Former Israeli intelligence officer Moshe Shemesh offers a fresh understanding of the complex history and politics of the Middle East in this new analysis of the Palestinian national movement. Shemesh looks at the formative years of the movement that emerged following the 1948 War and traces the leaders, their objectives, and their weaknesses, fragmentation, and conflicts with their neighbors. He follows the formation of the Sons of Nakba, the establishment of Fatah, the reframing of Jordan as analogous with the Palestinian cause, and the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its new expression of nationalism until the 1967 War. With unprecedented access to Arabic sources, Shemesh provides new perspectives on inter-Arab politics and the history of the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict.

“This wonderful monograph treats a subject that resonates with anyone who studies the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and particularly Palestinian nationalism: that how Palestinian history is remembered and constructed is as meaningful to our understanding of the current struggle as arriving as some sort of ‘complete empirical understanding’ of its history. Swedenburg . . . studies how a major anti-colonial insurrection, the 1936–38 strike and revolt in Palestine [against the British], is remembered in Palestinian nationalist historiography, western and Israeli ‘official’ historical discourse, and Palestinian popular memory. Using primarily oral history interviews, supplemented by archival material and national monuments, he presents multiple, complex, contradictory, and alternative interpretations of historical events. . . . The book is thematically divided into explorations of Palestinian nationalist symbols, stereotypes, and myths; Israeli national monuments that simultaneously act as historical ‘injunctions against forgetting’ Jewish history and efforts to ‘marginalize, vilify, and obliterate’ the Arab history of Palestine; Palestine subaltern memories as resistance to official narratives, including unpopular and controversial recollections of collaboration and assassination; and finally, how the recodification and revival of memories of the revolt informed the Palestinian intifada that erupted in 1987.” —MESA Bulletin

A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on history and bible prophecy.

The 1947 UN resolution to partition Palestine irrevocably changed the political landscape of the Middle East, giving rise to six full-fledged wars between Arabs and Jews, countless armed clashes, blockades, and terrorism, as well as a profound shattering of Palestinian Arab society. Its origins, and that of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict, are deeplyrooted in Jewish-Arab confrontation and appropriation in Palestine. But the isolated occasions of violence during the British Mandate era (1920–48) suggest that the majority of Palestinian Arabs yearned to live and thrive under peaceful coexistence with the evolving Jewish national enterprise. So what was the real cause of the breakdown in relations between the two communities?In this brave and groundbreaking book, Efraim Karshtells the story from both the Arab and Jewish perspectives. Heargues that from the early 1920s onward, a corrupt and extremist leadership worked toward eliminating the Jewish national revival and protecting its own interests. Karsh has mined many of the Western, Soviet, UN, and Israeli documents declassified over the past decade, as well as unfamiliar Arab sources, to reveal what happened behind the scenes on both Palestinian and Jewish sides. It is an arresting story of delicate political and diplomatic maneuvering by leading figures—Ben Gurion, Hajj Amin Husseini, Abdel Rahman Azzam, King Abdullah, Bevin, and Truman —over the years leading up to partition, through the slide to war and its enduring consequences. Palestine Betrayed is vital reading for understanding the origin of disputes that remain crucial today.

The resurgence of Palestinian nationalism in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war tended to overshadow the fact that Palestinian national consciousness is not a new phenomenon. This work, first published in 1974, is based on both Arabic and Hebrew primary sources as well as English and French official and unofficial documents, and was the first

The Six Day War was the climax in the deterioration of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This study deals with such issues as: the relevance of the Filastin problem as key to understanding the descent to war; the pivotal Syrian water struggle as a key motivating factor; and, the Hashemite regime's response to Palestinians' heightened national awakening.

A brilliant and sobering critique of the Palestinian failure to achieve statehood, by a major Palestinian historian and political commentator At a time when a lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis seems virtually unattainable, understanding the roots of the longest-running conflict in the Middle East is an essential step in restoring hope to the region. In The Iron Cage, Rashid Khalidi, one of the most respected historians and political observers of the Middle East, examines the Palestinian’s struggle for statehood, presenting a succinct and insightful history of the people and their leadership throughout the twentieth century. Ranging from the Palestinian struggle against colonial rule and the establishment of the State of Israel to the current rivalry between Hamas and Fatah, this is an unflinching and sobering critique of the Palestinian failure to achieve statehood, as well as a balanced account of the odds ranged against them. Lucid yet challenging, Rashid Khalidi’s engrossing narrative of this tortuous history is required reading for anyone concerned about peace in the Middle East.