This text is an excellent introduction on this hopeless conflict. The authors do a fine job at tracing the history of this important conflict and giving the views of all sides involved. They give the major motivations of the Jews, Arabs, and major powers. A great feature was the inclusion of important historical documents such as letters of correspondence, white papers, statements, UN resolutions, and conference agreements. Only an extremist would have major problems with this book.

This text is an excellent introduction on this hopeless conflict. The authors do a fine job at tracing the history of this important conflict and giving the views of all sides involved. They give the major motivations of the Jews, Arabs, and major powers. A great feature was the inclusion of important historical documents such as letters of correspondence, white papers, statements, UN resolutions, and conference agreements. Only an extremist would have major problems with this book.

This book really summarizes the issues. I took several classes in the Spring of 06 on the Israeli-Arab conflict, and this was one of the best I read. Straight to the point, gives the important facts, and not biased.

For anyone interested in but unfamiliar with the detailed history and politics underlying the Arab-Israeli conflict, this thorough, scholarly and ambitious book is an excellent resource. If you aren't looking for all the details contained in a university textbook (complete with helpful maps and charts), you need not look further than the authors' Introduction, which presents an impressive and objective (rare, with this subject matter) overview of the multi-faceted considerations at play. If you are interested in the gritty details, this book is an unparalleled, concise, factual resource that must be on your shelf.

A concise history of the Arab Israeli Conflict 4th Ed. This book
is 379 pages published by Pearson Education. This details info about Islam and Judaisim and moves very fast into the 20th century where the crux of the conflict occured. It explains in detail but at the same time in general themes if that is possible. It is not as detailed as some books I have seen but it will do the reader very nicely who wants to go deeper than the surface about the inticacies of this conflict. The author does incorporate a stunning photo on the cover with the view of the Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock. While documents are provided at the end of the chapters, there are some that I feel are essential to look at but are left out. While its a good book I am goign to rate this one average because I know of a much better book (Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict by C.D. Smith).

Let's start with the good things about this book. It has extensive quotes from no less than 67 documents that are relevant to the conflict, along with five tables, two charts, and 23 maps. And it does supply plenty of facts.

But this book completely misses the big picture, partially due to bias and partially due to poor scholarship. Absurdly irrelevant events, such as Arafat saying (for the thirtieth time) that he might do something to promote peace, are given star treatment when they deserve no mention at all. Major aspects of the conflict, such as the training of a generation of Arabs to be nihilistic antisemites, get little attention. It is taken for granted that small details about borders are the main issues: the possibility that the fight is over something as fundamental as human rights is discounted.

The authors explicitly realize that the task of the historian is to determine truth, explain it, weed out lies, infer as yet unknown details, and predict the future. They simply fail in that task. Not only do they implicitly accept many manifest fabrications (only to take out their suspicions on those who ought not be mistrusted without good cause), they often fail to distinguish between errors of judgment and outright malice. It is sad to see such problems with what could have been a far more useful reference.