Overview
Each of your essays should includean introduction with a thesis statement that provides a response to the essay question, specific evidence from the assigned readings in support of your thesis, and a brief concluding paragraph that sums everything up. Each essay should be approximately 2-3 typed, double-spaced pages. Your responses to these questions should be your own work, written in your own words, and based on the assigned readings and our discussions about them in class. Do not consult any outside sources for this assignment. I want to see reflected in your responses your own engagement with the material we studied this semester, not what you might be able to find online or generate using an AI tool. Responses that are not your own will not receive credit.
Essay #1 “One of the most vexing problems in the political history of the modern Middle East...has been the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians” (Mehran Kamrava, The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War, p. 299). Drawing upon your reading of Kamrava’s The Modern Middle East and Ajami’s The Dream Palace of the Arabs, write an essay in which you identify and discuss the most important causes of this conflict and the major obstacles standing in the way of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. (I'm supporting the Palestinians cause, I just wanna let know)
Essay #2 An enduring theme in the history of the modern Middle East is what Fouad Ajami calls a “Sisyphean quest for modernity” (The Dream Palace of the Arabs, p. 232). Drawing upon your reading of Kamrava’s The Modern Middle East and Ajami’s The Dream Palace of the Arabs, write an essay in which you identify and discuss the main obstacles in the Arab world to political and economic modernization.