Conclusion

see Chapter 20

The Arab-Israeli conflict, like so many others in the twentieth century, emerged as one of competing nationalisms laying claim to the same territory. The Zionist-Palestinian nature of the conflict changed with the establishment of the state of Israel and its subsequent invasion by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Recommended reading

Of the books covering the whole period of the Arab-Israeli conflict, four in particular stand out in terms of scope and scholarship: Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Bloomington, IN, 1994), Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 (Oxford, 1997), Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict (New York, 1999) and Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and theArab World (London, 2000). Avi Shlaim, War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (London, 1995) offers a general introduction to the international politics of the region and Kirsten E.

Books on the Suez Crisis include Mordechai Bar-On, The Gates ofGaza: Israel’s Road to Suez and Back, 1955-1957 (New York, 1994), Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949-1956 (Oxford, 1993), Mohammed Heikal's Cutting the Lion’s Tail: Suez through Egyptian Eyes (London, 1986), Keith Kyle, Suez (New York, 1991) and S. I. Troen and M. Shemesh (eds), The Suez-Sinai Crisis 1956: Retrospective and Reappraisal (London, 1990). The most useful collection of documents on this period is Anthony Gorst and Lewis Johnman, The Suez Crisis (London, 1997).

The role of the superpowers is discussed by Fawaz Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955-1967 (Boulder, CO, 1994), Galia Golan, Moscow and the Middle East: New Thinking on Regional Conflict (New York, 1992), Mohammed Heikal, The Sphinx and the Commissar: The Rise and Fall ofSoviet Influence in the Middle East (New York, 1978) and Yezid Sayigh and Avi Shlaim (eds), The Cold War and the Middle East (Oxford, 1997).

As the declassification of documents is still under way, large-scale historio­graphical debates on the post-1967 period have yet to emerge. Nevertheless, there are some good books on the Six-Day War. An in-depth, thoroughly researched, day-by-day account is provided by Michael Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York, 2002). The Arab perspective is advanced by Ibrahim Abu Lughod, The Arab-Israeli Confrontation of June 1967: An Arab Perspective (Evanston, IL, 1987) and Elias Sam'o, The June 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Miscalculation or Conspiracy? (Wilmette, IL, 1971).

Books that deal with the 1973 war include Michael Brecher, Decisions in Crisis: Israel 1967and 1973 (Berkeley, CA, 1980) and Ray Maghroori, The Yom Kippur War (Washington, DC, 1981). Important Egyptian contributions to the literature have come from journalist Mohammed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (London, 1975) and Field Marshal Mohamed El-Gamasy, The October War (Cairo, 1993). They stand alongside Israeli accounts such as Chaim Herzog, The War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War (London, 2003). A recon­sideration of the 1973 war was undertaken by P R. Kumaraswamy (ed.), Revisiting the Yom Kippur War (Portland, OR, 2000) and Richard B. Parker (ed), The October War: A Retrospective (Gainesville, FL, 2001).

Compared with the 1973 war, Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon generated a much larger body of literature. Good analyses of the war can be found in George Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon: An Analysis of Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon and the Implications for US—Israeli Relations (Washington, DC, 1984), Yair Evron, War and Intervention in Lebanon (London, 1987), Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 1970—1985 (New York, 1985), Richard Gabriel, Operation Peace for Galilee: TheIsrael—PLO War in Lebanon (New York, 1984), Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel’s Lebanon War (London, 1984) and Kirsten E. Schulze, Israel’s Covert Diplomacy in Lebanon (Basingstoke, 1998).

In order to understand post-1982 developments with respect to Israel's presence in Lebanon it is crucial to study Hizb'allah. The most authoritative books on Hizb'allah are Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance (New York, 1997), Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbullah: Politics and Religion (London, 2001), Ahmed Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah (New York, 2004), Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within (London, 2005) and Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton, NJ, 2007).

As the literature on the individual wars often only addresses the Palestinians in passing, it is important to broaden this particular aspect through further reading. In addition to Yezid Sayigh's above-mentioned excellent book, useful books on the PLO include John W. Amos, Palestinian Resistance: Organisation of a National Movement (New York, 1980), Helena Cobban, The Palestine Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Policies (Cambridge, 1984), Alain Gresh, The PLO: The Struggle Within: Towards an Independent Palestinian State (London, 1985), Shaul Mishal, The PLO under Arafat: Between Gun and Olive Branch (New Haven, CT, 1986), Barry Rubin, Revolution until Victory?: The Politics and History of the PLO (Cambridge, 1994), Alan Hart, Arafat: A Political Biography (London, 1994), Samih K. Farsoun and Naseer H. Aruri, Palestine and the Palestinians: A Social and Political History (Boulder, CO, 2006) and Rashid Khalidi, Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston, MA, 2006).

The intifada has engendered its own body of literature, which has been more journalistic and anecdotal than scholarly in nature. The most readable and analytic accounts of the uprising are Don Peretz, Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising (Boulder, CO, 1990), Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising — Israel’s Third Front (London, 1989) and Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin, The Palestinian Uprising against Israeli Occupation (London, 1989). For greater understanding of Hamas, an organization born out of the intifada, see Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence (New York, 2000), Khaled Khroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practise (Washington, DC, 2000), Andrea Nüsse, Muslim Palestine: The Ideology of Hamas (London, 2002) and Jeroen Gunning, Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence (London, 2007). This last book is particularly interesting as it challenges the image of Hamas as inflexible and dogmatic.

The first step on the road to peace between Israel and the Arabs came with the 1978 Camp David Accords. Good analyses of the issues and negotiations can be found in Yaacov Bar Siman Tov, Israel and the Peace Process, 1977—1982: In Search of Legitimacy for Peace (Albany, NY, 1994), Shibley Telhami, Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (New York, 1990) and William Quandt, Camp David: Peace Making and Politics (Washington, DC, 1986), as well as in the first-hand accounts of Moshe Dayan, Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt-Israel Peace Negotiations (New York, 1981) and Ibrahim Kamel, The Camp David Accords: A Testimony (London, 1986).

Books on the Madrid peace process have been written by many participants such as Hanan Ashrawi, This Side of Peace: A Personal Account (New York, 1995), Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: A Memoir (London, 1995), Mohamed Heikal, Secret Channels: The Inside Story ofArab-Israeli Peace Negotiations (London, 1996), Uri Savir, The Process: 1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East (New York, 1998), Itamar Rabinovich, The Brink of Peace: The Israeli-Syrian Negotiations (Princeton, NJ, 1998). Academic analyses are provided by Ziva Flamhaft, Israel on the Road to Peace: Accepting the Unacceptable (Boulder, CO, 1996), Rashid al-Madfai, Jordan, the United States and the Middle East Peace Process, 1974-1991 (Cambridge, 1993), Moshe Maoz, Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking (Oxford, 1995), Joel Peters, Pathways to Peace: The Multilateral Arab-Israeli Peace Talks (London, 1996), Edward Said, Peace and its Discontents: Gaza-Jericho, 1993-1995 (London, 1995), Yehuda Lukacs, Israel, Jordan and the Peace Process (New York, 1997), George Giacaman and Dag Jorund Lonning (eds), After Oslo: New Realities, Old Problems (London, 1998), Adnan Abu Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians and the Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, 1999) and Dona J. Stewart, Good Neighbourly Relations: Jordan, Israel and the 1994-2004 Peace Process (London, 2007).

And last but not least, books are starting to appear on the collapse of the Oslo process and the second intifada. Interesting analyses are provided by Edward Said, The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After (London, 2000), Tim Youngs, The Middle East Crisis: Camp David, the ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada’and the Prospects for the Peace Process (London, 2001), J. W. Wright, Jr, Structural Flaws in the Middle East Peace Process: Historical Contexts (New York, 2002), Wendy Pearlman, Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (New York, 2003), Oded Balaban, Interpreting Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations at Camp David II and Beyond (New York, 2005), Tanya Reinhart, Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003 (London, 2006) and Yoram Meital, Peace in Tatters: Israel, Palestine and the Middle East (Boulder, CO, 2006). Fascinating personal insights are provided by Bill Clinton, My Life (New York, 2004), Dennis Ross, Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York, 2005) and Gilead Sher, Israeli- Palestinian Negotiations 1999-2004: Within Reach (New York, 2006).