The View from the Fence: The Arab-Israeli Conflict from the Present to Its Roots

by Lochery, Neill

• ISBN13: 9780826486790
• ISBN10: 0826486797
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-30
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Academic

Summary

The Arab-Israeli conflict has for too long been viewed as a simple tale of right versus wrong, good versus evil or, since the 1967 War, the strong versus the weak. This original account from an author outside the fray, argues that the conflict is not even simply a tale of Jew versus Arab. The book shatters a series of myths surrounding the conflict itself. The myths include the importance of the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzak Rabin, to the prospects for peace, to the widely held belief that the Palestinian Authority president, Yasser Arafat, alone rejected a peace agreement with Israel in 2000 that would have brought the Arab-Israeli conflict to an end. This book provides a full grasp of the issues which drive the conflict and the centrality of the attempts by the United States to broker a settlement.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
Introduction	ix
1. Understanding the Present: Good Fences make Good Neighbours	1	(30)
2. Where to Start? The Origins of the Conflict	31	(25)
3. Paths not Taken: Searching for the Peacemakers and Peacekeepers	56	(33)
4. Reading the Signals: Defining Strong and Weak in the New Middle East	89	(59)
5. The Intifada: The Rise and Fall of the PLO, and Israeli Responses	148	(31)
6. Rabin's Choice: The PLO versus the Unknown: An Outsider's Narrative of the Oslo Era	179	(45)
7. Fences and Separation: An Outsider's View of the Future of the Arab—Israeli Conflict	224	(11)
Bibliography	235	(21)
Index	256