Dynamics of the Arab-Israel Conflict: Past and Present: Intellectual Odyssey II - Paperback

by Michael Brecher (Author)

This book comprises findings from the author's wide-ranging research since 1948 on the unresolved Arab/Israel protracted conflict. Brecher reflects back on his detailed analysis of the UN Commission created in November 1947, and his near-seven decades of research and publications on this complex protracted conflict continued since the first of nine Arab/Israeli wars. The book includes an analysis of the crucial early phase of the unresolved struggle for control of Jerusalem in 1948-49 and beyond, based on extensive interviews with Israel's leaders and prominent Egyptian senior officials, journalists and academics. It addresses the many diverse attempts at conflict resolution, including a peace plan to resolve the Arab/Israel conflict of the author's own design. It concludes with historical reflections about Israel's behavior, domestically and externally, in 1948-1949 and 2008 and beyond. No other book on this protracted conflict contains so many important interviews with the first two generations of Israeli leaders and Egyptian officials and academics, and no other author can speak from such a deep and prolonged engagement.

Back Jacket

This book is designed to illuminate one of the most enduring and complex international conflicts in the 20th and early 21st centuries. It begins with a discussion of historical roots, noting four reinforcing levels of conflict: incompatible belief systems, Islam and Judaism; competing national goals; inter-communal rivalry; and discordant pledges to the principal adversaries by Great Britain during World War I. An array of political and military acts from 1933 to 1947 culminated in the UN Partition Resolution (29 November 1947), Israel's proclamation of Independence (14 May 1948), and the beginning of the first of nine Arab/Israel wars the next day. The book then analyzes the following dimensions of this unresolved conflict: the struggle for Jerusalem since 1947; perceptions of the conflict and the conditions of peace by leaders and officials; their acts of violence and of political hostility; the Arab/Israel military balance and their behavior during the two most significant wars (June 1967 and October 1973); the mostly-failed attempts at conflict resolution from 1937 to 2014; the causes of continuing deadlock, except for two cold peace agreements (Egypt-Israel, Israel-Jordan), and the author's assessments of the way out of the seven-decade impasse. The book concludes with an analysis of Israel at 68, mostly its policies and behavior towards the Palestinians from 1967 to 2016.

Author Biography

Michael Brecher has authored 20 books and 85 articles, and edited 6 books in International Relations and Political Science, including two prestigious book awards, from the American Historical Association, for Nehru: A Political Biography (1959), and the Woodrow Wilson Prize, American Political Science Association, for the best book in politics and international affairs, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (1972). He has received Nuffield, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Canada Council Research Fellowships, and has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago, USA, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, University of California, Berkeley, USA, and Stanford University, USA.