The importance of reclaiming the scholarly language of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict cannot be overstated as entire disciplines, including Middle Eastern Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and Ethnic Studies have come under the spell of these politicised fads with the attendant perversion of standards of evidence and open inquiry. Wielded by scholar-activists, the vast majority of whom do not know Hebrew and have spent little time in Israel, the distortion of crucial terms has become so pervasive that it is no longer possible to recall how these terms were originally used. That a vocabulary of historical explanation has dissolved into today's crude value judgments and "unhinged polemics" distorts the academic study of Israel, of Palestinians, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not incidentally, of politics. Hijacking the Arab-Israeli Conflict emphasizes how a delegitimizing lexicon of terms and concepts is often used in highly politicized anti-Zionist scholarship. This volume focuses on this linkage between language and thought partly because it is long a staple focus for political theory and philosophy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.

Political speeches and public rhetoric paint the phenomena of terrorism with a black-and-white brush, presenting it as a clear-cut battle between evildoers and heroes. With The Achille Lauro Hijacking, Michael K. Bohn, who watched the incident unfold from the White House Situation Room, uses one of the most infamous terrorist incidents of the past twenty-five years to illuminate the folly of such oversimplified jingoisms. The 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, the amazing capture of the terrorists, and a previously untold story of American bigotry come together in this book as a case study in the complex forces that shape both terrorism and the responses that it triggers. In October 1985, four Palestinian men hijacked an Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro, holding hundreds hostage for two days. The hijackers killed a partially disabled, sixty-nine year old Jewish American, Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body into the sea. Many remember Klinghofferas death, but few know of the other murder associated with the hijacking, that of Alex Odeh. Odeh defended on television Yasser Arafatas apparent role in defusing the hijacking. He was killed the next day by a terroristas bomb, which exploded as he opened the door of his Los Angeles office - the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Palestinians killed Klinghoffer because he was Jewish, yet Jewish extremists killed Odeh because he was a Palestinian. The Klinghoffer familyas long crusade to bring the hijacking mastermind, Abu Abbas, to justice was partially satisfied with his April 2003 capture in Iraq. The Odeh family still waits for charges to be brought against Alexas murderers, a particularly disheartening situation as Israel, Americaas friend and ally, refuses to extradite two suspects. These two deaths pale in comparison to the atrocities of September 11, 2001. Yet understanding both the Achille Lauro incident, and the extraordinary sequence of events that followed, will help Americans better understand the threat of terrorism. Terrorism is not an enemy, it is a tactic chosen by some to further political goals. Terrorism is not just about crime and punishment; it is about violence, power politics, prejudice, hatred, land, religion, greed, money, and a host of venal factors that influence human society. All of these forces are present in the Achille Lauro hijacking and its aftermath."

On Sunday, September 6, 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners bound from Europe for New York. One, a brand new Pan Am 747, was taken to Cairo and blown up only seconds after its passengers escaped. The attempt to hijack a second plane, an El Al flight, was foiled and the plane landed safely in the UK. Two other planes, one TWA and one Swissair, were directed to the desert floor thirty-five miles northeast of Amman, Jordan, where a twenty-five day hostage drama began. With the additional hijacking of a British airliner, over four hundred and fifty hostages had landed in the Jordanian desert. David Raab was on the TWA flight with his mother and siblings but was separated from them and taken to a refugee camp and then to an apartment in Amman where he was held hostage through a civil war. This is his story.

A hijacking on a Mediterranean cruise leads to an international manhunt in this eye-opening account of terrorism's emotional and political impact, both in Israel and Palestine and around the world. On October 3, 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish New Yorker, and his wife boarded the Achille Lauro to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary with a Mediterranean cruise. Four days later, four Palestinian fedayeen hijacked the Italian luxury liner and took the passengers and crew hostage. Leon Klinghoffer was shot in the head, his body and wheelchair thrown overboard. His murder became a flashpoint in the intractable struggle between Israelis and Arabs and gave Americans a horrifying preview of what it means when terrorism hits home. In this richly reported book, drawing on multiple perspectives, Julie Salamon dispels the mythology that has grown around that shattering moment. What transpired on the Achille Lauro left the Klinghoffer family in the grip of irredeemable sorrow, while precipitating tragic reverberations for the wives and sons of Abu al-Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind behind the hijacking, and the family of Alex Odeh, a Palestinian-American murdered in Los Angeles in a brutal act of retaliation. Through intimate interviews with almost all living participants, including one of the hijackers, Julie Salamon brings alive the moment-by-moment saga of the hijacking and the ensuing U.S.-led international manhunt; the diplomatic wrangling between the United States, Egypt, Italy, and Israel; and the long agonizing search for justice. The book also reveals the back story of the controversial opera about the Klinghoffer tragedy that provoked a culture war. An Innocent Bystander is a masterful work of journalism that moves between the personal and the global with the pace of a geopolitical thriller and the depth of a psychological drama. Throughout lies the tension wrought by terrorism and its repercussions today.

Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the region has been the scene of fierce power struggles, injustice and tragic events - a situation which persists to this day. Now for the first time, an Israeli-Arab author collaboration is tackling one of the world's most controversial situations. Published to accompany a six-part BBC television series by the makers of the award-winning DEATH OF YUGOSLAVIA, this myth-breaking book draws on candid interviews with key protagonists in the struggles - many of whom have never before spoken out - to reveal behind-the-scenes events and put the record straight. This is a definitive insiders' account of war and peace in the Middle East.

This title examines the bitter conflict that has raged since 1948 when the state of Israel was created between the Arabs and the Israelis. The complexities of the Palestinian question are examined in a clear and non-partisan fashion. The author looks at the wide-ranging consequences of the conflict, from the plight of refugees to the intensification of the Cold War, and at the more recent peace initiatives and the on-going quest for a solution to the violence.