On virtual display starting November 2023 • All book descriptions provided by the publisher
For anyone wishing to learn about the historical context that has contributed to the catastrophic events in Israel and Gaza, this display offers books providing a range of perspectives on the past century of this region’s history.
The Question of Palestine
This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate--one that remains as critical as ever. With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile's passion, Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied--as well as in the conscience of the West.
The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994
Author of the groundbreaking The Question of Palestine, Edward Said has been America's most outspoken advocate for Palestinian self-determination. As these collected essays amply prove, he is also our most intelligent and bracingly heretical writer on affairs involving not only Palestinians but also the Arab and Muslim worlds and their tortuous relations with the West. "Solidly imbued with historical context and geopolitical conjecture...fresh, unpredictable, personal and incorruptible writing."--Boston Globe In The Politics of Dispossession, Said traces his people's struggle for statehood through twenty-five years of exile, from the PLO's bloody 1970 exile from Jordan through the debacle of the Gulf War and the ambiguous 1994 peace accord with Israel. As frank as he is about his personal involvement in that struggle, Said is equally unsparing in his demolition of Arab icons and American shibboleths. Stylish, impassioned, and informed by a magisterial knowledge of history and literature, The Politics of Dispossession is a masterly synthesis of scholarship and polemic that has the power to redefine the debate over the Middle East.
The Politics of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of Israel/Palestine
This book traces how the geographical sciences have become entwined with politics, territorial claim-making, and nation-building in Israel/Palestine. In particular, the focus is on the history of geographical sciences before and after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and how surveying, mapping, and naming the new territory became a crucial part of its making. With the 1993 Oslo Interim Agreement, Palestinians also surveyed and mapped the territory allocated to a future State of Palestine, with the expectation that they would, within five years, gain full sovereignty. In both cases, maps served to evoke a sense of national identity, facilitated a state’s ability to govern, and helped delineate territory. Besides maps’ geopolitical functions for nation-state building, they also became weapons in map wars. Before and after the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, maps of the region became one of the many battlefields in which political conflicts over land claims and the ethno-national identity of this contested land were being waged. Aided by an increasingly user-defined mapping environment, Israeli and Palestinian governmental and non-governmental organizations increasingly relied on the rhetoric of maps to put forth their geopolitical visions. Such struggles over land and its rightful owners in Israel/Palestine exemplify processes under way in other states across the globe, whether in South Africa or Ukraine, which are engaged in disputes over territorial boundaries, national identities, and the territorial integrity of nation-states. Maps, no less, have become crucial tools in these struggles.
Palestine and the Palestinians: A Social and Political History
Palestine and the Palestinians is a sweeping social, economic, ideological, and political history of the Palestinian people, from antiquity to the Road Map to Peace. This second edition is thoroughly revised and updated, including entirely new chapters on the most current issues confronting Palestine today, including: Palestinians in Israel; the Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada; Palestinian refugees and the right to return; Jerusalem; the diplomatic "peace process" and two-state/single-state solutions.
Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and Post-War Decolonization, 1945-1973
This book is a major and wide-ranging re-assessment of Anglo-American relations in the Middle Eastern context. It analyses the process of ending of empire in the Middle East from 1945 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Based on original research into both British and American archival sources, it covers all the key events of the period, including the withdrawal from Palestine, the Anglo-American coup against the Musaddiq regime in Iran, the Suez Crisis and its aftermath, the Iraqi and Yemeni revolutions, and the Arab-Israeli conflicts. It demonstrates that, far from experiencing a 'loss of nerve' or tamely acquiescing in a transfer of power to the United States, British decision-makers robustly defended their regional interests well into the 1960s and even beyond. It also argues that concept of the 'special relationship' impeded the smooth-running of Anglo-American relations in the region by obscuring differences, stymieing clear communication, and practising self-deception on policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic who assumed a contiguity which all too often failed to exist. With the Middle East at the top of the contemporary international policy agenda, and recent Anglo-American interventions fuelling interest in empire, this is a timely book of importance to all those interested in the contemporary development of the region.
Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue
There is no single history of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli historical narrative speaks of Zionism as the Jewish national movement, of building a refuge from persecution, and of national regeneration. The Palestinian narrative speaks of invasion, expulsion, and oppression. Its no wonder peace remains elusive. This volume attempts to present both histories with parallel narratives of key points in the 19th and 20th centuries to 1948. The histories are presented by fourteen Israeli and Palestinian experts, joined by other historians, journalists, and activists, who then discuss the differences and similarities between their accounts. By creating an appreciation, understanding, and respect for the “other,” the first steps can be made to foster a shared history of a shared land. The reader has the opportunity to witness first hand a respectful confrontation between the competing versions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Mark Tessler's highly praised, comprehensive, and balanced history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the earliest times to the present--updated through the first years of the 21st century--provides a constructive framework for understanding recent developments and assessing the prospects for future peace. Drawing upon a wide array of documents and on research by Palestinians, Israelis, and others, Tessler assesses the conflict on both the Israelis' and the Palestinians' terms. New chapters in this expanded edition elucidate the Oslo peace process, including the reasons for its failure, and the political dynamics in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza at a critical time of transition.
Jerusalem: Conflict & Cooperation in a Contested City
Jerusalem is one of the most contested urban spaces in the world. It is a multicultural city, but one that is unlike other multi-ethnic cities such as London, Toronto, Paris, or New York. This book brings together scholars from across the social sciences and the humanities to consider how different disciplinary theories and methods contribute to the study of conflict and cooperation in modern Jerusalem. Several essays in the book center on political decision making; others focus on local and social issues. While Jerusalem's centrality to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is explored, the chapters also cover issues that are unevenly explored in recent studies of the city. These include Jerusalem's diverse communities of secular and orthodox Jewry and Christian Palestinians; religious and political tourism and the "heritage managers" of Jerusalem; the Israeli and Palestinian LGBT community and its experiences in Jerusalem; and visual and textual perspectives on Jerusalem, particularly in architecture and poetry. Adelman and Elman argue that Jerusalem is not solely a place of contention and violence, and that it should be seen as a physical and demographic reality that must function for all its communities.
Doves Among Hawks: Struggles of the Israeli Peace Movements
What has become of Israel's peace movement? In the early 1980s, it was a major political force, bringing hundreds of thousands onto the streets; but since then, its importance has declined amid spiraling violence. Now, and especially since the second Intifada of 2000-5, the "doves" of theIsrael/Palestine conflict struggle to be heard over its "hawks", and the days of mass mobilization are over.Doves Among Hawks charts the successes and failures of a beleaguered peace movement, from its formation after the Six-Day War to the current security-obsessed climate, where Israel's "doves" seem to be fighting a lost and outdated battle. Samy Cohen's history of a peace process that once took on theIsraeli settler movements exposes how that cause has been derailed and demoralized by suicide attacks.But the peace movement isn't dead--it has simply transformed. From human rights monitors to lobbies of the bereaved, Cohen reveals a multitude of smaller, grassroots organizations that have emerged with unexpected energy. These lawyers, doctors, army reservists, former diplomats and senior securitypersonnel are the unsung heroes of his story.
Security and Suspicion: An Ethnography of Everyday Life in Israel
In Israel, gates, fences, and walls encircle public spaces while guards scrutinize, inspect, and interrogate. With a population constantly aware of the possibility of suicide bombings, Israel is defined by its culture of security. Security and Suspicion is a closely drawn ethnographic study of the way Israeli Jews experience security in their everyday lives. Observing security concerns through an anthropological lens, Juliana Ochs investigates the relationship between perceptions of danger and the political strategies of the state. Ochs argues that everyday security practices create exceptional states of civilian alertness that perpetuate--rather than mitigate--national fear and ongoing violence. In Israeli cities, customers entering gated urban cafés open their handbags for armed security guards and parents circumnavigate feared neighborhoods to deliver their children safely to school. Suspicious objects appear to be everywhere, as Israelis internalize the state's vigilance for signs of potential suicide bombers. Fear and suspicion not only permeate political rhetoric, writes Ochs, but also condition how people see, the way they move, and the way they relate to Palestinians. Ochs reveals that in Israel everyday practices of security--in the home, on commutes to work, or in cafés and restaurants--are as much a part of conflict as soldiers and military checkpoints. Based on intensive fieldwork in Israel during the second intifada, Security and Suspicion charts a new approach to issues of security while contributing to our appreciation of the subtle dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This book offers a way to understand why security propagates the very fears and suspicions it is supposed to reduce.
The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History
This book deals with two very painful and traumatic events in Jewish and Palestinian history--the Holocaust and the Nakba. Both events, which differ in nature and in degree, have had a decisive impact on the subsequent history, consciousness and identities of the two peoples. The Holocaust has become a central component of Jewish identity, particularly since the late 1970s and the 1980s, in Israel and around the world. The Nakba and its persisting consequences have become a crucial part of Palestinian and Arab identities since 1948. For the Palestinians, the Nakba is not merely about their defeat, their ethnic cleansing from Palestine and the loss of their homeland, nor even about having become a people most of whom live as refugees outside their land, and a minority living under occupation in their own land. The Nakba also represents the destruction of hundreds of villages and urban neighborhoods, along with the cultural, economic, political and social fabric of the Palestinian people. It is the violent and irreparable disruption of the modern development of Palestinian culture, society, and national consciousness. It is the ongoing colonization of Palestine that continues to the present through colonial practices and polices like Jewish settlements, illegal land acquisition, and the emptying of villages.
Palestinian Village Histories: Geographies of the Displaced
Throughout modern-day Israel, over four hundred Palestinian villages were depopulated in the 1947-1949 war. With houses mostly destroyed, mosques and churches put to other uses, and cemeteries plowed under, Palestinian communities were left geographically dispossessed. Palestinians have since carried their village names, memories, and possessions with them into the diaspora, transforming their lost past into local histories in the form of "village memorial books". Numbering more than 100 volumes in print, these books recount family histories, cultural traditions, and the details of village life, revealing Palestinian history through the eyes of Palestinians. Through a close examination of these books and other commemorative activities, Palestinian Village Histories reveals how history is written, recorded, and contested, as well as the roles that Palestinian conceptions of their past play in contemporary life. Moving beyond the grand narratives of 20th century political struggles, this book analyzes individual and collective historical accounts of everyday life in pre-1948 Palestinian villages as composed today from the perspectives of these long-term refugees.
Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness
The Nakba not only resulted in the loss of the homeland, but also caused the dispersal and ruin of entire Palestinian communities. Even though the term Nakba refers to a singular historic event, the consequence of 1948 has symptomatically become part of Palestinian identity, and the element that demarcates who the Palestinian is. Palestinian exile and loss have evolved into cultural symbols that at once help define the person and allow the person to remember the loss. Although accounts of the Palestinians' experience of the expulsion from the land are similar, the emblems that provoke these particular memories differ. Certain mementos, memories or objects help in commemorating the homeland. This book looks at the icons, narratives and symbols that have become synonymous with Palestinian identity and culture and which have, in the absence of a homeland, become a source of memory. It discusses how these icons have come into being and how they have evolved into sites of power which help to keep the story and identity of the Palestinians alive. The book looks at examples from Palestinian caricature, film, literature, poetry and painting, to see how these works ignite memories of the homeland and help to reinforce the diasporic identity. It also argues that the creators of these narratives or emblems have themselves become cultural icons within the collective Palestinian recollection. By introducing the Nakba as a lived experience, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Cultural Studies, Literature and Media Studies.
Gaza: A History
Through its millennium-long existence, Gaza has often been bitterly disputed while simultaneously and paradoxically enduring prolonged neglect. Squeezed between the Negev and Sinai desert on the one hand and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, Gaza was contested by the Pharaohs, the Persians,the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Fatimids, the Mamluks, the Crusaders, and the Ottomans. Napoleon had to secure it in 1799 to launch his failed campaign on Palestine. In 1917, the British Empire fought for months to conquer Gaza, before establishing its mandate on Palestine. In1948, 20,000 Palestinians sought refuge in Gaza, a marginal area that neither Israel nor Egypt wanted. Palestinian nationalism grew there, and Gaza has since found itself at the heart of Palestinian history.It is in Gaza that the fedayeen movement arose from the ruins of Arab nationalism. It is in Gaza that the 1967 Israeli occupation was repeatedly challenged, until the outbreak of the 1987 intifada. And it is in Gaza, in 2007, that the dream of Palestinian statehood appeared to have been shattered bythe split between Fatah and Hamas. The endurance of Gaza and the Palestinians make the publication of Gaza: A History both timely and significant.
Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Culture, History and Politics
Presents 1,500 alphabetized, cross-referenced articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, covering its history, causes, major figures, and other aspects, and includes time lines, a glossary, and a bibliography.
Hamas: A Beginner's Guide
This beginner's guide to Hamas has been fully revised and updated. It now covers all the major events since the January 2006 elections, including the conflict with Fatah and Israel's brutal offensive in Gaza at the end of 2008. Explaining the reasons for Hamas's popularity, leading Al-Jazeera journalist and Cambridge academic Khaled Hroub provides the key facts that are so often missing from conventional news reports. It's a one-stop guide that gives a clear overview of Hamas's history, key beliefs, and its political agenda. This unique book provides a refreshing perspective that gets to the heart of Hamas.
Across the Wall: Narratives of Israeli-Palestinian History
"Across the Wall" arose from a unique collaboration between scholars from Israel and the Palestinian territories, seeking to arrive at a shared framework for studying the history of this troubled land. Ilan Pappe and Jamil Hilal, among the top academics in Israel and Palestine respectively, brought historians from both sides of the wall together for dialogue on history, identity, and the meaning of the conflict. In the volume, they argue persuasively for the concept of a 'bridging narrative', a historiographical discourse which can accommodate seemingly incompatible national meta-narratives. Proceeding from this innovative theoretical framework, "Across the Wall" then goes on to offer critical examinations of some of the most contested issues in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the 1948 'Nakba', the 1967 war, the occupation, and the formation of the PLO. The result is a radical new take on the history of Israel/Palestine which transcends the biases inherent in both countries' national narratives and points towards a new model for the historiography of conflicts.
The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel
For more than 60 years, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived as Israeli citizens within the borders of the nation formed at the end of the 1948 conflict. Occupying a precarious middle ground between the Jewish citizens of Israel and the dispossessed Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Palestinians have developed an exceedingly complex relationship with the land they call home; however, in the innumerable discussions of the Israel-Palestine problem, their experiences are often overlooked and forgotten. In this book, historian Ilan Pappé examines how Israeli Palestinians have fared under Jewish rule and what their lives tell us about both Israel's attitude toward minorities and Palestinians' attitudes toward the Jewish state. Drawing upon significant archival and interview material, Pappé analyzes the Israeli state's policy towards its Palestinian citizens, finding discrimination in matters of housing, education, and civil rights. Rigorously researched yet highly readable, The Forgotten Palestinians brings a new and much-needed perspective to the Israel-Palestine debate.
Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn
Winner of the Jewish Book of the Year Award
The first comprehensive yet accessible history of the state of Israel from its inception to present day, from Daniel Gordis, "one of the most respected Israel analysts" (The Forward) living and writing in Jerusalem. Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world's attention, aroused its imagination, and lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future? We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel's people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions. Though Israel's history is rife with conflict, these conflicts do not fully communicate the spirit of Israel and its people: they give short shrift to the dream that gave birth to the state, and to the vision for the Jewish people that was at its core. Guiding us through the milestones of Israeli history, Gordis relays the drama of the Jewish people's story and the creation of the state. Clear-eyed and erudite, he illustrates how Israel became a cultural, economic and military powerhouse--but also explains where Israel made grave mistakes and traces the long history of Israel's deepening isolation. With Israel, public intellectual Daniel Gordis offers us a brief but thorough account of the cultural, economic, and political history of this complex nation, from its beginnings to the present. Accessible, levelheaded, and rigorous, Israel sheds light on the Israel's past so we can understand its future. The result is a vivid portrait of a people, and a nation, reborn.
A History of Modern Israel
Colin Shindler's remarkable history begins in 1948, as waves of immigrants arrived in Israel from war-torn Europe to establish new cities, new institutions, and a new culture founded on the Hebrew language. Optimistic beginnings were soon replaced with the sobering reality of wars with Arab neighbours, internal ideological differences, and ongoing confrontation with the Palestinians. In this updated edition, Shindler covers the significant developments of the last decade, including the rise of the Israeli far right, Hamas's takeover and the political rivalry between Gaza and the West Bank, Israel's uneasy dealings with the new administration in the United States, political Islam and the potential impact of the Arab Spring on the region as a whole. This sympathetic yet candid portrayal asks how a nation that emerged out of the ashes of the Holocaust and was the admiration of the world is now perceived by many Western governments in a less than benevolent light.
Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine
More than twenty years ago, in the midst of widespread violence in Israel and Palestine, a group of Israeli and Palestinian teachers gathered to address what, to many people, seemed an unbridgeable gulf between the two societies. Struck by how different the standard Israeli and Palestinian textbook histories of the same events were from one another--whether of the Balfour Declaration or the 1967 War--they began to explore how a new understanding of history itself might open up different kinds of dialogue in an increasingly hostile climate. Their express goal was to "disarm" the teaching of Middle East history in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms. The result is a riveting and unprecedented "dual narrative" of Israeli and Palestinian history. Side by Side comprises the history of two peoples, in separate narratives set literally side by side, so that readers can track each against the other, noting both where they differ as well as where they correspond. This unique and fascinating format, translated into English from Arabic and Hebrew, reveals surprising juxtapositions and allows readers to consider and process the very different viewpoints and logic of each side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An eye-opening--and inspiring--new approach to thinking about one of the world's most deeply entrenched conflicts, Side by Side is a now classic book that offers to its readers a way to discuss and perhaps help find a bridge to peace in the Middle East.
Israel and Palestine: Competing Histories
The book covers key events in chronological order, in each case examining the varied historical accounts and presenting the beliefs of key thinkers across the ideological spectrum, from Edward Said to Binyamin Netanyahu. Starting the with emergence of the Zionist movement in the nineteenth century, and the figures who shaped it, the authors go on to cover the founding of Israel and its subsequent history, up to and including the 'roadmap for peace', the construction of the wall, the death of Arafat and the withdrawal from Gaza.
The Birth of Israel 1945-1949: Ben-Gurion and His Critics
Joseph Heller tells the story of the complex and often conflicting political calculations that led directly to the founding of the independent Jewish state of Israel in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Examining the positions of many competing parties, he explains how and why the charismatic David Ben-Gurion prevailed: by shrewdly manoeuvering between radical extremes on the left and on the right, he says, Ben-Gurion managed to steer a successful middle-of-the-road policy in favour of partition.
Terror Out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli Independence
We fight, therefore we are. This revision of Cartesian wisdom was enunciated by the late premier of Israel, Menachim Begin. It is the leitmotif of this brilliant study of the military origins of modern Israel. J. Bowyer Bell argues that the members of Irgun, Lehi (the Stern Gang), and the Zionist underground in British mandated Palestine had clear motives for the violent path they took: the creation of a sovereign homeland for the Jewish people in oppressed lands. These advocates of terror pitted themselves against not only the British and the Arabs, but also against less violent brethren like Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Yitzhak Rabin.This is the definitive story of desperate, dedicated revolutionaries who were driven to conclude that lives must be taken if Israel were to live. The dynamite bombing of the King David Hotel, the assassination of Lord Moyne in Cairo, and Count Bernardotte ,in Palestine were but a few acts of terror which forced the British out of the Middle East. Terror Out of Zion evaluates whether these acts were extremist or necessary, and whether these men and women were fanatics or freedom fighters.Terror Out of Zion serves as a primer for those who would understand contemporary political divisions in Israel. It is based on careful historical research and interviews with surviving members of the Irgun, chronicling bombings, assassinations, hah- breadth prison escapes, and endless cycles of retaliation in the terror that gave birth to Israel, but, no less, continues to inform its political relations. Bell has fashioned an adventure story that also explains the sources of current tensions and frictions within Israel.Publishers' Weekly wrote that Bell's book crackles with suspense and explodes with tales of carnage and violence; it could hardly be otherwise. Yet he writes with compassion and insight into the black despair that engendered the terrorist's brutal deeds.
1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War
This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. A riveting account of the military engagements, it also focuses on the war's political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab side--where the archives are still closed--is illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials. Morris stresses the jihadi character of the two-stage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Throughout, he examines the dialectic between the war's military and political developments and highlights the military impetus in the creation of the refugee problem, which was a by-product of the disintegration of Palestinian Arab society. The book thoroughly investigates the role of the Great Powers--Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union--in shaping the conflict and its tentative termination in 1949. Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decision-making processes and at the nitty-gritty of combat in the successive battles that resulted in the emergence of the State of Israel and the humiliation of the Arab world, a humiliation that underlies the continued Arab antagonism toward Israel.
From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950
In this carefully curated and beautifully presented photobook, Ariella Azoulay offers a new perspective on four crucial years in the history of Palestine/Israel. The book reconstructs the processes by which the Palestinian majority in Mandatory Palestine became a minority in Israel, while the Jewish minority established a new political entity in which it became a majority ruling a minority Palestinian population. By reading over 200 photographs from that period, most of which were previously confined to Israeli state archives, Azoulay recounts the events and the stories that for years have been ignored or only partially acknowledged in Israel and the West. Including substantial analytical text, this book will give activists, scholars and journalists a new perspective on the origins of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948
The Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the most intense and intractable international conflicts of modern times. This book is about the historical roots of that conflict. It re-examines the history of 1948, the war in which the newly-born state of Israel defeated the Palestinians and the regular Arab armies of the neighbouring states so decisively. The book includes chapters on all the principal participants, on the reasons for the Palestinian exodus, and on the political and moral consequences of the war. The chapters are written by leading Arab, Israeli and western scholars who draw on primary sources in all relevant languages to offer alternative interpretations and new insights into this defining moment in Middle East history. The result is a major contribution to the literature on the 1948 war. It will command a wide audience from among students and general readers with an interest in the region.
Voices of the Nakba: A Living Archive of Palestine
Winner of an English PEN Award 2021
During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba - which translates to 'disaster' or 'catastrophe' - lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight. Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it. The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.
One State, Two States: Resolving the Israeli-Palestine Conflict
The book scrutinizes the history of the goals of the Palestinian national movement and the Zionist movement, then considers the various one- and two-state proposals made by different streams within the two movements. It also looks at the willingness or unwillingness of each movement to find an accommodation based on compromise. Morris assesses the viability and practicality of proposed solutions in the light of complicated and acrimonious realities. Throughout his groundbreaking career, Morris has reshaped understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Here, once again, he arrives at a new way of thinking about the discord, injecting a ray of hope in a region where it is most sorely needed.
Palestinian Women: Narrative Histories and Gendered Memory
Palestinian Women is the first book to examine and document the experiences and the historical narrative of ordinary Palestinian women who witnessed the events of 1948 and became involuntary citizens of the State of Israel. Told in their own words, the women's experiences serve as a window for examining the complex intersections of gender, nationalism and citizenship in a situation of ongoing violent political conflict.
The War Of 1948: Representations of Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Narratives
The 1948 War is remembered in this special volume, including aspects of Israeli-Jewish memory and historical narratives of 1948 and representations of Israeli-Palestinian memory of that cataclysmic event and its consequences. The contributors map and analyze a range of perspectives of the 1948 War as represented in literature, historical museums, art, visual media, and landscape, as well as in competing official and societal narratives. They are examined especially against the backdrop of the Oslo process, which brought into relief tensions within and between both sides of the national divide concerning identity and legitimacy, justice, and righteousness of "self" and "other."
The Origin of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race: Arms, Embargo, Military Power and Decision in the 1948 Palestine War
On May 29, 1948, two weeks after five regular Arab armies invaded Palestine in an attempt to erase the lately established Jewish state, the UN Security Council imposed an embargo, which banned the supply of arms, war materials, and other forms of military aid to the parties directly involved in the Palestine conflict. During the embargo the Arab-Israeli war was fought and decided, and the concluding armistice of 1949 between the rival parties marked a new era in the history of the Middle East. What, Amitzur Ilan asks, was the link between the UN embargo and the conclusion of the war, and how did the concluding armistice mark a new era in the history of the Middle East? Defining four important junctures of the war, Ilan looks at the real (as opposed to stated) Orders of Battles for both sides and points out the immense impact of the embargo on the decline of military capability of the Arabs and the Israelis, and at the same time depicts the relative advantage it created in Israel's favor. Employing a large number of Israeli, British, American, and Czech documents, The Origin of the Arab-Israeli Arms Race provides an excellent point of departure for those wishing to understand the actions that created and fed the arms race between the Arabs and Israelis.
The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory
2012 marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba - the most traumatic catastrophe that ever befell Palestinians. This book explores new ways of remembering and commemorating the Nakba. In the context of Palestinian oral history, it explores 'social history from below', subaltern narratives of memory and the formation of collective identity. Masalha argues that to write more truthfully about the Nakba is not just to practise a professional historiography but an ethical imperative. The struggles of ordinary refugees to recover and publicly assert the truth about the Nakba is a vital way of protecting their rights and keeping the hope for peace with justice alive. This book is essential for understanding the place of the Palestine Nakba at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the vital role of memory in narratives of truth and reconciliation.
War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy
Arab involvement in the Jewish-Palestine conflict had started during the late 1930s, but it was only in the wake of the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947 that active military intervention was considered. The Arab League tried to form a unified army that would prevent the implementation of the Partition Resolution, but failed. In Egypt, the government and the army opposed the idea of dispatching an expeditionary force to Palestine, but the pressure of public opinion and King Farouq's insistence carried the day. The order was given and in May 1948, Egyptian forces crossed the international border with Palestine. The author analyses the reasons for the decisive victory enjoyed by Israel over a larger opponent; and the successes and failures that were sealed in the Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement signed in Rhodes in March 1948.
Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948
Hundreds of Palestinian villages were left empty across Israel when their residents became refugees after the 1948 war, their lands and property confiscated. Most of the villages were razed by the new State of Israel, but in dozens of others, communities of Jews were settled--many refugees in their own right. The state embarked on a systematic effort of renaming and remaking the landscape, and the Arab presence was all but erased from official maps and histories. Israelis are familiar with the ruins, terraces, and orchards that mark these sites today--almost half are located within tourist areas or national parks--but public descriptions rarely acknowledge that Arab communities existed there within living memory or describe how they came to be depopulated. Using official archives, kibbutz publications, and visits to the former village sites, Noga Kadman has reconstructed this history of erasure for all 418 depopulated villages.
Palestinians Born in Exile: Diaspora and The Search for a Homeland
In the decade following the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, some 100,000 diasporic Palestinians returned to the West Bank and Gaza. Among them were children and young adults who were born in exile and whose sense of Palestinian identity was shaped not by lived experience but rather through the transmission and re-creation of memories, images, and history. As a result, "returning" to the homeland that had never actually been their home presented challenges and disappointments for these young Palestinians, who found their lifeways and values sometimes at odds with those of their new neighbors in the West Bank and Gaza. This original ethnography records the experiences of Palestinians born in exile who have emigrated to the Palestinian homeland. Juliane Hammer interviews young adults between the ages of 16 and 35 to learn how their Palestinian identity has been affected by living in various Arab countries or the United States and then moving to the West Bank and Gaza. Their responses underscore how much the experience of living outside of Palestine has become integral to the Palestinian national character, even as Palestinians maintain an overwhelming sense of belonging to one another as a people.
The Making of Modern Israel, 1948-1967
Based on a wide range of sources, both in Hebrew and English, this book contains a judicious synthesis of the received literature to yield the general reader and student alike a reliable, balanced, and novel account of Israel's fateful and turbulent infancy.
From Turtle Island to Gaza
With a sure voice, Groulx, an Anishnaabe writer, artistically weaves together the experiences of Indigenous peoples in settler Canada with those of the people of Palestine, revealing a shared understanding of colonial pasts and presents.
The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine
The true history of the imperial deal that transformed the Middle East and sealed the fate of Palestine. On 2 November 1917, the British government, represented by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, declared it was in favour of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." This short note would become one of the most controversial documents of its time. A hundred years later, Bernard Regan recounts the composition of the Balfour Declaration as one of the major events in the history of the Middle East. Offering new insights into the imperial rivalries between Britain, Germany and the Ottomans, Regan exposes British policy in the region as part of a larger geopolitical game. Yet, even then, the course of events was not straightforward, and Regan charts the debates within the British government, the Zionist movement, and the Palestinian groups struggling for self-determination. The after-effects of these events are still being felt today. Bernard Regan's urgent, timely history excavates the origins of the current crisis.
Living in Mandatory Palestine: Personal Narratives of Resilience of the Galilee During the Mandate Period 1918-1948
This book, the product of a series of 40 interviews with Israelis and Palestinians, describes everyday life in Galilee during the Mandate period. The individual narratives are skillfully embedded in larger historical and social histories by a team of authors who come from diverse academic backgrounds. It offers a glimpse into Israelis' and Palestinians' experiences of war and peace and sheds new light on the challenges facing Israeli society today. This work is ideal for scholars and students of the social sciences, particularly those interested in the psychological repercussions of political and social events.
Educating Palestine: Teaching and Learning History Under the Mandate
Educating Palestine tells the story of an emergent educational and historical discourse in Mandate Palestine as a space of negotiation between colonial administrators, pedagogues, teachers and students, one of essential importance to the formation of the Palestinian and Zionist (imagined) national self-portrait. It traces and delineates a genealogy of Palestinian pedagogic and historical knowledge through a combination of oral history, students’ journals and extensive archival work in the Zionist, Israeli State and Hagana archives. It intimately portrays its protagonists, teachers and students, emphasizing the encounter between them and the written text and the encounter between them and the national Other.Through an analysis of history textbooks, history syllabi and the history lesson, Educating Palestine investigates the way in which the old-new politics of identity in turbulent Palestine wrote itself into the past and literally change history. The incorporation of Arabic and Hebrew sources and a juxtaposition of the two education systems allows to highlight the reciprocal relations between the two. The book explores the continuous scrutiny and imagination of the national Other of both Hebrew and Palestinian pedagogues and its role in the crystallization of their national pedagogy. It argues that the evolution of education in Palestine stems from this interdependency.
Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine: Jewish Statehood and the History of the Middle East Conflict
Tamar Amar-Dahl offers a profound analysis of Israel's political order and culture and the role of Zionism. The study uncovers the discrepancy between the Western democratic self-image of Israel and its military influenced practical approaches to civil society. It presents in-depth the historical developments, the political repercussions and the possible perspectives for a peaceful solution with the Arab neighbors.
A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine: Palestine History and Heritage Project 1
This volume is the first in a series which, under the auspices of the Palestine History and Heritage Project, introduces methods and principles for developing a comprehensive treatment of the history and cultural heritage of Palestine, based on evidence from archaeological, written and oral sources, under consideration of the most recent historical, archaeological and anthropological methods, the goals of which are neither nationalistic, ethno-centric, nor culturally exclusive and are aimed at a history of all the peoples of and in Palestine. The population of Palestine before World War I was ancient and, if one allows for the recurrent immigration and emigration endemic to Palestine's geographic role as land bridge, Palestine has supported the indigenous nature of its population with a remarkable continuity since the Neolithic period. At the same time, Palestine's people never belonged to or developed any particular, singular, dominating ethnicity, but rather has always distinguished itself with a large variety of regions and peoples, supported by a considerable variety of language, culture and history. This volume explores this diverse history against the backdrop of twentieth century scholarly construction of the history of Palestine as a history of a Jewish homeland, with roots in an ancient, biblical Israel, and examines the implications of this ancient and recent history for archaeology and cultural heritage.
All book descriptions provided by the publisher.