A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

As an adjunct professor of international affairs at a top-tier university, I have used History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Ian Bickerton and Carla Klausner for several years and through several of its recent editions. When I began teaching this class, after many years of writing editorials on the conflict for two major American newspapers and several reporting trips to the region, I was looking for a book that brought together the essential documents regarding the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 and the period since. So many times, people have made up their minds as to which side -- Israeli, Arab -- is the blame for the entire situation. Some automaticlaly blame Israel; others criticize the Arab states and the Palestinians. For my purposes, that was much too simplistic an approach. I wanted students to read and understand the historical narrative of this conflict. I wanted them to read the documents from the United Nations, the Arab League, the Israeli governnment and so on so they could gain a useful appreciation of the complexity of this situation today. This text does the trick. It is balanced, and that is why I find it so helpful. I ask my students at the beginning of each semester to examine their own thoughts as to which parties they believe are to blame for the conflict. Then, as we are wrapping up the course, I ask them to revisit that question. My goal is to help them understand as completely as possible how complicated this conflict is and why. The Bickerton-Klausner text does an excellent job simply because it refuses to assign blame to one side or the other, which is exactly what I wanted to get away from in my course. There is enough blame to go around quite sufficiently. Even though there are other texts out now that appear to mimic this approach, I shall continue to use this text. It is invaluable for me. Repps Hudson University City, MO

"History of the Arab-Israeli" conflict appears to be a balanced primer into the Arab-Israeli conflict. One strength of the book are the relevant documents presented at the end of each chapter. The book concentrates more on breadth than depth, but each chapter also ends with a list of references for further reading, for those who wish to learn more details about a particular issue. This is an educational textbook. However, it can serve as background material for anybody or any group that wishes to become more knowledgeable about the topic and who wish to examine the topics further through classroom or private discussion. The book attempts to maintain a balanced perspective without favoring either the Arab or Israeli point of view. Hence, those who are pre-disposed to favoring one side or the other are bound to find the book "biased" or "incomplete", or perhaps "mixing lies with truth" which was a title of one of the reviews for the 4th Edition. Because the text only covers the issues in general terms, without going into too much detail, it is hard to say who is correct--the book, trying to remain imparital, or partisans on one side or the other. Overall, I would recommend this book as a useful introduction to the Arab-Israel Conflict for those who are not already knowledgeable, who seek to learn more about the issues in the conflict.