Editors' Note
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has influenced not only the
parties directly concerned, but also observers from outside the
region who are drawn into the debate and into research on the
subject. Both the complexity and the sheer quantity of books
written on it from all points of view tend to affect the
compilation of bibliographies on the subject. Professor Velloso's
bibliography deals, as he notes, with the question of Palestine and
relies for the most part on Palestinian and general sources, along
with some Israeli ones. Though it cannot claim to present a
comprehensive bibliography of the conflict, we consider that his
work can serve as a useful tool for those studying the
subject.
From Herzl (1896) to Arafat (1995): Thousands of
Publications
In 1896, Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The State of the
Jews). Almost one hundred years later, in 1995, the Palestinian
National Authority published Palestinian Refugees and the Right of
Return. Herzl's comrades greeted his book with laughter. However,
he had no doubts about the success of his plan: "In five years,
perhaps, and certainly in fifty, everyone will perceive it...." He
did not foresee the publication of the Palestinian book. Its
authors never thought the day would come when they would have to
publish a book about their right to live in their own homeland. No
laughter greeted this book, although there are still doubts about
the future of the Palestinian state. In the century that separates
these two works, the Palestinian conflict took - is still taking -
place.
One outcome, of course not the most important, is the thousands of
publications on the conflict: on the one hand, documents,
agreements, resolutions, statements; on the other, books, papers
and research work. It is probably an exaggeration to say that
everything has already been written about it, but the number and
variety of works, as the bibliography shows, are endless. In every
discipline of the arts and sciences there are authors dealing with
the conflict, either as a whole or focusing on some aspect of it.
Just think of the biographies of its protagonists, psychological
studies of the populations in the area, economic forecasts of every
Middle Eastern nation, political and military analyses (the nuclear
threat included), poems and novels about Jewish and Palestinian
peoples and their experiences, moral considerations about the
events, the role of humor in the conflict ... Politicians (e.g.,
Ghandi), philosophers and intellectuals (e.g., Buber, Aaron,
Chomsky) and historians (e.g., Toffler) have written about the
Palestinian conflict. Nobody has missed the opportunity to
contribute. Witness Wolinetz's doctoral thesis of 1975 (Ann Arbor,
Michigan) on "Arab Philatelic Propaganda against the State of
Israe1." Every point of view and interpretation of the conflict
have been examined. Yet, the only thing about its development that
can be foreseen for certain is that new documents, papers and books
will appear, as well as more films and electronic pages.
An attempt at a bibliographical guide to the question of Palestine
is presented here. It has to be an impossible mission to read
everything on the subject and it is not easy to keep track of new
material. At the same time, scores of documents remain unavailable,
either because archives are still closed to researchers, or because
they are kept secret. Some publications are no longer interesting
because they repeat what has been written earlier. This review will
be mainly historical and political rather than specialized. The aim
is to allow the reader to move along the main lines related to the
conflict.
Journals, papers and documents are considered below, but the focus
will be mainly on books. The following list of journals represents
a comprehensive and important source of information: The Arab
Review; Arab Studies Quarterly; British Journal of Middle Eastern
Studies; Challenge; Israel and Palestine Political Report; The
Jerusalem Report; Journal of International Affairs; Journal of
Palestine Studies; The Middle East; Middle East Affairs Journal;
Middle East International; Middle East Journal; Middle East Policy;
Middle East Quarterly; Middle East Report; Middle Eastern Studies;
News from Within; Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics
and Culture; Palestine Report and; Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs. If a publication has not been included in this review, it
is not because of hostility to its author or disagreement with its
content. It is probable that, due to the sheer volume of writings,
some may be missing, especially on the Israeli side. Additionally,
if an author has published several works dealing with the same
subject, or related issues, usually only one is presented for
reasons of economy. So, to the only work of Martin Buber included
in the third part of this bibliography, two more can be added:
Israel and Palestine: The History of an Idea (London: The East and
West Library, 1952) and Israel and the World (New York: Schocken
Books, 1963). The same is true of other authors and
organizations.
Literature vs. Reality
Many doubts exist concerning the impact this enormous output of
printed material has on the solution to this non-ending conflict.
As Waart, P. writes in his Dynamics of Self-Determination in
Palestine (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994, pp. xiii-xiv): "The abundance
of scholarly books and articles on the Israeli¬-Palestinian
conflict seems to be inversely proportionate to their impact on a
just and adequate solution. It seems like a Sisyphean labor to
devote another book to the topic."
The best example of the gap between what is written and what
actually happens are the publications proceeding from a group of
international organizations. What the UN and its subsidiary
agencies (UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNRWA and UNSCOP, to name a few)
publish fills many thick volumes. Year after year, since the UN
General Assembly Resolution on the Partition of Palestine (1947),
the Conciliation, Status of Jerusalem and Right to Return (1948),
the Permanent International Regime for Jerusalem (1949), the
Security Council resolutions on principles of a just and lasting
peace in the Middle East (1967, 1973), and some other more recent
resolutions ¬what is published remains on paper.
Space does not permit the mention of all the international
organizations that have published documents on the Palestinian
conflict. Some of the more noteworthy publications are presented
here: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Report on
Palestine to the General Assembly (New York: Somerset Books, 1947);
United Nations, The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem,
2 vols. (New York: UN, 1978); United Nations, Question of
Palestine: Legal Aspects (New York: UN, 1992); United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA: A Brief
History, 1950-1982 (Vienna: UNRWA, 1983); United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Guide to UNRWA (Vienna: UNRWA,
1995); UNESCO, Palestine: Priority Projects for Educational
Development (Paris: UNESCO, 1991); UNICEF, The Situation of
Palestinian Children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Oerusalem:
UNICEF, 1992); World Bank, Developing the Occupied
Territories:
An Investment in Peace, 6 vols. (Washington, D.C: WB, 1993); World
Bank, The West Bank and Gaza: The Next Two Years and Beyond
(Washington, D.C: WB, 1994).
Key international documents after 1948 are the UN Security Council
resolutions (i.e., 242, 252, 253, 254, 267, 298, 338, 425) and the
UN General Assembly resolutions (i.e., 2253, 2254). Still on the
same subject, the work by Moore J., published by Princeton
University in 1974 and 1991 in four volumes, is a sound source of
information: The Arab-Israeli Conflict (1: Readings; 2: Readings;
3: Documents; 4: The Difficult Search for Peace (1975-1998).
Boudreault, J. published several volumes on UN resolutions: United
Nations Resolutions on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
(Washington, D.C. Institute for Palestine Studies, 1993). Between
1988 and 1993, the Institute for Palestine Studies published United
Nations Resolutions on Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,
1947-1991 (4 vols., Washington, D.C.: IPS). Lapidoth, R. and Moshe,
H. published in 1992 The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Selected Documents
(London: Nijhoff); and in the same year Lukacs, Y. edited The
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record 1967-1990
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). In 1994, Lustick, I.
edited Arab-Israeli Relations: A Collection of Contending
Perspectives and Recent Research, 10 vols. (Hamden: Garland) and,
finally, in 1995, Laqueur, W. and Rubin, R. edited the fifth
edition of The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the
Middle East Conflict (New York: Penguin Books).
Some of the books mentioned above also include pre-1948 documents.
During this period attention has to be paid to Ottoman and British
laws (during and after. the First World War), the League of Nations
Mandate to Britain, the international conferences on the future of
to-be-independent nations, the correspondence between Jewish and
Arab leaders and between these and British and French leaders (both
open and secret), the Balfour Declaration of 1917 on the Jewish
homeland in Palestine, statements and proceedings of Jewish and
Arab conferences, reports by several British and United States
Commissions of Inquiry sent to Palestine, and Second World War
documents related to Palestine. A review of materials written in
the last years of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th
century would have to include, among others, the following: Herzl's
diaries, Weizman-Faisal and Abdallah-McMahon correspondence, the
Sykes-Picot accords, the Paris Peace Conference proceedings, the
San Remo Conference proceedings, the Zionist Congress and the Arab
High Committee proceedings, the British reports on the Middle East,
the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry report and the UNSCOP
report.
Some other documents, although not directly related to the
conflict, have an important bearing on it: the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights; the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative
to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War; the Hague
Regulations; the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment; United Nations Basic Principles
on the Independence of the Judiciary; Convention on the Rights of
the Child, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights.
The documents of the two parties in the conflict have to be added
to the previous lists. The two basic are: The Declaration of the
Establishment of the State of Israel (May 14, 1948) and The
Declaration of Palestinian Independence (November 15, 1988). Also,
both parties have in recent years signed The Declaration of
Principles (September 13, 1993), followed by other accords: Taba,
Cairo and Hebron, among others. Additionally, some countries,
individually, and some specialized international organizations have
made public their positions concerning the conflict. That is the
case of the United States: Boudreault, J. et al. (eds.), U.S.
Official Statements Regarding UN Resolution 242 (Washington, D.C.:
Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992); Great Britain: Central
Office of Information Reference Services, Britain and the
Arab-Israeli Conflict (London: HMSO, 1993); the Arab League, and
the European Parliament: see, for example, Gorce, P., "Europe and
the Arab-¬Israeli Conflict: A Survey," Journal of Palestine
Studies (26:3, 1997, pp. 5-16). Apart from this, between 1976 and
1982, Medzini, M. collected documents on Israeli foreign relations:
Israel's Foreign Relations: Selected Documents, 1947-1974 (vols. 1
& 2), 1974-1977 (vol. 3), 1977-1979 (vols. 4 & 5)
(Jerusalem: Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
Documents of nongovernmental organizations may be useful as well.
There are numerous reports by the Israeli Human Rights
Organization, B'Tselem. Amnesty International has published several
reports on human rights in the area; for example, Israel and the
Occupied Territories Including the Areas under the Jurisdiction of
the Palestinian Authority and Trial at Midnight: Secret, Summary,
Unfair Trials in Gaza, both in 1995. A directory of European NGOs
may help to find information on specific areas: Network of European
NCOs in the Occupied Territories (1992), Directory of European
Nongovernmental Support to the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(Jerusalem: Medical Aid for Palestinians). Publications
disseminated by certain institutes should also be taken into
account: the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, Israeli
Military Orders in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank 1967-1992,
2nd ed. Gerusalem: JMCC, 1995). The JMCC has also published
material on the Declaration of Principles and the Draft of the
Basic Law for the National Authority. Further data can be obtained
from other centers and committees: Center for Policy Analysis on
Palestine, Palestinian Refugees: Their Problem and Future
(Washington, D.C.: CPAP, 1994), and from lobbies: Israel National
Section of International Commission of Jurists, The Rule of Law in
the Areas Administered by Israel (Tel Aviv: LN.S.LC.J.,
1981).
Early Days
The 1930s, particularly between 1936 and 1939, are known as the
years of the Arab Revolt, something akin to the Intifida which took
place in the occupied territories in the late 1980s. Violence then
took different forms. Some authors underline the violence practiced
by the Jewish side, and some the violence practiced by the
Palestinian side. Thousands paid with their lives in attacks and
counterattacks, which deteriorated into the 1948 war. (It should be
remembered that, while many people were killing and being killed, a
few formed commissions, traveled, talked, designed plans and
engaged in international politics thousands of miles away from
Palestine.)
In The Middle East, 1914-1979 (London: Edward, Arnold, 1980),
Fraser, T. devotes attention to the promises Great Britain made
simultaneously to Jews and Arabs, her contempt for the colonized
peoples and the escalation of the Palestinian problem. An
interesting study is Greenstein's R. comparative study of 1995,
Genealogies of Conflict: Class, Identity, and State in
Palestine/Israel and South Africa (Hanover: University Press of
South England). Greenstein focuses on the responsibility of each
side in the conflict. He quotes an article by Epstein that appeared
in 1907 in the Jewish magazine Ha-Shiloah, "The Hidden Question."
Talking about land purchases, Epstein concedes: "Unless we want to
deceive ourselves deliberately, we have to admit that we have
thrown poor people out of their miserable lodgings and taken away
their sustenance"(p. 39); "Arab landowners who sold these
properties were more interested in their own benefit than the
benefit of the peasants who worked the lands. Moreover, class and
clan divisions amongst Arabs made a difficult situation even worse:
The factionalism that plagued Palestinian-Arab politics during the
revolt continued unabated in the last decade of the mandate"(p.
229).
In 1984, Hirst, D. published the second edition of one of the most
celebrated books on the conflict: The Gun and the Olive Branch: The
Roots of Violence in the Middle East (London: Faber & Faber).
The title is a reference to Arafat's speech before the UN General
Assembly on November 13, 1974, where he offered both to the world,
hoping the olive branch would be chosen. Hirst reflects on earlier
sometimes overt, sometimes covert acts by both sides that led to
violence. He quotes Herzl: "Try to spirit the penniless population
across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit
countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. The
property-owners will come over to our side. Both the process of
expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out
discreetly and circumspectly. Let the owners of immovable property
believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for more than
they are worth. But we are not going to sell them anything back"
(p. 18). Those sales were publicly condemned amongst Arabs, but, he
goes on to say, "And here is the real measure of the Palestinian
leadership - there was no real social ostracism, let alone any
condign punishment" (p. 79). Furthermore, Palestinian society
suffered from deep internal divisions: "Warlordism flourished, but
worse still was the debilitating effect of inherited clan
rivalries, of old blood-feuds mixed up with new and half-understood
political controversies. These could not only set village against
village, but could divide a single one upon itself" (p. 94).
Israeli, R. in his Palestinians between Israel and Jordan: Squaring
the Triangle (New York: Praeger, 1991), produces data supporting
the Jordanian option. "This option considers Jordan as a de facto
Palestinian state, hence there is no need for another de jure
Palestinian state west of the Jordan river.
The labyrinth of colonial borders, the letters and promises from
the colonial powers to the Jewish and Palestinian leaders in
exchange for support, the secret accords between powers, and the
debates on jurisdiction, alliances and commitments, do not make any
clearer at all a scenario that could be viewed as a Monopoly game."
the mistakes and shortcomings of the Arab leaders then, but, at the
same time, stresses the legitimacy of their rights which were
submitted to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Arab leaders do
not compare with the resourceful Jewish leadership. Those "leaders
were insufficiently aware of the dynamics and subtleties of
international diplomacy and ignorant of how to present their case
effectively. In fact, they were unable to realize that their
conflict with Zionist political aspirations would be greatly
determined by events and developments far removed from Palestine
... they [did not] correctly evaluate the determination and ability
of the Zionists to achieve their own goals ...." (p. 15). Another
study on Jordan and the secret agreements between Abdallah and the
Zionists, according to which he was meant to recognize the Jewish
state and, in return, keep a big portion of the proposed
Palestinian state in the Partition Resolution, is Jordan in the
Middle East: The Making of a Pivotal State 1948-1988, edited by
Nevo, J. and Pappe, I. (Essex: Frank Cass, 1994). Kolatt, I.
contributed a chapter, "The Zionist Movement and the Arabs" to the
book edited by Reinharz, J. and Shapira, A.: Essential Papers on
Zionism (New York: New York University Press, 1996). In it he
discusses one of the currents of Zionism supporting Jewish-Arab
cooperation (itself one of the solutions to the Jewish question).
This current was in the minority, while the Zionist mainstream
policy led to the establishment of the State of Israel. Talking
about the group Bdt Shalom, Kolatt writes that it "was working
towards the establishment of a binational state in Palestine [and]
also favored the development of a common Jewish-Arab society" (p.
628). Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Moshe Smilansky, who in 1949
published Palestine: A Binational State (New York: The Thud) and
others of their contemporaries, such as Rutenberg, Frumkin,
Novomeysky and Kalvarisky, founded in the 1930s and 1940s
associations like Kedma and Mizraha (Society for the Progress of
Jewish-Arab Relations) and Thud (Union), which "stands for the
union of Jews and Arabs in a Binational Palestine with neighboring
countries." (Buber, et. al., p. 7).
Three other books on the conflict during that period are: Palestine
and the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Smith, C. (Hampshire: MacMillan
Education, 1988); Tessler, M., A History of the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) and Tuma,
E., Peacemaking and the Immoral War: Arabs and Jews in the Middle
East (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). In Smith's book, he shows
Great Britain's imperialist and unscrupulous policies of Great
Britain in Palestine, "until Britain's imperial position seemed
threatened by the resentment of other Arab countries at the onset
of World War II. These officials then issued a White Paper in 1939
that essentially repudiated the Balfour Declaration and seemed to
ensure Arab domination of a future Palestinian state" (p. 69).
Tessler, on the other hand, goes back to the 13th century B.C. to
demonstrate Jewish presence in Palestine. At the same time, he
highlights the good intentions and the opportunities of cooperation
that existed between the two peoples of the area during the first
two decades of the 20th century. Tuma prefers to reflect over the
question: "Why, then, was Palestine chosen as the target area for
the creation of a Jewish national home? Simply put, it was chosen
because it seemed expedient; it looked like easy prey, and it
relieved the Western powers of any obligations to open their own
gates for Jewish immigration. Furthermore, they found in the
creation of a Jewish state in Palestine a convenient way of
guarding and promoting their own interests in Asia and the Middle
East" (p. 13).
The following works complete this part dealing with the beginning
of the conflict: George Antonius's classic, The Arab Awakening: The
Story of the Arab National Movement (New York: Capricorn Books,
1965); Arab Higher Committee, A Memorandum Submitted to the Royal
Commission (Jerusalem: A.H.C., 1937); Arab Office, The Future of
Palestine (London: A.O., 1947); Khalidi, R., Palestinian Identity:
The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997); and two books by Vital, D., The
Origins of Zionism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975) and Zionism: The
Formative Years & The Crucial Phase (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1987).
Five Wars in Fifty Years: When Will the Next One
Be?
With one war after another - 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982 - plus
a handful of lesser military actions; for example, the battle
between the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian Authority
Police in 1996, it is no wonder that some authors have written the
history of Palestine in military terms. It is to be noted that the
number of Palestinian casualties is higher than that of Jews, and
this imbalance is a constant in the armed confrontations that have
been taking place between the two sides. Threats of new
confrontations are still very much alive.
Naturally, some authors mentioned in the above section deal in
their works with events that took place after 1948, so others are
quoted below. In Blood Brothers (Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications,
1990), Chakour, E. and Hazard, D. recreate from the point of view
of the defeated the feelings about war, dispossession, exile, the
reaction to Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Partition Plan,
the Holocaust and the policies of the major powers at that
time.
Noam Chomsky has written extensively about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Two works are mentioned here, although they do not focus
primarily on military aspects: The Fateful Triangle: The United
States, Israel and the Palestinians (Boston: South End Press, 1983)
and World Orders Old and New (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994). Chomsky concentrates on the moral scope of acts of
aggression and presents evidence that highlights the
responsibilities of aggressors and their supporters. Many an
interesting quotation could be cited from his books. One such
quotation is from Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Zionist
Organization between 1956 and 1968. In October 1981, Goldmann
wrote: "We will have to understand that Jewish suffering during the
Holocaust no longer will serve as a protection, and we certainly
must refrain from using the argument of the Holocaust to justify
whatever we may do. To use the Holocaust as an excuse for the
bombing of Lebanon, for instance, as Menachem Begin does, is a kind
of hillul hashem (sacrilege), a banalization of the sacred tragedy
of the Shoah (Holocaust), which must not be misused to justify
politically doubtful and morally indefensible policies" (The
Fateful Triangle, p. 98).
Noam Chomsky's harsh criticism does not only target Israel and her
best ally, the United States, but also the Palestinians and Arabs
involved in the conflict. Reflecting on the diverse forms of
Palestinian resistance to the Balfour Declaration, he writes: "They
repeatedly resorted to terrorist violence against Jews. The most
extreme case was in late August 1929, when 133 Jews were massacred.
The 'most ghastly incident' was in Hebron, where 60 Jews were
killed, most of them from an old Jewish community, largely
anti-Zionist" (Ibid., p. 90).
Some works confine themselves mainly to the military and
politico-military aspects of the conflict. One recent example is
Cordesman's A. Perilous Prospects: The Peace Process and the
Arab-Israeli Military Balance (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996). Once
the military expenses and the quality of army training is
considered on both sides, the author presents several scenarios and
their probable outcomes. The very short list of works devoted to
this subject given below is but an indication of the whole output:
Barker, A., Arab-Israeli Wars (New York: Hippocrene, 1980); Herzog,
c., The Arab-Israeli Wars (New York: Vintage Books, 1984);
Ovendale, R., The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Wars (London:
Longman, 1992); Sayigh, Y., Arab Military Industry: Capability,
Performance and Impact (London: Centre for Arab Unity Studies,
1992); Evron, Y., Israel's Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1994); Alexander, E., The Jewish Wars:
Reflections by One of the Belligerents (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1996).
Although Simcha Flapan, a follower of Martin Buber; does not
analyze the conflict from the military point of view, his book The
Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (New York: Pantheon Books,
1987) is included here because of his interesting comments about
Israel's "need" to fight her enemies in order to survive as a
nation. Talking about the 1948 war, he challenges the version that
says that "in Ben-Gurion's view, the military option, if the most
risky, was also the most promising" (pp. 47-48), and destroys the
myth of Arab armed superiority. Equally interesting in his analysis
of some other myths: the free (instead of forced) Palestinian
exodus, the eagerness of Palestinians to go to war (instead of the
contrary), warmongering infiltrators (instead of peasants coming
back to their places in Israel in order to work their fields), and
Israeli search for peace and a purely defensive attitude (instead
of the Jewish policy of creating facts and resorting to violence).
Neff, D. does not specialize in the military field, but takes the
wars as the starting point of his analysis of Israeli policy
towards her neighbors and her relationship with the United States.
In his book Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and
Israel since 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine
Studies, 1995), he says, "The State Department had predicted such
an intervention less than two weeks before the British withdrawal.
An internal memorandum observed that 'the Jews will be the actual
aggressors against the Arabs. However, the Jews will claim that
they are merely defending the boundaries of a state which were
traced by the U.N.'" (p. 65).
Close to military issues, although bearing specific
characteristics, is the subject of the Israel-United States
relationship. Again, many authors have dealt with the topic, so
only a few of them will be listed. Some works dealing with
international relations influencing the conflict are also included:
Aaron, R., De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews (New York: Praeger,
1969); Cohen, A., Israel and the Arab World (New York: Funk &
Wagnalls, 1970); Crosbie, S., A Tacit Alliance: France and Israel
from Suez to the Six-Day War (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1974); Rubin, B., The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict
(Syracuse: NY, Syracuse University Press, 1981); the roles of the
United States, Great Britain, France and the former Soviet Union
are discussed in Adams, J., The Unnatural Alliance: Israel and
South Africa (London: Quartet Books, 1984); Hunter, F., Israeli
Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America (Boston: South End
Press, 1987); Beinin, J., Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist
Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel,
1948-1965 (Berkeley: California University Press, 1990);
Lenczowsky, G., American Presidents and the Middle East (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1990); Hersh, S., The Samson Option:
Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York:
Random House, 1991); Quandt, W., Peace Process: American Diplomacy
and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993); Hollis, R. (ed.), The Soviets, Their
Successors and the Middle East: Turning Point (Ipswich: Royal
United Services Institute, 1993); Mansour, c., Beyond Alliance:
Israel in United States Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994); Shleim, A., War and Peace in the Middle
East: A Critique of American Policy (New York: Viking, 1994);
Ma'oz, M., Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995); Goldberg, J., Jewish Power: Inside
the American Jewish Establishment (New York: Addison-Wesley
Publishing, 1996).
The following works complete this part: Cattan, H., The Palestine
Question (London: Croom Helm, 1988); Ben-Gad, Y., Politics, Lies
and Videotape: 3,000 Questions and Answers on the Mid-East Crisis
(New York: Shapolsky, 1991); Beilin, Y., Israel: A Concise
Political History (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1992);
Gerner, D., One wnd, Two Peoples: The Conflict over Palestine, 2nd
ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994); Benvenisti, M., Intimate
Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared wnd (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995); Finkelstein, N., Image and Reality of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (London: Verso, 1995).
Palestinians, Jordanians, Refugees, Israelis, Arab Israelis, Jews
and Arab Jews
In the Arab-Israeli conflict, a person can be an Arab Jew in Israel
(e.g., a Jew who immigrated to Israel from Iraq in the 1950s); an
Arab Israeli (a Palestinian who remained inside Israel in 1948, and
many of whom like to say they are Palestinian Arabs in Israel); a
Christian Arab living in the middle of Muslim Palestinians (if a
Palestinian is a Christian in Gaza, where 99 percent of the
population are Sunni Muslims); a refugee without nationality seeing
himself or herself as Palestinian, in spite of living outside
historic Palestine; a Jordanian born in the West Bank and a
Jordanian born in Jordan whose families are Palestinian. The
following authors talk about all these topics: the Jewish Diaspora;
the Holocaust; Jewish identity; the lives of Jews and Palestinians,
sided by side and facing each other; the Palestinian refugees and
their relations with their Arab "brothers."
Amun, H., et. al., in Palestinian Arabs in Israel: Two Case Studies
(London: Ithaca Press, 1977), discuss the infamous Koening Report
(prepared by Koening, a civil servant at Israel's Ministry of
Internal Affairs, leaked by the Hebrew daily Al ha-Mishmar on
September 7, 1976), which shows the racist nature of its author
through his proposals for a quiet expulsion of the Arab population
of Israel. In his book Judaism: Myth, Legend, History, and Custom,
from the Religious to the Secular (Montreal: Robert Davies
Publishing, 1995), Arnold, A. quotes Yehuda Bauer's speech before
the Humanist Secular World Conference (Brussels, 1988): "There are
'hair-splitting divisions' between religious and non-religious
Jews. The split is such, however, that if we do not come to an
understanding of ourselves that goes beyond religious definitions
we are endangering the existence of the Jewish people" (p. 260).
Bar-Tal, D., in Understanding the Psychological Bases of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Tel Aviv: The International Center
for Peace in the Middle East, 1991), states that "Israeli Jews and
Palestinians deny the humanity of each other. Each categorizes the
other group into extreme negative categories which are excluded
from groups that are considered as acting within the limits of
acceptable norms and/or values" (p. ii). Two other books deserve
mention here: Fishman, H., The Challenge to Jewish Survival with
Palestinians in Israel (London: Verso, 1993), and Harkabi, Y., Arab
Attitudes to Israel (London: Valentine, 1972).
In Sharing the Promised Land: An Interwoven Tale of Israelis and
Palestinians (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996), Hira, D.
describes some of the most prominent features of both sides and the
problems that accompany them. Another book is Landau's J. The Arab
Minority in Israel, 1967-1991: Political Aspects (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1993); and, finally, Leibowitz, Y., Judaism, Human Values,
and the Jewish State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
Leibowitz is one of the early consciences in Israel whose writings
show his moral stature and far-sightedness. In the 1950s and 1960s
he campaigned against Israel developing nuclear weapons and opposed
the use of religion as a political tool which, in his view, was at
the origin of violence. He foresaw that Israel's military victories
and her territorial conquests, far from guaranteeing it peace and
security, would increase the danger of both. He warned of the
perils that moral, political and police corruption would pose to
Israel as an occupying power, ruling by force a population against
its will, and asked for the unconditional Israeli withdrawal from
the occupied territories.
Amos Oz, a well-known Israeli writer associated with the Peace Now
movement, wrote, among others, In the Land of Israel (New York:
Vmtage, 1984); The Slopes of Lebanon (London: Vintage, 1991); and
Under This Blazing Light (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995). Don Peretz published in 1993 Palestinians, Refugees, and the
Middle East Peace Process (Washington, D.C.: United States
Institute of Peace). In it he reviews the history of Palestinian
refugees under UNRWA's protection and underlines the main problems
encountered in the host Arab countries. Rice, M. in False
Inheritance: Israel in Palestine and the Search for a Solution
(London: Kegan Paul, 1994), deals with the relationship between
Oriental and Ashkenazi Jews. According to Rice, "The Oriental Jews,
like the Palestinians, have equally little cause to love the
Ashkenazim, individuals amongst whom they have generally been
despised and frequently exploited" (p. 186). The same subject is
treated by Massad, J. in "Zionism's Internal Others: Israel and the
Oriental Jews" (Journal of Palestine Studies 25:4, 1996, pp.
53--68).
A sound study about the effects of the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian population was published by Roy, S. in 1995. Its title
perfectly sums up these effects: The Caza Strip: The Political
Economy of De-Development (Washington, D.C.: Institute for
Palestine Studies). "Every Jew in Gaza was allowed 23 dunums,
whereas each Arab inhabitant was given 0.27 dunums. There were 85
times as many people per dunum among Arabs than among Jews in 1993"
(p. 176). This is a result of the policy of land confiscation.
Edward Said, a Palestinian academic living and teaching in the
United States, writes extensively on the conflict. Among his
publications are: Israel: The Question of Palestine, 2nd ed.
(London: Vintage, 1992); The Politics of Dispossession: The
Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994 (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1994); Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on
Palestine in the Middle East Process (New York: Vintage, 1996)0 In
his books, Professor Said is outspokenly critical of the
Palestinian Authority, Arab leaders and, of course, Israel. For
example, in Peace he says, "More than most people, Palestinians
have been the victims of abuses by every government - Arab, and
non-Arab - in whose jurisdiction they have lived. Why should they
stand for similar practices from leaders who have neither been
freely elected nor shown a spirit of self-sacrificing austerity?
Why should hard-pressed Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon
and Gaza accept corruption, Parisian shopping sprees, and continued
bubbling among a handful of officials directed from Tunis? How long
can Arafat simply assert his prerogative to be in exclusive control
of building contracts, foreign aid, lucrative appointments? Are
quick profit and a history of servile loyalty the only criteria for
service?" (p 415).
The following works complete this part: Ghillan, M., How Israel
Lost Its Soul (London, Pelican Books, 1973); Elon, A., The Israelis
(New York: Penguin Books, 1981); Feuerlicht, R., The Fate of the
Jews: A People Torn Between Israeli Power and Jewish Ethics (New
York: Tunes Books, 1983); Marx, Eo, "Palestinian Refugee Camps in
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," Middle Eastern Studies (28:2,
ppo 281-294, 1992); Rosenwasser, P., Voices from a Promised land
(Williamantac: Curbstone, 1992); Heiberg, M. & Ovensen, Go,
Palestinian Society in Gaza, the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem: A
Survey of Living Conditions (Oslo: FAFO, 1993); Landau Jo, The Arab
Minority in Israel, 1967-1991: Political Aspects (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1993); Segev, T., The Seventh Million: The Israelis and
the Holocaust (New York: Hill & Wang, 1993); Goldberg, D. &
Drauz, Mo, Jewish Identity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1993); also by Goldberg, D., To the Promised lAnd: A History of
Zionist Thought (London: Penguin Books, 1996); Lerner, M., Jewish
Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (New York: Putman's,
1994); Sayigh, R., Too Many Enemies: the Palestinian Experience in
Lebanon (London: Zed Books, 1994); Evron, B., Jewish State or
Israeli Nation? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995);
Raheb, Mo, I Am a Palestinian Christian (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1995); Schiff, Bo, Refugees unto the Third Generation: U.N.
Aid to Palestinians (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995);
Neuberger, B. & Ben-Ami, I. (eds.), Democracy and National
Security in Israel (Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 1996);
Abdel-Shafi, Ho, "The Jihad of the Self," The Palestine Report
(2:50, 1997, pp. 8-9); Hirst, D., "Shameless in Gaza," Guardian
Weekly (27 April, 1997).
From the Intifada to the Peace Process
The Palestinian uprising, which began in December 1987, is
characterized by the new element of wide TV coverage. It was
broadcast everywhere in the world by American and European TV
crews. These crews filmed Israeli soldiers breaking the bones of
Palestinian youths, as well as the handshake between the late
Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat at the White House in 1993. Two
kinds of writings stand out during these years: on the one hand,
those by authors who apparently saw only the handshake; on the
other, those by authors who seemed to see only the corpses. Authors
already mentioned are not listed here.
Through Secret Channels by Mahmoud Abbas (Reading: Gamet
Publishing, 1995), focuses on the peace negotiations. Hanan
Ashrawi, an outstanding spokesperson for the Palestinian
negotiating team and now minister in the Palestinian cabinet,
published in 1995 This Side of Peace: A Personal Account (New York:
Simon & Schuster). The criticism in her analysis is worlds away
from that of Said, but her first-hand knowledge of the negotiations
and the workings of the peace process are useful. Mustafa Barghouti
published in 1996 "Post-Euphoria in Palestine," Journal of
Palestine Studies (25:4, pp. 87-96), a title which makes redundant
any further commentary on the situation in the territories.
Mordechai Bar-On published in 1996 In Pursuit of Peace: A History
of the Israeli Peace Movement (Washington, D.C.: United States
Institute of Peace Press). This is a close review of a movement
which cannot claim to have succeeded, but is a well-deserved
tribute to Flapan, Eliav, Avineri, Grunzweig (killed by a bomb
launched by an extreme Israeli right-wing militant against Israeli
pro-peace demonstrators in 1983), Abie Nathan, Warchawsky and
others. In the same vein (and aims) is the book published in 1992
by Hurwitz, D., Walking the Red Line: Israelis in Search of Justice
for Palestine (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers). Pacifists
should also read the book by Birkland, c., Unified in Hope: Arabs
and Jews Talk About Peace (New York: Friendship Press, 1987) and
Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East (Boulder:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990), edited by Crow, R., et. al.
Rex Brynen brings us back to earth with "Buying Peace? A Critical
Assessment of International Aid to the West Bank and Gaza," Journal
of Palestine Studies (25:3, 1996, pp. 79-92). "There has also been
concern over the potentially runaway expansion of the Palestinian
Authority (PA) bureaucracy (particularly given the tendency of the
PA to use public-sector employment as political rewards) and of
financial accountability and transparency within the civil service"
(p. 84). The Committees for Democratic Action published in 1994
Autonomy vs. Statehood: The Closure as a Means of Enforcing
Autonomy. According to them, the division of the occupied
territories in the Palestinian autonomous areas "is intended to
prevent any viable claims for a future Palestinian state. No nation
can exist without territorial continuity or a political center
which unifies its territory" (p. 10). Khalidi, A., "The
Palestinians: Current Dilemmas, Future Challenges," Journal of
Palestine Studies (24:2, 1995, pp. 5-13), underscores a question
that usually does not receive much attention: Palestinian
internecine violence. This said, nobody expected Yitzhak Rabin was
going to be assassinated by a Jew.
McDowall, D. is the author of a couple of books dealing with the
recent history of Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond
(London: Tauris, 1990) and The Palestinians: The Road to Nationhood
(London: Minority Rights Publications, 1994). He notes that critics
of the peace process regret the fact that the most important issues
have been left out or postponed: "A total freeze on Jewish
settlement activity; the subordination of settlers to the
jurisdiction of the self-governing authority; explicit Israeli
recognition of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as occupied, not merely
'disputed,' and the inclusion of Arab Jerusalem within the
territorial jurisdiction of self-rule" (Palestinians, p. 120). In
the article "A Year of Discovery," written for No. 26:2 (1997) of
Journal of Palestine Studies (pp. 5-15), Fuad Mughrabi presents his
impressions after a trip to the occupied territories: pessimism,
social fragmentation, psychological distortion, underlying
violence, and general uneasiness. Graham Usher is known for his
chronicles about Palestinian life and politics, so his writings are
useful to keep track of developments in the area: "Palestine: The
Economic Fist in the Political Glove," Race & Class (36:1,
1994, pp. 73-79); "What Kind of a Nation? The Rise of Hamas in the
Occupied Territories," Race & Class (37:2, 1995, pp. 65-80);
"The Politics of Internal Security: The PA's New Intelligence
Services, Journal of Palestine Studies (25:2, 1996, pp. 21-34),
and, finally, Palestine in Crisis: The Struggle for Peace and
Political Independence after Oslo (London: Pluto Press,
1995).
Books on the Intifada have been published everywhere. Some deal
with specific aspects of Palestinian society. Ziad Abu Amr
published in 1993 "Hamas: A Historical and Political Background,"
Journal of Palestine Studies (22:4, pp. 5-19). Ahmad, H. published
in 1994 a study about the movement From Religious Salvation to
Political Transformation: The Rise of Hamas in Palestinian Society
(Jerusalem: PASSIA). Maria Holt focused on Palestinian women in
Half the People: Women, History and the Palestinian Intifada
(Jerusalem: PASSIA, 1992). Save the Children published in 1992
Growing Up with Conflict: Children and Development in the Occupied
Territories (London: Save the Children Fund); and Ramsden, S. &
Senker, C. edited in 1993 Learning the Hard Way: Palestinian
Education in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel (London: World
University Service).
The following works complete this part: Beinin, J. & Stork, J.
(eds.), Political Islam: Essays from the Middle East Report
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Flamhaft, Z.,
Israel on the Road to Peace: Accepting the Unacceptable (Boulder:
Westview Press, 1996); Makovsky, D., Making Peace with the PLO
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1996); Zureik, E., Palestinian Refugees
and the Peace Process (Washington, D.c.: Institute for Palestine
Studies, 1996); Perlmutter, A, "The Israel-PLO Accord Is Dead,"
Foreign Affairs (May/June, 1995); Peters, J., Building Bridges: The
Arab-Israeli Multilateral Talks (London: The Royal Institute for
International Affairs, 1994).
Appendix: Biographies, Memoirs, Human Experiences
Begin, M., The Revolt: Story of the Irgun (New York: Henry Schuman,
1951); Herzl, T., Complete Diaries (New York: Herzl Press, 1960);
Stephens, R., Nasser: A Political Biography (London: Penguin,
1971); Snow, P., Hussein (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972);
Ben-Gurion, D., My Talks with Arab Leaders (New York: Third Press,
1973); Asmar, F., To Be an Arab in Israel (London: Frances Pinter,
1975); Dayan, M., Histoire de ma vie (Paris, Fayard, 1976);
Bar-Zohar, M., Ben-Gurion: A Biography (New York: Delacorte Press,
1978); Rabin, Y., The Rabin Memoirs (Boston: Little Brown, 1979);
Reinharz, J., Schleifer, A, "The Life and Thought of Ezzedin
al-Qassam," Islamic Quarterly (23:1, lS79, pp. 61-81); Soussan, M.,
Moi, juif arabe en Israel (Paris: Encre, 1985); Teveth, 5.,
Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground 1886-1948 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin,
1987); Brinner, W. & Rischin, M. (eds.), Like All the Nations?
The Life and Legacy of Judah L. Magnes (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1987); Rigby, A, Living the Intifada (London: Zed
Books, 1991); Jayyusi, S. (ed.), Anthology of Modern Palestinian
Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Langfur,
5., Confessions from a Jericho Jail: What Happened When I Refused
to Fight the Palestinians (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992);
Gorkin, M., Days of Honey, Days of Onion: The Story of a
Palestinian Family in Israel (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993); Reinharz, J., Chaim Weizman: The Making of a Zionist
Leader and Chaim Weizman: The Making of a Statesman, 2 vols. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Slater, R., Rabin of Israel
(London: Robson Books, 1993); Turki, F., Exile's Return: The Making
of a Palestinian American (NeVI York: Free Press, 1994); Gowers, A
& Walker, T., Arafat: A Biography, 2nd ed. (London: Vugin,
1994); Susser, A, On Both Banks of the Jordan: A Political
Biography of Wasfi AI-Tal (Ilford: Frank Cass, 1994); Davidson, E.,
"Rabin Committed War Crimes," Challenge (27:34,1994); Kawar, A.,
Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National
Movement (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996); Eban,
A, An Autobiography (Tel Aviv: Steimatzky, 1997).