Humanism, Scholarship, and Politics: Writing on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
[Article]
S. Roy
This essay discusses the role of the intellectual in writing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, exploring the relationship between scholarship and politics and the writer's moral and political responsibility. A personal account based both on the literature and on the author's two decades of experience researching and writing on Palestinian-Israeli issues, the essay addresses three recurring themes-objectivity and partisanship, process, and dissent. In so doing, it challenges the essentialist positions that argue against the role of individual judgment and subjectivity in the conduct of research, especially on politically sensitive issues. The essay addresses the critical tasks of the humanist scholar who writes on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the ways in which scholarship can play both a pedagogical and moral role.