Ronnie Olesker
Monday, March 30, 2009
7:00 p.m.
Sykes Common Room

One Land - Three Peoples? Future Prospects for Jewish-Arab-Palestinian Relations in Israel

The lecture explores the future prospects for the relations between Israel's Jewish citizens and it's Palestinian ones. Most of the discussion on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict centers on the antagonists, while the Arab citizens of Israel, of Palestinian descent, are often left out of the discourse. The Palestinian Israelis are not quite Israeli, since they cannot identify with the state's national Jewish ethos, and in a sense, not quite Palestinian since, as Israeli citizens, they have different legal and political status and interests than their Palestinian counterparts.
The rise in violence between Israel and the Palestinians since the eruption of al-Aqsa intifada in 2000 and the war with Hamas in 2008, as well as the strengthening of the nationalist parties on the political Right in the Israeli elections in February, all reshape the relationship between the Palestinian minority and its state of citizenship. What are some of the implications of those events for the Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and what are some of the implications for the larger conflict? Is the one state solution a viable option or are we moving toward carving up the area into three distinct entities: Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab autonomy in between?

Ronnie Olesker is an Assistant Professor of Government, specializing in comparative politics and international relations. She holds a Law Degree (LL.B) with specialization in International Law from Israel. She served as an intelligence analyst in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and worked for the district attorney’s office in Tel Aviv. She earned her Masters in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) and PhD from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

She teaches courses on Comparative Politics, International Relations, Middle East Politics, Terrorism and Human Rights. Her research focuses on majority-minority relations, and the decision-making processes of minority groups in adopting political violence against the state. Other areas of interests include the nexus between violence, namely terrorism, and violations of human rights, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian context as well as peace and conflict in the Middle East, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict. Her most recent work looks at the effects of the 2008 US presidential elections on US-Israeli bilateral relations and Israeli domestic politics.