Essay Questions

Question 0

What are Hamas position and goals?

Answer 0

1. Break the blockade/security barrier
2. Palestinians want to Israel to free Palestinian prisoners
3. Hamas wants to demonstrate its military resolve
4. Hamas/Palestinians want Israel to stop their air strikes on Gaza

Question 1

What are Israel’s positions and goals with regard to this (50 day war) conflict?

Answer 1

1. Israel wants to stop rocket fire
2. The tunnels are a major concern
3. General demilitarization of Gaza Strip and Hamas

Question 2

How was Israel’s state different from the ones that emerged at the time?

Answer 2

Israel experienced demographic change of type not seen anywhere else

Impressive financial endowment

In 1950 the Israel Parliament, the Knesset, passed the law of return

Israel only helped out with a tiny number of Palestinians who fled after war

Question 3

What do we learn from our overview of history?

Answer 3

1. Four major power centers (Turkey, Iranian Plateau, tigres/Euphrates, Nile)
2. No one succeeds in conquering all of Middle East
3. Central Mesopotamia always fought over
4. Iranian peninsula remained isolated

Question 4

Four aspects of this new political order are significant. What are they?

Answer 4

1. New state system
2. Emergence of state based nationalism
3. The beginning of the establishment of Israel
4. WWI transformed the Persian empire and established a new dynasty that lasted until 1972

Question 5

What was the Balfour Declaration?

Answer 5

Favor for the establishment of Palestine of a national home for Jewish people

Question 6

What are the unresolved core issues?

Answer 6

Jerusalem 
Borders
Settlements
Refugees 
Security