yada,
I had typed this up about a month ago, but i remember being disconnected before it got through and saved it on my computer. Only now, after cleaning up useless stuff i save around I found it and thought i should post it up straight away.
so sorry for it being really late. but its only march you still have plenty of time. goodluck!!
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Hi Yada,
im sorry this is late....
I did my ex history paper last year on the area of Palestine and Israel.
I was also worried about syllabus constraints...I emailed someone from the HTA (the email address is available on their website) and described to them what I was researching etc and they replied saying it was fine a) because my modern class were not studying it, b) because my research area is not looked in as indepth in the syllabus and c) because i had a passion for it.
I did the new historians writing on the Palestinian refugees of 1948-49 and the interpretations of how they were expelled. Israeli history up till the early 1990s had been so extremely vague on this issue and it had maintained that the Palestinains had left on their own free will (on radio calls from local leaders!!). After 1993 huge archives were opened for the public showing that Zionist forces aims was an expulsion of Palestinians and it led to a re-writing of history so to speak. It caused major uproar as the governments and right-wing fascists refused to accept the new history. Thus I researched how the new historians writings have been interpreted in the political atmosphere.
possible topics:
a new historian- Illan Pappe is currently on trial and might be expelled from his univeristy- this would be interesting to follow....
- an MA student's research was stripped of its marks and declared viod basically. Teddy Katz was expelled in 2001 for writing on a massacre committed by zionist forces in a town of Mantura in May 1948- the basis for expulsion was that the student used Palestinian oral testimony as evidence.
Actually Prof Pappe himself believes that his strong stance and support of the Katz issue is what brought about the trial.
- you can also look at the conversion of the first new historian Benny Morris- he has since been dubbed the "darling of the right" after doing a great deal to open debate. his historical writing since his "conversion" has been dismissed and his fellow new historians have distanced themselves from him...that is an interesting topic on its own also...
please let me know what you have decided to pursure. I am pretty well read in this area and would be happy to advise you of some historians.
all the best! goodluck!