After the 1993 Oslo Accords people across the world anticipated the onset of peace and an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For Israelis, the Accords generated massive economic growth and a sense of security. For Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they led to a dramatic rise in poverty and unemployment due to a complex array of closures, militarized checkpoints, and bypass roads, and a vast expansion of the settlement project that fractured Palestinian territories and communities. In 2000 popular Palestinian rage with the new shape of the Israeli occupation erupted in a second uprising or intifada. In this volume, prominent scholars and journalists examine the dramatic political changes in Palestine and Israel from the Oslo Accords through the second intifada and the death of Yasser Arafat. Their essays address the political economy of the Oslo process, social and political changes in Palestine and Israel, United States foreign policy, social movements and political activism, and the interplay between cultural and political-economic processes. The volume also includes documents, maps, poetry, and graphic art.

The poems cover the travel experiences Ada Aharoni had during her tumultuous voyages around the world. Part I is on "Women and Peace," Part II on "Peace With Our Neigbors," Part III Peace Poems by Israeli poets and poets from the Global Village. Part IV includes her Letters to Kadreya and to Mrs. Jehan Sadat, on the necessity of having peace in the Middle East. And the last part includes some of her poems put to music. This moving lyrical and philosophical collection illuminates several of our dilemmas with hope and fresh vision.