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The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War
James L. Gelvin's new account of the century-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians presents a compelling, accessible and up-to-the-moment introduction for students and general readers. Placing events in the disputed area within the framework of global history, the book skillfully interweaves biographical sketches, eyewitness accounts, poetry, fiction and official documentation into its narrative, including photographs, maps and an abundance of supplementary material as well. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century in Palestine, it traces the evolution and interactions of the two communities from their first encounters up to the present conflict.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
James L. Gelvin
12 books29 followersJames L. Gelvin is an American scholar of Middle Eastern history. He has been a faculty member in the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) since 1995 and has written extensively on the history of the modern Middle East, with particular emphasis on nationalism and the social and cultural history of the modern Middle East.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
August 22, 2015
I'd prefer a book which cited sources, as there are very few here. Plus for suggested further reading at the end of each chapter, but huge minuses for what I think is "fake neutrality", especially bad when the author uses the UN Durban conference in the text but doesn't mention what kind of hate fest that was. Also, I'm sure a lot of the critisism of Sharon is well-earned, but isn't Arafat, or Hamas leaders for that matter, let of the hook very easily in comparison? - just two of several problems I had with the book, some small, others grave. All in all, a book I wouldn't recommend for introduction, but for the "competing nationalisms" perspective, it's ok, although (I think) too shallow on several important points to be on my list of books - and even authors - I'll be interested in for future reference.
Edited to add: this BBC documentary tells roughly the same story about the Israeli War of Independence and the Palestinian Nakba, and the war itself, but in my opinion does a better job of explaining the different motivations for the involved: eyewitnesses, soldiers, leaders from different countries and fractions. Of course not as detailed as a 250-page book, and only a small part of the story, but manages what Gelvin doesn't in that it never gets snarky: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCC3BEw...
Edited to add: this BBC documentary tells roughly the same story about the Israeli War of Independence and the Palestinian Nakba, and the war itself, but in my opinion does a better job of explaining the different motivations for the involved: eyewitnesses, soldiers, leaders from different countries and fractions. Of course not as detailed as a 250-page book, and only a small part of the story, but manages what Gelvin doesn't in that it never gets snarky: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCC3BEw...
April 5, 2023
I have read one other book on this conflict and I found this one much more accessible. I enjoyed how it spoke at length about the wider historical context: talking about the break up of the Ottoman empire and the history of eastern european Zionism. This didn't feel like a tough read despite the tough subject matter.
March 23, 2021
This one is quite a comprehensive book on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which makes it a lot simpler to understand the full scope of it. Furthermore, the author seemed quite unbiased and presented facts in a very clear way. Absolutely one of the best that I have read on the conflict by far and I think that might have something to do with the fact that this is a Cambridge University edition, because I find those seem to be extremely well researched and reviewed and less tendencious.
Definitely recommend to anyone trying to come to grasps with the unfortunate reality of a war that has devastated and ended lives throughout the past 100 years.
Definitely recommend to anyone trying to come to grasps with the unfortunate reality of a war that has devastated and ended lives throughout the past 100 years.
Read
June 23, 2021idk
February 19, 2024
Testo di complessità non comune, in particolar modo per l'analisi estremamente fluida e fuori dalle categorie classiche dei nazionalismi, che francamente mi ha trovato un po' spiazzato. Il sottotesto del titolo è corretto solo in maniera relativa, perché in realtà non si parla di guerra e di grandi eventi, ma il focus è eminentemente politico.
Comunque un testo di grande qualità.
Comunque un testo di grande qualità.
February 10, 2023
فلسطین و اسرائیل
حکایت برخورد یک نیروی توقف ناپذیر و یک جسم غیرقابل حرکت
کلاف در هم پیچ اسرائیل و فلسطین از آن دسته صفحاتی از تاریخ است که تنها بایست نگاهی کرد، سریع ورق زد و گذشت...
حکایت برخورد یک نیروی توقف ناپذیر و یک جسم غیرقابل حرکت
کلاف در هم پیچ اسرائیل و فلسطین از آن دسته صفحاتی از تاریخ است که تنها بایست نگاهی کرد، سریع ورق زد و گذشت...
November 7, 2023
I read the fourth edition which includes a quick rundown of the deal cooked up by the Trump administration.
Tracing the conflict through the lens of nationalism Gelvin provides a fairly even account of the conflict (I’m sure both sides would disagree). I think it works well as an introductory work but those who need a chronological timeline may want to look elsewhere, Gelvin’s approach is approximately chronological but things overlap and go forwards and backwards, as it is organized by topic as well. That sounds more confusing than it really is.
A lot of mistakes have been make, not just by Israel and Palestine, the West and Arab countries also had plenty of not-helpful contributions. Essentially we move from crisis to crisis while also permanently in a state of crisis.
There is a lot more history than this 280 page book can cover, a lot more points of view. Endless contradictions and competing claims. Little hope. But it’s absolutely something people needs to read about, be informed about, care about. I stand with the civilians caught in the maelstrom. #Ceasefire
Tracing the conflict through the lens of nationalism Gelvin provides a fairly even account of the conflict (I’m sure both sides would disagree). I think it works well as an introductory work but those who need a chronological timeline may want to look elsewhere, Gelvin’s approach is approximately chronological but things overlap and go forwards and backwards, as it is organized by topic as well. That sounds more confusing than it really is.
A lot of mistakes have been make, not just by Israel and Palestine, the West and Arab countries also had plenty of not-helpful contributions. Essentially we move from crisis to crisis while also permanently in a state of crisis.
There is a lot more history than this 280 page book can cover, a lot more points of view. Endless contradictions and competing claims. Little hope. But it’s absolutely something people needs to read about, be informed about, care about. I stand with the civilians caught in the maelstrom. #Ceasefire
October 11, 2020
This review is actually of Prof. James Gelvin’s lectures for The Teaching Company, originally entitled “Palestine, Zionism, and the Arab-Israel Conflict” — but now, totally removed from their archive. Even the Goodreads review page (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...) has been removed. Apparently the Teaching Company told one listener that the topic was more controversial than the company wanted to deal with — a fact that shouldn’t surprise, since after all, the Teaching Company must align with the largest blocks of American middle-class customers, and even those with intellectual aspirations are unlikely to view the issues of Palestine and the Arab-Isreal conflict with anything less than intense bias. Which is a pity, and also part of the very story these lectures tell.
In the lectures, Professor James Gelvin explains the historical context for Palestinian and Zionist nationalism, and the fraught, seemingly unresolvable conflict that bedevils the region today. “Complexity” really seems to be the key word here, but then such is modern history, with its intersecting forces of capitalist expansion, rising nationalisms and state power, and an old imperialism that seems on the decline, yet manages to exert insidious influence. To try to make sense of it all, I listened to many of the lectures twice, and have distilled my notes below, more for my own benefit than any audience, I suppose.
Both Jews and Palestinians hold historical claims to the relatively tiny patches of land in question, north of the Arabian peninsula (and named by the Romans after the ancient Philistines, a whole other story worth following up on). Palestine came under Arab control relatively early during the rapid conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, but with the rise of the Turkic-led Ottoman Empire, the area was only partially folded into the Ottoman bureaucracy, with significant developments driven by warlords like Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar and Muhammad Ali of Egypt. There was at this time no coherent sense of “Palestinian” identity. Still, during the 19th century, contrary to popular accounts by observers like Mary Eliza Rogers and Mark Twain, which tended to confirm the place was a “land without a people,” the region witnessed rapid population growth and increasing integration into the world economy. Jewish population growth and the vicissitudes of European Jewry would lead to settlement efforts and, eventually, Zionist visions — with new Enlightenment ideals only imperfectly realized in Europe, especially in Russia, where a majority of European Jews lived. Settlement opened up as a welcome alternative to struggling for acceptance in Europe.
Early Zionists like Theodor Herzl and Leo Pinsker theorized that if Britain was for Britons, and France for Gauls and the descendants of Charlemagne, then the only path to Jewish citizenship would be a Jewish state. This was not at first a widely accepted view, for most rabbis responded that they had to work for change in the communities they lived in in Europe. But pogroms, and the larger pressures of the coming Russian revolution, as well as previous generations of massive Jewish emigration (though in largest part to the United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), drove the growth of the World Zionist Organization. Waves of immigration known as aliyot developed social, political and economic institutions for the growing Jewish population — farming communities like the kibbutz were invented, and Hebrew was eventually chosen as the national language. Social and political ideology remained in flux — “revisionist” settlers led by Jabotinsky claimed a larger region around the Jordan river than previous Zionisms, leading to conflict with managers of British “mandate” rule that had evolved during and following World War I.
As World War I, arguably the most significant political conflict influencing the modern Middle East, came to a conclusion, “The Balfour Declaration,” from 1917, was one key statement of the enigmatic British attitude, now seeming to support Zionism, now not, toward this region of an Ottoman Empire now on the brink of collapse. With Ottoman identity too decadent to serve the regions, a new Palestinian sense of nation would grow mostly influenced by the British-backed Zionism that was, as twentieth-century European anti-Semitism increased, driving accelerated immigration into the region. With “The Great Revolt,” after 1936, we see the beginnings of cohesion around Islamic identity and applying the methods of strikes and protests, as well as attacked on British forces and Jewish settlements. Such tactics backfired, resulting in low support and effective suppression during 1939.
With the creation of the Jewish Agency in 1929, under the direction of the ‘mandate’ of USA and Britain, the third aliyah began, bringing many new young and capable Zionists to Palestine, which began to look like Hong Kong, essentially a crown colony. Meanwhile, Palestinian identity began to coalesce in the process of opposing Zionism, though at first without much unity, and little more than spontaneous local rebellions, but in the 1930s, with increased nationalist feeling as a people ‘alienated’ from their land holdings. In 1936, a ‘general revolt’ began that would last for three years, with strikes in the cities, a few killings, anti-British sentiment, and the emergence of a posthumous leader-martyr, Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin al-Hussein, who had been killed in 1935.
Jewish immigrants to Palestine decreased during World War II, though the sixth aliyah, in 1945, would be the largest ever. Meanwhile, Zionists worked, with factions disagreeing, for official borders, a treat with Egypt, and help defeating the Nazis (though a few Zionists actually favored negotiating with Nazis, which is among the most bizarre things I would hear in this lecture series). After the War, the USA set up an intergovernmental committee that would manage post-holocaust immigration. Meanwhile, the violence and war begin to break out in Palestine. Zionists and Palestinians have opposing historical accounts of these years, with ZIonists painting a David and Goliath story of overcoming desperate circumstances, while Palestinians tell of the beginning of expulsion from their homelands. New sources since the 1980s show that neither account is entirely true. There was massive disagreement on all sides about partition, and the British certainly stepped into the conflict in their pursuit of control over the Suez Canal. (Listen to 14 over again.) In the wake of the 1948 war, there would be a state of Israel, recognized by both the USSR and the USA. Contemporary historians warned Truman of the dangers of leaving so many Palestinians dispossessed. The poetry of Manhmooud Darwish articulates the collective trauma of a hybrid nation in exile, using the language of Israelites in Babylonian exile, which irritates leaders of the Jewish state.
In Jewish Israel, economic growth and state building are rapid in the post-war era, as hundreds of thousand arrive every year, and now from countries like Yemen and Iraq. The Israeli labor party led most Israel governments until 1977, when Likud gained new prominence. Arab regimes after 1948 suffered from corruption and mis-steps, as with Nasser’s attempt on the Suez Canal. (Review.) Wars in 1967 and 1973 would forever end pan-Arab policy on Palestine, with Israel achieving stunning defeat over the ill-equipped and badly organized Arab armies; the emergence of the USA as the uncontested world power links us irretrievably to the region. The PLA forms, and Palestinians are increasingly restricted to the Occupied Territories, which although encroached upon by settlers, are nevertheless long-lasting and evolving regions serving as buffers against aggressor countries like Syria, as well as convenient dumps marginalizing Palestinians.
Beyond peace with Syria, the situation has remained one of conflict between Israel and the Arab world, with Israel popularly calling for walls and buffer zones. Israel settlements also continue to grow. Israel, especially the Zionist party Likud, preserves and even cultivates a religious nationalism with the mythic sense of the land as the body politic. This has met with condemnation in some quarters around the world, but Reagan carefully tacked toward an only moderately negative stance. Lecture 21 goes over the “kaleidoscope” of perspectives the USA has brought to the issue of Palestine in the years since the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, with the main tenor of response to be to consider both democratic Israel and various Arab oil reserves alike as strategic assets. Carter was the first president to recognize Palestinian claims. Liberal governments in Israel led to the Oslo I and II accords, but peace was short-lived, as Israeli settlement building and Palestinian terrorist attacks both failed to cease. A second Intifada began
During these years, the Palestine Liberation Organization forms under Nasser and grows, following the loss of the 1967 war, under the leadership of Yassir Arafat. Born in 1929 and a veteran of earlier days of secular, anti-imperialist Arab nationalism, he leads an “alphabet soup” of groups to advocate Palestine rights beyond any call for an Arab state, with mixed results: no more assassinations, but new instances of terrorism. Terrorism obstructs deals. Expelled from Jordan, the itinerant PLO is attacked in Lebanon in 1982, and moves on from there, too, with goals that change over these years. Giving up the right of return lead to the Oslo accords, by which time the PLO was the defective leadership of the Palestinian people, thought not one that supplied infrastructure or services to speak of — this would lead to other representatives emerging. Since the 9/11 incident, the spirit of the Oslo accords is ended. Development is stunted in the Arab world, Israel is a national security state “living off American dole,” and Palestinian politics is fragmented and trivialized. In the larger Arab world, thriving Jewish cultures have declined, as in Baghdad. The dispute evolves, but will not stop.
In the lectures, Professor James Gelvin explains the historical context for Palestinian and Zionist nationalism, and the fraught, seemingly unresolvable conflict that bedevils the region today. “Complexity” really seems to be the key word here, but then such is modern history, with its intersecting forces of capitalist expansion, rising nationalisms and state power, and an old imperialism that seems on the decline, yet manages to exert insidious influence. To try to make sense of it all, I listened to many of the lectures twice, and have distilled my notes below, more for my own benefit than any audience, I suppose.
Both Jews and Palestinians hold historical claims to the relatively tiny patches of land in question, north of the Arabian peninsula (and named by the Romans after the ancient Philistines, a whole other story worth following up on). Palestine came under Arab control relatively early during the rapid conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, but with the rise of the Turkic-led Ottoman Empire, the area was only partially folded into the Ottoman bureaucracy, with significant developments driven by warlords like Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar and Muhammad Ali of Egypt. There was at this time no coherent sense of “Palestinian” identity. Still, during the 19th century, contrary to popular accounts by observers like Mary Eliza Rogers and Mark Twain, which tended to confirm the place was a “land without a people,” the region witnessed rapid population growth and increasing integration into the world economy. Jewish population growth and the vicissitudes of European Jewry would lead to settlement efforts and, eventually, Zionist visions — with new Enlightenment ideals only imperfectly realized in Europe, especially in Russia, where a majority of European Jews lived. Settlement opened up as a welcome alternative to struggling for acceptance in Europe.
Early Zionists like Theodor Herzl and Leo Pinsker theorized that if Britain was for Britons, and France for Gauls and the descendants of Charlemagne, then the only path to Jewish citizenship would be a Jewish state. This was not at first a widely accepted view, for most rabbis responded that they had to work for change in the communities they lived in in Europe. But pogroms, and the larger pressures of the coming Russian revolution, as well as previous generations of massive Jewish emigration (though in largest part to the United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), drove the growth of the World Zionist Organization. Waves of immigration known as aliyot developed social, political and economic institutions for the growing Jewish population — farming communities like the kibbutz were invented, and Hebrew was eventually chosen as the national language. Social and political ideology remained in flux — “revisionist” settlers led by Jabotinsky claimed a larger region around the Jordan river than previous Zionisms, leading to conflict with managers of British “mandate” rule that had evolved during and following World War I.
As World War I, arguably the most significant political conflict influencing the modern Middle East, came to a conclusion, “The Balfour Declaration,” from 1917, was one key statement of the enigmatic British attitude, now seeming to support Zionism, now not, toward this region of an Ottoman Empire now on the brink of collapse. With Ottoman identity too decadent to serve the regions, a new Palestinian sense of nation would grow mostly influenced by the British-backed Zionism that was, as twentieth-century European anti-Semitism increased, driving accelerated immigration into the region. With “The Great Revolt,” after 1936, we see the beginnings of cohesion around Islamic identity and applying the methods of strikes and protests, as well as attacked on British forces and Jewish settlements. Such tactics backfired, resulting in low support and effective suppression during 1939.
With the creation of the Jewish Agency in 1929, under the direction of the ‘mandate’ of USA and Britain, the third aliyah began, bringing many new young and capable Zionists to Palestine, which began to look like Hong Kong, essentially a crown colony. Meanwhile, Palestinian identity began to coalesce in the process of opposing Zionism, though at first without much unity, and little more than spontaneous local rebellions, but in the 1930s, with increased nationalist feeling as a people ‘alienated’ from their land holdings. In 1936, a ‘general revolt’ began that would last for three years, with strikes in the cities, a few killings, anti-British sentiment, and the emergence of a posthumous leader-martyr, Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin al-Hussein, who had been killed in 1935.
Jewish immigrants to Palestine decreased during World War II, though the sixth aliyah, in 1945, would be the largest ever. Meanwhile, Zionists worked, with factions disagreeing, for official borders, a treat with Egypt, and help defeating the Nazis (though a few Zionists actually favored negotiating with Nazis, which is among the most bizarre things I would hear in this lecture series). After the War, the USA set up an intergovernmental committee that would manage post-holocaust immigration. Meanwhile, the violence and war begin to break out in Palestine. Zionists and Palestinians have opposing historical accounts of these years, with ZIonists painting a David and Goliath story of overcoming desperate circumstances, while Palestinians tell of the beginning of expulsion from their homelands. New sources since the 1980s show that neither account is entirely true. There was massive disagreement on all sides about partition, and the British certainly stepped into the conflict in their pursuit of control over the Suez Canal. (Listen to 14 over again.) In the wake of the 1948 war, there would be a state of Israel, recognized by both the USSR and the USA. Contemporary historians warned Truman of the dangers of leaving so many Palestinians dispossessed. The poetry of Manhmooud Darwish articulates the collective trauma of a hybrid nation in exile, using the language of Israelites in Babylonian exile, which irritates leaders of the Jewish state.
In Jewish Israel, economic growth and state building are rapid in the post-war era, as hundreds of thousand arrive every year, and now from countries like Yemen and Iraq. The Israeli labor party led most Israel governments until 1977, when Likud gained new prominence. Arab regimes after 1948 suffered from corruption and mis-steps, as with Nasser’s attempt on the Suez Canal. (Review.) Wars in 1967 and 1973 would forever end pan-Arab policy on Palestine, with Israel achieving stunning defeat over the ill-equipped and badly organized Arab armies; the emergence of the USA as the uncontested world power links us irretrievably to the region. The PLA forms, and Palestinians are increasingly restricted to the Occupied Territories, which although encroached upon by settlers, are nevertheless long-lasting and evolving regions serving as buffers against aggressor countries like Syria, as well as convenient dumps marginalizing Palestinians.
Beyond peace with Syria, the situation has remained one of conflict between Israel and the Arab world, with Israel popularly calling for walls and buffer zones. Israel settlements also continue to grow. Israel, especially the Zionist party Likud, preserves and even cultivates a religious nationalism with the mythic sense of the land as the body politic. This has met with condemnation in some quarters around the world, but Reagan carefully tacked toward an only moderately negative stance. Lecture 21 goes over the “kaleidoscope” of perspectives the USA has brought to the issue of Palestine in the years since the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, with the main tenor of response to be to consider both democratic Israel and various Arab oil reserves alike as strategic assets. Carter was the first president to recognize Palestinian claims. Liberal governments in Israel led to the Oslo I and II accords, but peace was short-lived, as Israeli settlement building and Palestinian terrorist attacks both failed to cease. A second Intifada began
During these years, the Palestine Liberation Organization forms under Nasser and grows, following the loss of the 1967 war, under the leadership of Yassir Arafat. Born in 1929 and a veteran of earlier days of secular, anti-imperialist Arab nationalism, he leads an “alphabet soup” of groups to advocate Palestine rights beyond any call for an Arab state, with mixed results: no more assassinations, but new instances of terrorism. Terrorism obstructs deals. Expelled from Jordan, the itinerant PLO is attacked in Lebanon in 1982, and moves on from there, too, with goals that change over these years. Giving up the right of return lead to the Oslo accords, by which time the PLO was the defective leadership of the Palestinian people, thought not one that supplied infrastructure or services to speak of — this would lead to other representatives emerging. Since the 9/11 incident, the spirit of the Oslo accords is ended. Development is stunted in the Arab world, Israel is a national security state “living off American dole,” and Palestinian politics is fragmented and trivialized. In the larger Arab world, thriving Jewish cultures have declined, as in Baghdad. The dispute evolves, but will not stop.
January 5, 2024
O livro fornece uma visão geral da questão palestina e considero uma introdução ao tema. O autor faz uma análise do sionismo e do nacionalismo palestino por meio de uma perspectiva histórica. Por vezes a leitura é densa e monótona. Porém acredito que o autor atingiu o seu objetivo.
December 15, 2023
reading for my epq really easy to understand but there weren’t many sources for me to reference 😭
April 12, 2017
Very interesting book; very balanced. I am pro-Israeli but this book has softened my views on the Palestinians. Additionally, while digesting this book, I saw a very tenuous, but visible, parallel between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over land and the what is going on with the immigration debate in America today. Replace the word 'Zion' with the word 'Aztlan', which is a word that loosely represents the American Southwest that was lost by Mexico. Then substitute the Palestinians with Americans who live in the Southwest, and the Jews, who emigrated in the aliyahs of the the early 2oth century, with the illegal immigrants from Mexico. With that done, you might see a very striking similarity.
January 8, 2022
I’ve enjoyed reading this book, I find it useful for understanding the timeline of events that defined the conflict. The book obviously doesn’t analyse in depth all the events and negotiations and laws regarding the conflict. I’ve given 4 stars, maybe 4.5, because at times it felt like it passed by important points and events, or straight up contradicted himself.
The book is though overall unbiased, which is something rare in this conflict, even between academics
The book is though overall unbiased, which is something rare in this conflict, even between academics
September 17, 2019
This book is arguably the best introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict available. It provides both a detailed chronological overview of the roots, developments, and nuances of the topic for unfamiliar readers, and offers thinking points for even seasoned scholars.
Gelvin presents the conflict, most appropriately, as being between two competing national groups. Examined in the wider context of the emergence of modernity, accompanied by the growth of nationalism and decline of decentralised empires, he is successful in dispelling many of the central myths to both Zionism (which, as he argues, is a form of nationalism) and Palestinian nationalism. Gelvin is strong in his presentation of the development of both nationalisms, and in clarifying the early manifestations of Palestinian nationalism (in both its pan-Syrian and pan-Arab forms). Furthermore, the helpful lists at the end of each chapter for suggested further reading are likely to stimulate ideas for even familiar audiences.
The study nonetheless largely overlooks the significance of the 1929 riots on hardening these national identities (see Hillel Cohen's substantive book 1929: Year Zero), and Gelvin's continued use of the term 'Palestine' to describe Israel-Palestine is likely to alienate some Israeli readers. The author himself, however, insists audiences should not read too deeply into his preferred choice of terms - recognising, as he does, the inherent contentions in the very language of the conflict. Additionally, though in keeping with most publishing norms, the lack (though not total absence) of in-text citations for a study of such a contended topic is a little irritating.
The updated edition contains a welcome and reasoned examination of developments post-2011, when uprisings swept through the Greater Middle East, but this section is somewhat weighed down by Gelvin's inaccurate conflation of binationalism with majoritarianism. He seems to agree with critics of the one-state solution that any such state might mean the eradication of any distinctly Jewish identity amongst the populations of Israel-Palestine, without reflecting on how consociational models (such as those tried in Bosnia & Herzegovina, or Northern Ireland) have attempted to tackle this.
I find myself differing greatly with his final conclusion that the stagnant Oslo peace process might yet see a revival.
Gelvin presents the conflict, most appropriately, as being between two competing national groups. Examined in the wider context of the emergence of modernity, accompanied by the growth of nationalism and decline of decentralised empires, he is successful in dispelling many of the central myths to both Zionism (which, as he argues, is a form of nationalism) and Palestinian nationalism. Gelvin is strong in his presentation of the development of both nationalisms, and in clarifying the early manifestations of Palestinian nationalism (in both its pan-Syrian and pan-Arab forms). Furthermore, the helpful lists at the end of each chapter for suggested further reading are likely to stimulate ideas for even familiar audiences.
The study nonetheless largely overlooks the significance of the 1929 riots on hardening these national identities (see Hillel Cohen's substantive book 1929: Year Zero), and Gelvin's continued use of the term 'Palestine' to describe Israel-Palestine is likely to alienate some Israeli readers. The author himself, however, insists audiences should not read too deeply into his preferred choice of terms - recognising, as he does, the inherent contentions in the very language of the conflict. Additionally, though in keeping with most publishing norms, the lack (though not total absence) of in-text citations for a study of such a contended topic is a little irritating.
The updated edition contains a welcome and reasoned examination of developments post-2011, when uprisings swept through the Greater Middle East, but this section is somewhat weighed down by Gelvin's inaccurate conflation of binationalism with majoritarianism. He seems to agree with critics of the one-state solution that any such state might mean the eradication of any distinctly Jewish identity amongst the populations of Israel-Palestine, without reflecting on how consociational models (such as those tried in Bosnia & Herzegovina, or Northern Ireland) have attempted to tackle this.
I find myself differing greatly with his final conclusion that the stagnant Oslo peace process might yet see a revival.
January 8, 2024
In the role of historical primer, this work did its job. In particular, it filled in some of the knowledge gaps I had about the struggle, particularly the actions in Palestine between the Balfour Declaration and the founding of the state of Israel. It does cover how the modern Palestinians came to settle the area and how they generally lived from the Ottoman Empire to 1948. Perhaps this work gives short shrift to the PLO and Hamas (admittedly, this was published before Oct 2023). Yet, it is not so glowing of Israel and the US either. Best taken for the gaps in history but the modern analysis is subject to debate. Worth the read for the history.
November 22, 2021
Aunque el autor abre el libro con una declaración de intenciones ideológica basada en la idea de que todos los nacionalismos son malos (tanto el palestino como el israelí), es decir, un posicionamiento centrista y poco comprometido, la honestidad intelectual del autor le permite observar y denunciar (aunque muy sutilmente) la desigualdad de poderes entre ambas naciones. Al final, sin igualdad no puede haber hermandad, y claramente uno de los dos bandos tiene más poder de destrucción y de barbarie que el otro.
April 5, 2022
Gelvin's treatment of the Israel-Palestine Conflict is a well researched, albeit skewed, assessment of the situation. There are several parts of the book that clearly favor the Palestinians - the Kindle book cover being just one example. As long as one understands this bias, the book is excellent. My only other criticism is that the book is laid out topically rather than chronologically, so it is not always clear who is reacting to whom in the conflict.
July 12, 2017
Gelvin takes a paradigm-based approach to analyzing the Israel-Palestine conflict, which makes a fascinating platform for discussion of identity. He identifies nationalism as the fundamental cause for conflict, and illuminates the main paradigm shifts in history that have transformed world organization.
August 28, 2018
A detailed yet readable summary of the crux of the conflict and controversy in the region to this day. It is the most neutral work I have come across, and seems to be a fair representation of the particulars. Neither side is vilified.
Would recommend to anyone who wants to understand beyond the newspaper headlines.
Would recommend to anyone who wants to understand beyond the newspaper headlines.
Read
February 11, 2019Being only slightly familiar with the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, and only slightly more familiar with Israel-Palestine in particular, this book did a fantastic job of introducing the major players and contextualizing them from their respective historical narrative. Gelvin sticks to the paradigm of nationalism, viewing the majority of institutional actions and dictates through that lens, while still acknowledging the more base motivations of individuals. Gelvin sprinkles mini-analyses of Palestinian and Israeli media (mostly poems) into the mix, which feel a bit out of place.
The revisions after the 1E are somewhat lacking, as most of the post-Oslo developments, especially from the Obama era onward, feel tacked-on and lack the depth (and clarity) of the rest of the book. But that's just one chapter of an otherwise great introductory text, so really not much of a criticism.
The book is filled to the brim with important and interesting facts and analysis.
Some select quotations:
https://pastebin.com/raw/zDC9eNTw
The revisions after the 1E are somewhat lacking, as most of the post-Oslo developments, especially from the Obama era onward, feel tacked-on and lack the depth (and clarity) of the rest of the book. But that's just one chapter of an otherwise great introductory text, so really not much of a criticism.
The book is filled to the brim with important and interesting facts and analysis.
Some select quotations:
https://pastebin.com/raw/zDC9eNTw
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 12, 2023
The book is a nice introduction to anyone who wants to learn more and understand the context, importance and what has been happening between Israel and Palestina. What disappointed me on reading this book was the fact that I expected to see a little bit more POV of Palestinian side on this conflict. But it’s a nice one :)
August 22, 2019
Gives an balanced overview of the Isreal-Palestine conflict while also being a great mythbuster for both sides.
Read
October 7, 2020Any
November 21, 2020
Perspective shifting
Read
May 7, 2022*read for grad school
Read
October 29, 2023Bom livro para quem quer ser introduzido no assunto. A edição tem bastante erro de português, mas não chega a atrapalhar a compreensão.
November 15, 2023
Given what is going on in the world, everyone should read this or a book like it.
January 8, 2024
Offered an unbiased history on the conflict.
April 5, 2024
Well written, well researched, tips for additional reading. And on top of that the author is more than willing to criticize both sides in their faults and misadventures. I’m staunchly anti-Zionist.
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