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Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction Paperback – Illustrated, 10 September 2013
by Bunton (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 697 ratings
Part of: Very Short Introductions (406 books)
The conflict between Palestine and Israel is one of the most highly publicized and bitter struggles in history. In this accessible and stimulating Very Short Introduction, Martin Bunton clearly explains the history of the problem, reducing it to its very essence - a modern territorial contest between two nations and one geographical territory. Adopting a fresh and original approach, each section covers a twenty-year span, to highlight the historical complexity of the conflict throughout successive decades. Each chapter starts with an examination of the relationships among people and events that marked particular years as historical moments in the evolution of the conflict, including the 1897 Basle Congress; the 1917 Balfour Declaration and British occupation of Palestine; and the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the war for Palestine. Providing a clear and fair exploration of the main issues, Bunton explores not only the historical basis of the conflict, but also looks at how and why partition has been so difficult and how efforts to restore peace continue today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Review
The book brings forward a short (but not shallow), balanced, factual and easily read review of the topic. If other booklets in this series - on issues ranging from musicology to biology - are as practical as this one, the publishers should be thanked for providing a good platform for distributing and diseminating scientific knowledge beyond the walls of academia. ― Dan Tamir, Political Studies Review
Book Description
A clear and fair survey of the political conflict between Palestine and Israel, exploring the historical basis of the struggle, how and why partition has been so difficult, and how efforts to restore peace continue today.
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Product details
ASIN : 0199603936
Publisher : Oxford University Press UK; Illustrated edition (10 September 2013)
Language : English
Paperback : 144 pages
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4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 697 ratings
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Top reviews from Australia
Polonius
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative.Reviewed in Australia on 13 February 2018
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Can't help feeling that western meddling was the root cause of this and other mideast conflicts.
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Noel Pidgeon
4.0 out of 5 stars Four StarsReviewed in Australia on 24 June 2017
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Succinct summary of a complicated situation.
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Tobie Guerin
5.0 out of 5 stars Very InformativeReviewed in Canada on 1 November 2023
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This book gave me a good overview of how we got to where we are now in 2023 with the on-going war in Gaza.
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robert
5.0 out of 5 stars A real help in getting to knows the basic history of the Israel / Palestine conflictReviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2024
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The book covers the the history from 1897 to when the book was published in 2013. Each chapter covers a decade of the conflict so it's easy to read short portions at a time. There are good, relevant maps covering different periods of the conflict. All in all its a very readable and informative book.
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mark hyman
5.0 out of 5 stars Very brief but quite informative - it is the Cliff ...Reviewed in the United States on 9 March 2018
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Very brief but quite informative - it is the Cliff Notes version of a century (more actually) long conflict. Does not appear to be biased towards either side which is refreshing. Provides dates and incidents and a very little background, so if you really want to understand the dynamic of Palestine, you have to invest the time and intellectual energy into reading a more in-depth source.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Rápido y geniales condicionesReviewed in Spain on 27 June 2016
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Llegó extraordinariamente rápido y en unas condiciones fabulosas, parecía nuevo. El contenido del libro es tal y como aparece descrito en la página web y es bastante útil para conocer la realidad del conflicto, con mapas interesantes.
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Saurabh Joshi
5.0 out of 5 stars A perceptive and accessible introduction to a seemingly intractable topic ...Reviewed in India on 7 February 2016
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A perceptive and accessible introduction to a seemingly intractable topic which has been made so by unjust policies of powerful states. The author has explained in a lucid way the different periods since Theodor Herzl's publication of Der Judenstaat in 1896 and the word Zionist Congress in the next year through the creation of Israel in 1948 to the Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973 and the Palestinian intifadas, failure of peace efforts and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The author's palpable sympathy towards Palestinian cause is understandable as this is no longer a "neutral" conflict. The timeline given at the end of the book adds to its lucidity. All in all, a must read for those who're interested to sift through the deluge of opinions about the conflict from various quarters in India (mostly prejudiced one way or the other).
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Nandakishore Mridula
1,267 reviews
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September 20, 2015
”And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” – John 8:32
I do not know about “truth” – this is such a loaded word. But it is my firm belief that in studying history, “facts” will indeed free you from your misconceptions and prejudices.
Historical books always tend to be coloured by the bias of the writer. I am not talking of outright falsification here; even the most ethical and honest historians tend to interpret facts through the lenses of their own prejudice. True objectivity is impossible in practice – unfortunately, this is the human condition. And moreover, this is one of the charms of history books: the point of view of an erudite historian.
However, in the history associated with extremely emotional and disputed issues, multiple points of view are sometimes a burden. Here, we require to strip away the layers of obfuscation and interpretation which has accumulated over the years, and look at the facts in all their stark reality. We need to remove the flesh from the bones and look at the skeleton beneath.
That is what this slim book does wonderfully. After reading many books and articles from both the Palestinian and Israeli point of view over the years, I have finally come across a book which sets down the facts without embellishment and allows the reader to make his own informed opinions.
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Dr. Martin Bunton, an acknowledged scholar in Middle Eastern affairs, has divided the fractious and chaotic history of Palestine into six easily digestible chunks, five of them covering twenty years each and one covering a decade: a total of 110 years spanning from 1897 to 2007. They start with the concept of Zionism, first mooted as a political philosophy by Theodore Herzl in 1897, and end in 2007 with the nation of Israel standing firm and defiant and Palestine all but decimated.
What I learnt from the book:
1. Zionism as a political has been alive and kicking since 1897. Contrary to what many people believe, Israel was not created as a refuge for homeless Jewish refugees.
2. The formation of Israel was aided and abetted by Britain, without taking into consideration the opinions of the indigenous population.((‘Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad,’ [Arthur James Balfour, British Secretary of State] wrote in 1922, was ‘rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs and future hopes of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.’)
3. Golda Meir's statement that "there were no Palestinians" is factually correct. But what she does not say is that there were no Israelis either. There was a region called Palestine, which was home to thousands of Arabs, who were forcibly displaced by European settlers supported by the West. And always, the larger chunk of land was given to the minority settlers.
4. There were many times when Arabs could have made a tough bargain with Israel. But they were divided among themselves, and the majority of the Arab nations were not very concerned about Palestinians until recently, when a sort of Pan-Arab consciousness seems to be emerging.
5. Even though a two-state solution has been proposed and in principle accepted by the UN, there is very little chance of it ever becoming reality, as immigration to Israel keeps on increasing leading to the construction of illegal colonies Palestinian lands. This has pushed the already marginalised Palestinians to the wall, leading to them becoming more and more violent, which in turn allows Israel to use disproportionate force.
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Dr. Bunton did not spring any surprises on me: I was gratified to find that my grasp of the history of the conflict was more or less correct. However, the facts and the dates, set down in black and white, provided a detailed picture one of the greatest injustices of the twentieth century.
This book taught me that the historical legitimacy of Israel depends on whether one believes the Bible to be history or mythology.
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Arwa Aburizik
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May 27, 2014
I think this book is mostly accurate and constitutes a great effort in summarizing such a complicated history in a short book. I have a problem with some of the wording that the author ( and the world at large) uses. For example:
1- Early in the book, while describing the attitude of Israel towards the land allocated to it by the UN, the author describes the borders of Israel as “ contested, or fragile”. A more accurate description of the borders of Israel would be: illegal. Israel is the only state in the world that I know of whose vague about its borders. It is like an amoeba that refuses to commit to its shape on the map, or worse, it is like a cancer that cannot be trusted to contain itself without expanding and metastasizing. “Fragile/contested” is an understatement.
2- The author’s wording is biased towards describing arabs as terrorists and Israeli’s as Activists. For example, he described Ben-Gurion as taking a “highly activist stance towards Israel and against Palestine, threatening retaliation with an iron fist”. But he describes the Arabs as being “belligerent” in the Khartoom meeting when they adopted an equally activist stance towards Palestine and against Zionism and refusing negotiations.
3- The author very quickly goes over the description of the so-called panic flight of Palestinians in 1948. The author uses the word Palestinians “fled” their homes. It is prudent to use caution when interpreting the word “fled”. If the Palestinians fled their homes, it is because they were faced with an unequal threat that they could not confront. We only hear of people “fleeing” their homes these days in the context of tornadoes or natural disasters where the terrorizing forces are bigger than technology, planning, reason and negotiation. The Palestinians did not willfully seek immigration to better places with more attractive opportunities. But rather, escaped a natural disaster, systematically carried out by Israeli’s to terrify the Palestinians with massacres ( e.g. Deir Yassin Massacre) and then expelling them from their homes, and bulldozing their homes. Just by observing the palestinian fate it is easy to infer that the terror that led them to flee was prodigious. After “fleeing” they were killed in Jordan (1970), in Sabra and Shateela in Lebanon and endured poverty and discrimination wherever they roamed.
4- When commenting on Sabra and Shateela, the author mentions that the massacre was carried out by the Lebanese, with the “help of protective Israeli’ forces” and their nighttime raids. I think this is a place where the author, again can use the word "terrorist attacks" to describe the Israeli actions. But the unfortunate truth is that the term "terrorist" is limited to describing Arabs and muslims.. Same thing goes for using the term “gorilla” attacks. This is very similar to portraying the Native Americans as an animal population, with no language, emotions, and no culture, an effort to normalize expelling them from their homes and minimize the crimes against humanity.
5- I dislike the use of the word “independence of Israel” in 1948. Israeli lands were never occupied by anyone other than their rightful Palestinian owners. When Israel was born and brought to existence, the Israeli’s could have celebrated ”the successful occupation of Palestine and the expulsion of its people”, but not Israel’s independence.
6- The author uses the word "humiliating" to describe the defeat of Jamal Abdel Nasser against Israel. Nasser fought and was defeated, but he was proud and not humiliated. I think the only thing that is humiliating about that era is the stance the world took against the crimes against palestinian humans.
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Siddharth
128 reviews
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September 28, 2015
By the time the war ended, Britain had put her signature on a confusing array of promises and declarations. She had pledged the future disposition of Palestine to no less than three different real or imagined allies. First, Britain’s high commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, made promises to Sharif Husayn, the Hashemite ruler of the Hijaz region of Arabia, about the creation of an independent Arab kingdom. Secondly, Britain officially recognized the long-standing claims of her French allies to Syria, while staking claims of her own. Third, promises were made to Zionist leaders in London. A fourth set of commitments, spurred by US President Woodrow Wilson, was broadcast about the rights of all peoples to independence and self-determination.
The British! Always the fucking British!
***
Very Short Review: A balanced, incisive history of the messy Israel-Palestine conflict.
Read in July 2015
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Lee
93 reviews
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August 30, 2014
I like to think I'm fairly well-informed about the contours of the I-P conflict, but I had never read a book-length recounting of the whole history. This was a good place to start. It's very short (it's part of Oxford University Press's "very short introductions" series), but hits all the major events and manages to do so--from what I can tell--without oversimplifying.
Bunton emphasizes that (seemingly) irreconcilable claims to the same piece of land--not "ancient religious hatreds"--are what lie at the heart of the conflict. This has been true virtually from the get-go, when Great Britain, in the wake of World War I, made inherently incompatible promises--or at least promises that were in serious tension--both to provide for Palestinian self-government and a Jewish homeland in the same territory.
This book is, as far as I can tell, extremely even-handed, though Bunton isn't afraid to issue judgments on one side or the other. Unfortunately, it ends on the pessimistic note (which won't shock anyone who's been following the news lately) that a two-state solution may be farther away than ever. The book also includes a guide to further reading, which makes it even more valuable as a jumping-off point for understanding the history of the conflict.
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Kaelan Ratcliffe ▪ كايِلان راتكِليف
109 reviews
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March 25, 2019
Understanding Palestine
My second book on the topic this year (the first being A Convenient Hatred: A History of Antisemitism) and a very riveting account of the conflict. Having finished this short introduction, I already have in my sights some more opinionated books on the topic such as Norman Finkelsteins works and Ilan Pappés. However, this does serve as a solid, unbiased standpoint for a reader to springboard off into whatever deeper reading they would like to partake in regarding this topic.
There are some pretty stellar reviews already on here, so I will keep this short so as to entice potential readers into opening the pages of this book without putting them off with unnecessary depth (it is only 114 pages long after all).
I appreciated the fact Mr Burton is transparent regarding a few points I hadn't realised before.
1. The recent biblical connotations attached to Israels need to exist is just that. Recent.
2. Palestinians have been abused by competing powers in the middle east throughout the conflict, and even used by their own groups. A truly desperate situation.
3. If Arab nations had stopped maytring the Palestinians, or using them to achieve political kudos, then perhaps we would have seen a quicker resolution.
4. Hardliners building illegal settlements are going to cause more bloodshed. Period.
culture-cultural-studies
history
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Lea
981 reviews
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February 16, 2024
Less of a general primer on the conflict but mostly a historical overview that focuses on land development, geopolitics, agriculture and treaties. While I appreciate the overall attempt to stay relatively unbiased, it made for quite a dry reading.
2024
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em
285 reviews
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May 6, 2024
like many i have been horrified by the images and reports on the news of what is happening in Gaza. However I have very little knowledge on the actual situation and what has happened throughout the past 75 years between Israel and Palestine. This is the first book I read to learn about it so I can be as informed as possible
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Michael Huang
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October 16, 2023
Britain defeated Ottoman Empire to gain control of lots of the latter’s territories. 100 years ago in 1923, it obtained a mandate to essentially administer the area called Palestine. This was some quarter of a century after the 1st Zionist conference and Britain is now in full support of establishing a national home for the Jews. Who would’ve thought it’s so difficult to make two people reside in the same area peacefully? Why don’t people move to that area so these other people can live here just like a lord drew it on his paper? Neither side was pleased with Britain and now even US is having a rift with them. Britain would challenge the UN to come up with a plan. UN did and Britain didn’t want to cooperate. So a quarter century after the League of Nations mandate Britain would pack up and leave.
The state of Israel would be founded (in 1948) as the Brits left. The new country will then immediately fight a war with its neighbors. Israel won. And now 78% of the mandate Palestine was under Israeli control. Moreover, the rest of the area was now controlled by neighboring Arab countries: Gaza Strip under Egypt and West Bank under Jordan.
20 years would pass before another war from the neighbors, this time Israel won again. (There shouldn’t be any surprise: Ben Gurion believed that a constant show of military superiority would eventually force the neighbors to accept Israel. Ben Gurionism says no attack on Israel will go unpunished.) Now the entire region was under Israeli control. The Palestinian Arab refugees, meanwhile, had been living under unbearable occupation, giving birth to extremists including Hamas which sought explicitly to eliminate Israel.
25 years later, in 1993, Oslo accord was signed. Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel would recognize each other. PLO would renounce violence and a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be formed and given a territorial base to start self-governance. But neither side’s leaders can convince their people to prepare for compromises. Extremists would assassinate Israeli PM Rabin for forfeiting “land intended by God exclusively for Jews”. Hamas would challenge PA and effectively run the Gaza Strip. Increasing suicide bombing gave Netanyahu (who ran as Mr. Security) the premiership. He slowed the peace process which further worsened the economic woes of the Palestinians, which then undermined the credibility of PA leaders who believes in negotiation.
30 years later in 2023, we just witnessed another horrendous attack by Hamas. The response will be — if history is any guide — strong and broadly supported by Israelis. The result is likely more casualty and misery. In 2003 a total of 2400 Palestinians and 800 Israelis would lost their lives in their last (major) conflict — that’s almost exactly how many American died on 9/11, though as a population, we are 22 times larger than the two combined. Bunton did a really good job writing this VSI — you can imagine the urge to put all those scholarly details for such a long-lasting and charged conflict. But he delivered a readable, concise, and balanced narrative on the 100+ year history. Let’s hope the history of the next 100 years will be a less depressing one.
2023
society-politics
topical-episodic-history
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John
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July 4, 2017
As usual with this series, it delivers. The author wisely took a "just the facts" approach for such a loaded issue. I found the segments on the early Zionist settlement and the mandate period to be particularly of interest due to my lack of knowledge about the issue. I also found helpful his reprinting of key historical documents (the Balfour declaration, UN Resolution 242). I was a little disappointed with the bibliography because it did not contain a bibliographical essay, but I suspect the author scrupulously made this choice to avoid controversy.
Unfortunately, the book demonstrates that the resolution of the problem is not getting any easier.
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Elena Lange
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March 27, 2024
Short, yet informative. But also non-bias
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