In 1997, when a small group of us met at Lake Arrowhead, California, under the auspices of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), our goal was to establish the first academic center focusing on Palestine and Palestinian studies. Too much attention and resources had been devoted to political studies, especially within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, at the expense of medicine, education, business, engineering, the environment, and many other fields. We were determined to expand Palestinian studies to all fields.
Our mission was to promote Palestinian studies and support scholarly excellence; to encourage understanding, communication, and cooperation among American, Palestinian, Israeli, and other scholars; and to provide access to research resources and opportunities. In short, we hoped to increase the quality, scope, and depth of Palestinian studies and to create a network of scholars by establishing an institutional infrastructure to provide funding, logistical support, and access to local resources.
It is one thing to have a mission, and yet another to lay the foundations for an institutional infrastructure that fulfills that mission. At Lake Arrowhead PARC was fortunate to have – besides Ann Mosely Lesch, Ralph Salmi, and myself – members of CAORC who had established and nurtured several other centers. Foremost among these was Mary Ellen Lane, the head of CAORC, who had also first conceived of PARC. Others included Ben Harer of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) and Joe Seger, board member and president of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and former president of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. A Steering Committee was formed that would later be replaced by a full board composed of some of the leading scholars in the field.
Our immediate objectives were to establish two offices, one in the United States and the other in Palestine. After PARC was officially registered in 1998, it opened its first office at Randolph Macon College, under the direction of historian Michael R. Fischbach. Our Palestine office was established in Jerusalem, headed by Mouin Rabbani, who was then a doctoral student at Oxford University. He was later aided by an Advisory Committee chaired by Ibrahim Dakkak, a prominent Palestinian intellectual.
The response to PARC among scholars, students, institutions, and foundations was enthusiastic. Within two years, PARC raised $220,000 from the Ford, Rockefeller, Tananbaum, and Earhart foundations and the U.S. Department of Education, enabling PARC to award nine fellowships ranging from $5,500 to $7,000 to U.S. and Palestinian scholars.
Nowhere was interest greater than in Palestine. Thanks to publicity generated by the Palestine office, many Palestinian scholars applied to the annual fellowship competition. The applicants were and are from throughout the West Bank and Gaza, various religious and political backgrounds, and both men and women. One might assume that a people whose daily life is disrupted by checkpoints and the wall, and who endure the hardships of direct or indirect occupation, would be predisposed to sending proposals about the political conflict. While some did, most applicants had other interests.
A selection of topics from the 2003-2004 PARC fellows reflects this diversity: coastal water pollution in Gaza;; concepts of democracy among high school students; the management of wastewater in Palestinian olive oil mills; the contemporary Palestinian women’s movement; Israeli Supreme Court rulings regarding the Palestinian citizens of Israel; dispersal, destruction, and reconstruction of the Palestine archives of the British Mandate; Palestinian soldiers in the Israeli military; and a social history of Tulkarm in the late Ottoman period. These were precisely the kind of topics that had been neglected and for the study of which PARC was largely established.
Since 2000, PARC has awarded over 120 fellowships to researchers from 13 countries. Although most awardees have been Americans and Palestinians, other countries with PARC fellows include Israel, Germany, Canada, France, Great Britain, Egypt, Greece, Pakistan, Jordan, Turkey, and India. The ratio between men and women awardees has been almost even, with women slightly outnumbering men. The wide range of topics has included numerous historical studies covering late Bronze Age archaeology through research on aspects of the Ottoman and Mandate periods; various studies on economic development, water quality and distribution, waste management and recycling, occupational hazards for Palestinian workers, and maternal and child health; and a look at various social aspects of Palestinian refugee life.
PARC has also been active in other academic endeavors. PARC is an affiliate member of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and each year has organized a panel at MESA’s annual meeting. Here, too, the topics vary: The Legacy and Impact of British Rule from 1922-1948; Contemporary Social Science Research on Palestine; Views of the Other in Israeli and Palestinian Textbooks; Contemporary Life in the West Bank and Gaza Under Ongoing Israeli Occupation; New Perspectives on Mandate Palestine; The Multiple Economies of Palestine: Survival or Development?; Palestinians Inside Israel Revisited; and The Palestine Police and the End of the Mandate: British, Arab, and Jewish Perspectives. We have begun a Web site that not only includes application forms for our awards, but also a comprehensive bibliography, chronology, and other reference material.
None of these accomplishments could have been undertaken without the support of many people and organizations. In addition to support from a number of American foundations and the U.S. Department of Education and later the U.S. Department of State, we are fortunate to have nearly 20 leading U.S. universities as institutional members. Well over 100 individual members also belong to PARC, many contributing more than their annual dues to help fund research on Palestine. Board members have been generous with their time. The board meets twice a year, but individual members perform various duties throughout the year. An Executive Committee meets every two months to help implement board decisions and provide guidance.
PARC would not be where it is today had it not been for its outstanding and dedicated staff. In terms of accomplishments, quality, and length of tenure, three directors stand out for their exceptional contributions. In 2000 Ann Mosely Lesch, a Villanova University professor, took over as U.S. director, until 2004, when she left to become Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University in Cairo. Ann combined three rare talents: path-breaking scholarship on Palestine, administrative ability, and energetic fundraising. In addition, Ann received enormous assistance with PARC’s fundraising efforts from Mary Ellen Lane. In Palestine, PARC director Penny Johnson – a researcher at Birzeit University – increased our exposure and contacts, and nearly tripled the number of applicants for our awards. Penelope Mitchell, who took over as U.S. director in 2006, has broadened PARC’s activities, expanded our base of support and membership, resumed fund raising, and in general is applying her considerable talents to put PARC on an even more professional footing.
All of PARC’s accomplishments over the past ten years do not mean that we have substantially fulfilled our mission. Despite the fact that the Palestinians have been the focus of world affairs for decades, PARC lacks sufficient funding to make a greater impact. With a budget of well under $200,000 and an endowment of just $60,000, we are still one of the smallest centers within and outside of CAORC. As a result we are only able to award an average of a dozen fellowships a year, with a maximum of only $6,500 for each fellowship. Nor are we able to initiate more than a very few other important research projects in addition to these fellowships. Our small budget does not enable us to employ full time directors and staff in the United States and Palestine. Our Web site has the potential to become the source for anyone doing research on Palestine and the Palestinians, but it is still a work in progress. We need more applicants from Europe and Israel, where a considerable amount of scholarship is being done. And while we are grateful for the moral and financial support PARC receives in the United States, the support is not commensurate with our goals and needs.
If we are truly to fulfill our mission and to increase the scope, quality, and quantity of Palestinian studies, we need to increase considerably our efforts over the next decade. I have faith that our staff, members, and current and potential funders share a belief in the importance of PARC’s work and will stand behind this belief with both their moral and financial support.
