann, 2016. Trad. Luiz Gustavo Soares. -
Although the topics of the lecture are overlapping, and the lecture definitely does not give Jerusalem its due, it can be said that the lecture is divided into two parts: the first concerns the most prominent aspects of the city’s history, in terms of the location and time of the founding of the city’s nucleus, with reference to the problems and differences surrounding the city’s ancient history. The spiritual status of the three monotheistic religions will be clarified, with a mention of the most prominent historical periods, ruling families and important events that they passed, and the most prominent princes, kings and sultans who assumed their rule. The second section deals with the architectural landscape of the city, in terms of its location and topography and its impact on the architectural development, with reference to a group of city landmarks representing most styles and periods of time, with a focus on religious complexes such as the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Jerusalem Wall and the Citadel of Jerusalem. It is hoped that there will be time for some questions or comments.
Reading Assignment:
Al-Natsheh, Yusuf Said. Preface. In: Thematic Trails and Tours in Jerusalem. Jerusalem Tourism Cluster, October, 2011.
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The class will offer a personal testimony on life under Israel’s 16-year siege of the Gaza Strip, map a way out of the catastrophe created by Israel, and provide a trajectory of personal and political involvement in the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
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This class will focus on developments in institutional governance in the occupied Palestinian territories and the development of post-Oslo institutional arrangements. Key foci will include how the institutionalization of Palestinian politics has served to undermine political pluralism while entrenching authoritarianism and the Israeli occupation, the shrinking space for civil society and its ability to hold leaders to account, the role of patronage and factionalism in the governance of the territories, youth movements and the issue of succession.
Reading Assignment:
Nathan J. Brown and Vladimir Pran, A Procedural Guide to Palestinian Succession: The How of the Who, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 27 September 2022.
Omar, Abdaljawad, The Politics of Slow Unbinding, The Electronic Intifada, 26 October 2022.
Securitization Dysfunction: Security Sector Reform in the occupied Palestinian territories, Contemporary Arab Affairs, Vol. 12 No. 1, March 2019; (pp. 19-38), https://doi.org/10.1525/caa.2019.121002
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How might we understand Israel’s system of Apartheid? This class will focus on the concept, structures and practices of Apartheid. It will begin with a general overview of the concept, including its legal definition and historical cases, most notably in South Africa. The class will then explore various dimensions of Israel’s system of Apartheid—physical, ideological, infrastructure, and institutional—and end with a discussion of how it might be challenged, and if possible, dismantled.
Reading Assignment:Abdelnour, Samer (2013). Beyond South Africa: Understanding Israeli Apartheid. Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/beyond-south-africa-understanding-israeli-aparthei/
Abdelnour, Samer (2022). Making a Killing: Israel’s Military Innovation Ecosystem and the Globalization of Violence. Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406221131938
Erakat, Noura & Reynolds, John. (2022). Understanding Apartheid. Jewish Currents. https://jewishcurrents.org/understanding-apartheid -
Based on historical facts, the views of Arab and “New Historian” Israelis, have been that the Jewish/Israeli forces expelled the Palestinians from their land deliberately and systematically, and that was the end-product or crowning achievement of the Zionist ideology which always maintained that the Palestinians has to be transferred outside of Palestine. This scheme was materialized in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled out of their land to create a Zionist State of Israel. Lecture parts: 1- The historical background of integral lineage between the Jewish national aspiration/Zionism and the rise of the European nationalism/colonialism. The Zionist movement search for a national colony along the lines of European colonial schemes. 2- The shift of the Zionist movement to associate with the Jewish Old Testimony and the invention of the Holy land (Palestine), with total disregard to its native people (the Palestinians). 3- The ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians in 1948/9 and later dates - the Creation of the Palestinian refugees’ problem and the refusal to accept the UN resolutions and the international calls for their return to their home. 4- The refugees’ locations; their legal status in the host countries; their quantity; their current living conditions and more.
Reading Assignment:
Salman Abu Sitta. International Conference on Palestine Refugees, Report, Paris, April 2000.
Benny Morris: “Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus of 1948” in Avi Shlaim and Eugene Rogan (org). The War for Palestine, Cambridge University Press, 2001
Bashir Nijim: Toward the De-Arabization of Palestine/Israel, 1945/1977, Kendall/Hunt, USA 1984
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This class aims to discuss the Palestinian diaspora in Brazil informed by the geo-political chronology that characterized the different waves of their arrival over the last 100 years along periods that cover the Othman Rule, the British Mandate including the 1936 Palestinian Revolt and its violent suppression, the Nakba of 1948, the Naksa of 1967 and on to the War in Syria and the resulting refugee crisis that included Palestinian arriving in Brazil.
Not much attention is given in refugee and immigrant studies to the Palestinians in Latin America, although they represent the largest presence in numbers worldwide after the Arab countries and have played a key role more recently in influencing the voting in support of the recognition of the Statehood to Palestine.
The class will also look at the question from a gender perspective and seek to draw parallels with the studies of Rosemary Sayegh who focused intergenerationally on the role of Palestinian refugee women.
Reading Assignment:
Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 117-128. Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Spring, 1982.
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32379
Odeh, Muna Muhammad (et al.). PALESTINA LIVRE EM MOSAICO: CEM ANOS DE REFÚGIO E MIGRAÇÃO DE MULHERES NO BRASIL. Em: Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Artes, Cultura e Linguagens, Instituto de Artes e Design, UFJF, v. 6 n. 1 e 2: Artes, Mulheres e Migrações, 2021.https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/nava/article/view/32879/23224
Odeh, Muna Muhammad, (et al.). Para além dos retratos comuns sobre a condição de refúgio e de migração: narrativas de mulheres palestinas sobre seu protagonismo no Brasil. Em: Tempus, actas de saúde colet, Brasília, 14(3), 219-233, set, 2020. Epub mai/2021
https://www.tempusactas.unb.br/index.php/tempus/article/view/2867/2088
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8. South-South Translations (Wail Hassan) in dialogue with the author of The Enigma of Qaf (Alberto Mussa)
This class takes the form of an open conversation with Alberto Mussa, a Brazilian novelist of Lebanese and Palestinian descent, and Waïl Hassan, an Egyptian-American professor of comparative literature and the translator of Mussa’s novel O enigma de Qaf into Arabic as لغز القاف. Mussa will begin with some remarks, followed by comments from Hassan, then the floor will be opened for questions from the students.
Reading Assignment:
MUSSA, Alberto. O enigma de Qaf. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2004.
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9. The Bedouin communities in the West Bank today (Ahmad Amara) in dialogue with The Guarani Mbya indigenous communities in face of land expropriation and other conflicts (Adriana Testa)
Ahmad Amara:
The class will discuss the history and contemporary challenging realities of the Palestinian Bedouin communities, the land dispossession and house demolition they face by the Israeli authorities, and the legal arguments standing behind these Israeli practices.
Adriana Testa:
The Guarani Mbya are an indigenous population present in parts of Uruguay, Northeastern Argentina, Eastern Paraguay, South and Southeastern Brazil. The objective of this presentation is two-fold. On the one hand, we will address impacts caused by public and private “development” initiatives such as: hydroelectric plants, transportation routes, touristic complexes, agri-business farms, rural and urban settlements. On the other hand, we will discuss how the Guarani Mbya have used their traditions and knowledge to actively challenge these experiences of land expropriation and conflict.
Reading Assignment:
AMARA, Ahmad (et al). The Bedouin Communities Of Eastern Jerusalem: A New Locus Of Power In The Post-Oslo Battle For Palestine?. In: L'Harmattan, Confluences Méditerranée N° 117, pp. 101-117, Vol.2, 2021
AMARA, Ahmad. The Negev Land Question: Between Denial and Recognition. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 27-47. University of California Press, Institute for Palestine Studies, 2013.
POPYGUA David Karai; BOGGARIM Verá Mirim Márcio Mendonça; POTY Valdemir Karai. A message from the Guarani to the world: words drawn from centuries of struggle and strength, 2020. -
10. The MST and the struggle for land in Brazil (Cassia Bechara) in dialogue with The Palestinian agricultural movements: sumud and creativity (Izzat Zeidan)
Cássia Bechara:
In this class we will shortly present the history of the landless rural workers' movement (MST), focusing on the discussion surrounding the Popular Land Reform, and our demands, on our experiences as a rural mass social movement, on the struggle for land, on the relation with urban society, as well as on our actions for permanence on the land, including the formation and qualification of our militancy.
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11. The struggle for housing in Brazil and the case of Vila Nova Palestina in São Paulo (Nanci Pittelkow) in dialogue with Ethnic cleansing and gentrification in Palestine today (Munir Nuseibah)
Nanci Pittelkow:
It is not uncommon for underemployed or precarious urban workers to have to choose between paying the rent or buying food for their families. In recent years, this reality has been intensified in the big cities. The Movement of Homeless Workers (MTST) offers an alternative to the peripheral population, through struggle. The case of the occupation Vila Nova Palestina, held in 2013 in the far south of the capital of São Paulo, summarizes the situation of a refugee population within the city itself.
Munir Nuseibah:
This lecture will examine the methods used by Israel to ethnically cleanse Palestinians through using a series of laws and regulations that force Palestinians to live away from their homes, or to live under continuous persecution. Examples of these measures are linked to residency status and urban planning. In addition, measures of collective punishment also force Palestinians out of their homes and communities.
Reading Assignment:
Débora Cristina Goulart. Movimento dos Trabalhadores sem Teto e subproletarização: elementos para um debate sobre a classe trabalhadora no Brasil. Lutas Sociais, 2012 (ISSN 1415-854X).
Boulos, Guilherme. Vila nova palestina e a explosão de ocupações em São Paulo. Em: Boulos, Guilherme. Por que Ocupamos? Uma Introdução à luta dos sem-teto - 3ª ed. - São Paulo (SP): Autonomia Literária. 2015Munir Nuseibah. The ongoing nakba and I.
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Regional Office Palestine and Jordan, July 2018.
Munir Nuseibah. Decades of displacing Palestinians: how Israel does it. Al Shabaka, June 18, 2013. https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/decades-displacing-palestinians-how-israel-does-it/
Munir Nuseibah. The second nakba: marking 50 years of Israeli occupation. The New Arab, June 6, 2017. https://www.newarab.com/opinion/second-nakba-marking-50-years-israeli-occupation
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The one-state solution (new paradigm) is increasingly invoked as a possible alternative to the two-state solution and territorial partition (old paradigm). Liberal democracy and binational arrangements are often mentioned as morally and politically desirable and defensible alternatives to the two-state solution. This lecture is devoted to critically examine alternatives to the two-state solution with particular focus on the above-mentioned two alternatives.
Reading Assignment:
Bashir Bashir, ‘The Strengths and Weaknesses of Integrative Solutions for the Israel-Palestinian Conflict’, Middle East Journal, 70(4), 2016, pp. 560-578.
Bashir Bashir and Rachel Busbridge, ‘The Politics of Decolonization and Binationalism in Israel/Palestine’, Political Studies, 67(2), 2019: 388-405.
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13. Palestine as literature in the writings of Elias Khoury (Safa Jubran) in dialogue with Is there a current Palestinian narrative? (Selma Dabbagh) Commentaries by Elias Khoury
Prof. Safa Jubran:
The speaking silence: Starting from the novel My name is Adam, the first volume of the trilogy Children of the Ghetto, by the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury, this class will address some of the themes treated, such as the Nakba and Lydda's Ghetto, besides the embedded themes, by focusing on certain narrative techniques used by Khoury to achieve the points he wanted to discuss, such as identity, history, memory, the relationship of the novel to history, some questions cross them: how to restore in literature crimes whose victims have walled themselves in silence? How literature can be the only way to give meaning to the meaningless of life. I intend to read a page from the novel in Arabic, Portuguese and English to illustrate the idea of “silence” that speaks and faces history.
Prof. Selma Sabbagh:
Can we turn to fiction to establish a term that describes the full, multidimensional impact of the system of control of Palestinians by Israel? Palestinians are experiencing a kind of dystopic techno-necro-apartheid of unprecedented reach and brutality; mechanisms of control, legal and physical, tested out on a population for wider global application. Readers may turn to fiction to find out how it feels to experience Palestinian lives, but does it also provide narratives of resistance that are universally applicable?’ The blind Abbasid poet, Abu Al-Ala Al Ma’ari (973-1057) wrote, ‘Hold tight to what is most yourself/ Don’t squander it, don’t let your life/ Be governed by what disturbs you.’ This session will explore what can be learnt from Palestinian resistance, considering whether the lynchpins of narrative can been found in fiction. It explores whether Palestinians have been able to build a narrative, not based on what they are against, but also on what they are for.
Elias Khoury: Commentaries
Reading Assignment:Khoury Elias. My name is Adam (CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO: VOLUME I), Translated by Humphrey Davies.
Khoury Elias. Meu nome é Adam (CRIANÇAS DO GUETO 1): VOLUME I), Translated from Arabic to Portuguese by Safa Jubran.
الياس خوري، اسمي آدم ، أولاد الغيتو (1)، دار الآداب
Khoury, Elias. “Forward”. In: Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg (org.). The Holocaust and and the Nakba.
Selma Dabbagh. ‘Out of It,’ novel, (Bloomsbury, 2011).
Selma Dabbagh. ‘Jerusalem, Dispossessed,’ (DAWN, 2021).
For other short pieces and stories, please see www.selmadabbagh.com