SOCI 3110

Palestine and International Relations

0.5 credits · Undergraduate

Fall 2026

Topics

Assess the ongoing effects of settler colonial and neocolonial systems, along with capitalist
structures, on the Palestinian people, and examine the strategies they employ to resist oppression
and reclaim self-determination
Critically analyze how both overtly colonial and diplomatically framed agreements—such as
Sykes-Picot, Balfour, and Oslo—have served to legitimize and deepen the fragmentation
occupation, and external domination of Palestine
Critically assess how Israel’s formation and the occupation of Palestine function as central
the erasure of Palestinian presence
military and surveillance use
Investigate the dynamics of Palestinian resistance movements and assess the influence of both
regional and global actors in supporting, opposing, or mediating these efforts
transnational efforts advocating for Palestinian self-determination, human rights, and resistance
to occupation
Assess the ongoing military assaults and sieges of Gaza as deliberate violations of Palestinian
human rights under Israeli occupation, amounting to breaches of international human rights
standards and humanitarian law by the Israeli regimes
Examine the genocide in Gaza as part of a broader colonial project, shaped by historical

Readings

Required: Albanese, Francesca. 2025. UNs Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (A/80/492).
Required: Barghouti, Omar. 2011. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Intro, pp:1-34, & Notes:263-272.
Required: Bayoumi, Moustafa & Andrew Rubin (eds.) 2000. The Edward Said Reader. New York: Vintage – Chapter 17 – “An Interview with Edward Said” (pp: 419-444).
Required: Cook, Jonathan. 2008. Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair. London/New York: Zed Books. Chapter 6—Life under Occupation” pp: 167-190.
Required: Erakat, Noura. 2019/2020. Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Conclusion, pp: 211-241, & Notes, pp: 301-312.
Required: Hadawi, Sami. 1979 Bitter Harvest: Palestine 1914-1979. New York: The Caravan Books. Parts: 1 & 2, pp: 1-28.
Required: Khalidi, Rashid. 2020/21. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017. New York: Metropolitan Books. Conclusion, pp: 237- 255; & Notes, pp: 301 302.
Required: Loewenstein, Antony. 2024. The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. London/New York: Verso. Preface, pp: IX-XIV; Intro, pp: 1-16; Notes, pp: 221-222; Conclusion, pp:206-214; & Notes, pp:252-253.
Required: Masalha, Nur. 2021/2024. Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History. London/New York: I.B. Tauris. Intro, pp: 1-34.
Required: Pappe, Ilan. 2017. Ten Myths About Israel. London/New York: Verso. Preface, pp: IX-XIII; Chapter 10 – “The Two-States Solution…” & Conclusion, pp:141-148; Notes, p:166.
Required: Pappe, Ilan. 2007. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: One World Oxford. Preface & Chapter 1—"An alleged Ethnic Cleansing?” Pp: XI-XVIII; 1-9, & Notes, pp:262-264.
Required: Ramazani, Jahan. 2000. “Edward Said and the Poetry of Decolonization” (Chapter 9—pp:160
Required: 169), in Adel Iskandar & Hakem Rustom (eds.), Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation. California: University of California Press.
Required: Wildeman, Jeremy & M. Muhannad Ayyash (eds.) 2023. Canada as a Settler Colony on the Question of Palestine. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Chapter 2, pp: 17 - 39; notes: pp:39 – 53.
Required: Wind, Maya. 2024. Towers of Ivory & Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom. London/New York: Verso. “The Scholarly Security State” (pp: 89-111), & “Epilogue” (pp:193-196).

Sources