In a myth-busting analysis of the world's most intractable conflict, a star of Middle East reporting, "one of the most important writers" in the field ( The New York Times ), argues that only one weapon has yielded progress: force. Scattered over the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea lie the remnants of failed peace proposals, international summits, secret negotiations, UN resolutions, and state-building efforts. The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly, perhaps terminally, thwarted by violence. Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative, and powerful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling counter-history. He shows that force—including but not limited to violence—has impelled each side to make its largest concessions, from Palestinian acceptance of a two-state solution to Israeli territorial withdrawals. This simple fact has been neglected by the world powers, which have expended countless resources on initiatives meant to diminish friction between the parties. By quashing any hint of confrontation, promising an imminent negotiated solution, facilitating security cooperation, developing the institutions of a still unborn Palestinian state, and providing bounteous economic and military assistance, the United States and Europe have merely entrenched the conflict by lessening the incentives to end it. Thrall’s important book upends the beliefs steering these failed policies, revealing how the aversion of pain, not the promise of peace, has driven compromise for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Published as Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza reaches its fiftieth anniversary, which is also the centenary of the Balfour Declaration that first promised a Jewish national home in Palestine, The Only Language They Understand advances a bold thesis that shatters ingrained positions of both left and right and provides a new and eye-opening understanding of this most vexed of lands.

"The Greater Middle East, the vast region between the Mediterranean and China encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Mongol, Ottoman, Russian, British. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have struggled to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vaccuums, and the fact of arbitrary borders drawn by exiting imperial rulers with little regard for geography or political groups on the ground. In the Loom of Time, Robert Kaplan explores this broad, fraught space to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance. In The Loom of Time, Kaplan makes an excellent case for realism the world over, but especially for it as an approach to the Greater Middle East. Just as Western attempts as democracy promotion across the Middle East have failed, a new form of economic imperialism is emerging today as China's ambitions fall squarely within the region as the key link between Europe and East Asia. As in the past, the Greater Middle East will be a register of future great power struggles across the globe. And like in the past, thousands of years of imperial rule will continue to cast a long shadow on politics as it is practiced today"--

فى نهاية الخمسينات عثر الباحث الإقتصادى الأمريكى ديفيد لاندز على أرشيف سرى فى باريس يحتوى على مراسلات اثنين من كبار ممولى الخديوى اسماعيل الأجانب. وقد ألقت هذه المراسلات ضوءا جديدا على قصة النهب الأوروبى لثروة مصر فى عهد أسرة محمد على, والوصول بها إلى مرحلة الخراب ثم الإحتلال ...يحتوى الكتاب أيضا على دراسة للمترجم وهو المفكر اليسارى د. عبد العظيم أنيس - أحد رواد النضال الوطنى والتقدمى منذ الأربعينات - بعنوان : الخراب الحديث لمصر المحروسة

The definitive one-volume history of Israel by its most distinguished historian From its Zionist beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century through the past sixty, tumultuous years, the state of Israel has been, as van Creveld argues, "the greatest success story in the entire twentieth century." In this crisp volume, he skillfully relates the improbable story of a nationless people who, given a hot and arid patch of land and coping with every imaginable obstacle, founded a country that is now the envy of surrounding states. While most studies on Israel focus on the political, this encompassing history weaves together the nation's economic, social, cultural and religious narratives while also offering diplomatic solutions to help Israel achieve peace. Without question, this is the best one-volume history of Israel and its people.

Product Description From Israel's leading historian, a sweeping history of 1967--the war, what led up to it, what came after, and how it changed everything Tom Segev's acclaimed works One Palestine, Complete and The Seventh Million overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now, in 1967--a number-one bestseller in Hebrew--he brings his masterful skills to the watershed year when six days of war reshaped the country and the entire region. Going far beyond a military account, Segev re-creates the crisis in Israel before 1967, showing how economic recession, a full grasp of the Holocaust's horrors, and the dire threats made by neighbor states combined to produce a climate of apocalypse. He depicts the country's bravado after its victory, the mood revealed in a popular joke in which one soldier says to his friend, "Let's take over Cairo"; the friend replies, "Then what shall we do in the afternoon?" Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries, as well as government memos and military records, Segev reconstructs an era of new possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures--Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Gamal Abdul Nasser, and Lyndon Johnson--and an epic cast of soldiers, lobbyists, refugees, and settlers. He reveals as never before Israel's intimacy with the White House as well as the political rivalries that sabotaged any chance of peace. Above all, he challenges the view that the war was inevitable, showing that a series of disastrous miscalculations lie behind the bloodshed. A vibrant and original history, 1967 is sure to stand as the definitive account of that pivotal year. From Booklist It is now 40 years since the Six Days' War, in which Israel routed the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and transformed the geography and political landscape of the Middle East. Segev is a columnist for Ha'aretz, Israel's leading left-of-center daily newspaper, and he clearly views the events leading to the war as well as the aftermath of the conflict with a predictable bias. Still, many of his revelations are both startling and credible. A substantial portion of the book is devoted to an analysis of Israeli society on the eve of the war. Segev portrays a nation plagued by disillusionment, communal tensions, and anxiety about national survival. The idealism that inspired the early Zionist pioneers had waned, and the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities seemed increasingly resentful of each other. An increased awareness of the Holocaust by the younger generation combined with the extreme rhetoric of Arab leaders contributed to a sense of impending doom. Segev asserts that the outbreak of war was hardly inevitable and was precipitated by gross miscalculations by both sides. Freeman, Jay Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review "Today we know that Israel's triumph in 1967 was a Pyrrhic victory. Tom Segev's 1967 makes that more clear than anything written on the subject . . . Segev documents this historic tragedy brilliantly, authoritatively, as no one has before."--Amos Elon, Ha'aretz "Tom Segev's 1967 offers a brilliant description of the Six Day War in its widest context: the international scene, the Middle Eastern confrontations, the political and social situation of Israel, as well as fascinating snippets of everyday life. The crucial role of individual actors is deftly woven into the general picture, the description of the military events is enthralling. This is probably the best book on those most fateful days in the history of Israel and the Middle East."--Saul Friedlander, author of The Years Of Extermination: Nazi Germany And The Jews, 1939-1945 "The year 1967 divides the history of Israel in two: what came before and what came after. Tom Segev's book makes this abundantly clear, and demonstrates the difference between a military victory and a political one."--Daniel Barenboim About the Author Tom Segev is a columnist for H

As the guns in Jerusalem fell silent in 1967 nothing could be heard across the hushed city except the faint flutter of history. Then it started again — the rumble of heavy vehicles, the unforgiving crump of explosives. This time the sounds were of bulldozers plowing through border barriers and the demise of minefields. Jewish and Arab Jerusalem were separated briefly only by a strip of neutered no-man’s-land so narrow that a boy could throw a stone across it, so filled with shadows that it was impossible to probe its depth. What would emerge from those shadows? Jerusalem on Earth is an anecdotal overview of the turbulent post-Six Day War decades. This revised edition expands on the first, published in 1988, and includes a close-up view of Mayor Teddy Kollek shaping the city during his 28-year tenure. Confident that the city's unification could work, Kollek would be jolted after two decades by the Palestinian intifada. The author covered City Hall for the Jerusalem Post during much of this period and encountered a world-class collection of visionaries and eccentrics. - An Australian sheepshearer who wants to be recognized as king of Judah sets fire to al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, third holiest site in Islam. Riots in the Moslem world reportedly kill thousands and Arab armies are ordered to prepare for holy war. Israeli police quickly track down the arsonist, heading off further deterioration. - An ultra-orthodox Jewish eccentric crossed into Jordan as a young man to obtain weapons for a revolt against the secular Zionist state. He is returned and tried. Thirty years later he invites his former prosecutor to join him in a learned debate before a packed hall on the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche who wrote that god is dead. - Arab and Jewish underworlds in Jerusalem are the first economic sectors to join forces after the Six Day War. The police are not far behind, forming Arab-Jewish patrols. - A rare look into the inner sanctums of the Hassidic world when street conflicts break out among feuding factions. Yeshiva students “take to the mattresses” mafia-style as tensions mount. - The Vatican sues one of its own religious orders for selling property to a Jewish institution. Jewish lawyers expert in church law represent each side. In the end, the government aborts the sale in order to demonstrate that Israel is not out to Judaize Jerusalem. Not long afterwards, the Vatican establishes diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. - Danish-born Sister Abraham, who speaks 15 languages and navigates the city on a bicycle, is the first white woman to serve as a nun in the Ethiopian church. - Israeli army reserve units maintained an enclave behind Jordanian lines on Mount Scopus under UN auspices for 19 years. Years later, intelligence officers would reveal its secrets. - In what psychologists call "the Jerusalem syndrome" several tourists are briefly hospitalized each year when they assume the persona of biblical figures on Jerusalem’s streets. - The murder of two nuns, a mother and daughter, in a convent temporarily suspends hostilities between the "White Russian" church in East Jerusalem and the "Red Russian" church in West Jerusalem. - A Jewish family and an Arab family, both with numerous children, find themselves neighbors when the border barriers are removed. They would become virtually one family.

For almost fifty years, the Zionist labour movement led the Jewish community in Palestine and later, in the State of Israel. Among the close-knit group of its founding fathers, Berl Katznelson was a unique figure. He was an intellectual, a politician, a man of letters, a statesman and the initiator of many of the social and economic institutions THAT shaped the face of the movement and in its wake, the character of the country as a whole. The biography of Berl is more than the biography of an individual: it is the story of a movement. The book traces Berl from a young Russian socialist and romantic pioneer on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, into the propounder of a work ethic and the founder of the central political current of the Israeli labour movement. The development of this movement is depicted against the background of the major political events of the period: Jewish-Arab relations, the European crisis of the thirties as it affected the Jewish people and the successes and failures of Zionist policy. It is required reading for anyone who wants to understand in depth the complexity of Israeli society today.

The last 15 years have witnessed deep changes in Israeli society. The naive solidarity of the early years of statehood has given way to more sophisticated approaches, and the atmosphere of the 1990s was conducive towards critique and open discussion. It was the age of the Oslo Accords, of the large wave of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, economic growth and prosperity, and a concurrent feeling of security and well-being. Israel was fast becoming a postcapitalist society, a junior member of the global village. This newly acquired self-assurance led to openness towards unorthodox views on basic questions of Israeli identity. This book attempts to come to grips with these themes. The complex texture of Israeli society is drawn here by a number of hands, presenting up-to-date approaches, as viewed by experts.

The end of the Cold War is reverberating far beyond its European theatre--in the killing fields of Afghanistan, Indochina, Central America, Southern Africa & the Horn of Africa. For some of these people, peace has come already; for others it is in sight. But beyond peacemaking lie the delicate challenges of peacekeeping & huge tasks of political, social, & economic reconstruction--& construction--in some of the world's poorest areas. The roots of these wars were deeply embedded in indigenous strife & history, but the superpowers--by adding their own ideological & strategic agenda--intensified the bloodshed. The results of the conflicts are appalling: nearly 3 million dead (2.5 million of them civilians); 16 million refugees; battered people, towns, & transport; a generation of unschooled youth & unskilled adults; countrysides planted with explosives; & teeming cities lacking in jobs & essential services. In this, the sixteenth volume in ODC's U.S.-Third World Policy Perspective series, the authors provide valuable timely analysis of the differing problems of polity & economy confronting the governments of these devastated countries. In short, Cyrus R. Vance calls it "a stimulating & provocative book."

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The books in this series help students aged 12 and over understand the present political, social and economic situation in the Middle East, by exploring modern historical events in the region. This book examines why hoped-for economic, social and political reforms did not materialize after the 1991 Gulf War.

This timely book tells the fascinating story of how Zionists colonizers planned and established nearly 700 agricultural settlements, towns, and cities from the 1880s to the present. This extraordinary activity of planners, architects, social scientists, military personnel, politicians, and settlers is inextricably linked to multiple contexts: Jewish and Zionist history, the Arab/Jewish conflict, and the diffusion of European ideas to non-European worlds. S. Ilan Troen demonstrates how professionals and settlers continually innovated plans for both rural and urban frontiers in response to the competing demands of social and political ideologies and the need to achieve productivity, economic independence, and security in a hostile environment. In the 1930s, security became the primary challenge, shaping and even distorting patterns of growth. Not until the 1993 Oslo Accords, with prospects of compromise and accommodation, did planners again imagine Israel as a normal state, developing like other modern societies. Troen concludes that if Palestinian Arabs become reconciled to a Jewish state, Israel will reassign priority to the social and economic development of the country and region.

Published in 1988, Essays on the Economic History of the Middle East is a valuable contribution to the field of Middle Eastern Studies.

This collection of essays covers economic issues of the Middle East during both the 19th and 20th centuries. The topics included in the book range from the economics of the export of Turkish labour to Western Europe to the economy of Central Asia and the study of coalminers in Eregli.