Two Peoples, One Land: The History and Complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

David Bisno | Winter/Spring 2025

With the Middle East in continuing turmoil, we'll try to understand the problem from all perspectives during three intensive Friday afternoons. David will again, as he did last winter, lead us through the history and conflicts of the Holy Land—now with important revisions, additions, and updates, including the present truce with hostage and prisoner return. Without advocacy but with even-handed care and scholarship, David will help us understand the competing claims and why a solution is so difficult. This talk, with remarkable illustrations, will take us from Abraham to Herzl, from Arafat to Netanyahu ... and up to Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.

We’ll consider many important questions. Whose land is it, anyway? Whose land has it been? What does the Bible have to do with it? Who are the indigenous people? Who has the “Right of Return”? Why Israel? Why Palestine? Why the Jews? Why the Muslims? What do Christians have to do with it? What are the myths under which we’ve been living? Why have there been so many campus protests? Is there a solution? If so, what might it look like?

Lecture 1/3
Part # 1  History to 73 A.D.
Part # 2  Why Have People Hated the Jews?
Part # 3  The Need to Flee

Lecture 2/3
Part # 1  Zionism
Part # 2  The Palestinian Story

Lecture 3/3
Perilous Wars, Failed Accords
Hollow Hopes, Truths & Myths