Building A Palestinian State

Throughout the history of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, security has been the most important-and most challenging-issue for Palestinians, Israelis, and their neighbors. This study examines key external security issues regarding the construction of a Palestinian state. Its proposals include a NATO-led international peace-enabling force and Israeli-Palestinian confidence-building measures.

"... an analysis that is as intricate and flawless as it is devastating... Robinson's] presentation is powerful and compelling and his scholarship impeccable." --MESA Bulletin "... an] excellent book. In just 200 pages, Glenn Robinson manages to give the clearest and most concise analysis of the changing political and social structure of the West Bank and Gaza and of current political realities that I have read." --Digest of Middle Eastern Studies "... a fair and sensitive account and contains the best available assessment of the Intifada's political aftermath among Palestinians. An added bonus is that the book is written in an accessible style with enough historical background and contextual explanation to make it ideal as a text for courses in Middle East politics or the politics of revolutions." --American Political Science Review "Well-researched, original, scholarly; deserves the attention of those interested in revolutionary theory or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." --Choice "Throughout, the book is impressively researched and very well-written.... Building a Palestinian State is a book that deserves to be widely read." --Journal of Palestine Studies "... a well-informed and tightly argued analysis of the evolution of politcal leadership in the West Bank and Gaza from the 1980s to the spring of 1996. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the historical backdrop to current political developments in the areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority." --Middle East Policy "... carefully researched and balanced study..." --Times Literary Supplement "... provides a unique analysis of the various facets of grassroots organizations and their interaction with the emerging state institutions... a major and very timely contribution." --Anne Lesch In this well informed and accessibly written book, Glenn E. Robinson traces the emergence of a new political elite in the West Bank and Gaza in the 1980s and the grassroots political and social revolution it launched during the Intifada.

An examination of how an independent Palestinian state, if created, can be made successful. The authors describe options for strengthening governance, security, economic development, access to water, health and health care, and education, and estimate the financial resources needed for successful development over the first decade of independence.

This book examines the role of education in building a new Palestinian state, and especially on the role and function of the education system in the process of state formation. Since education frames a people’s identity, the nature of the education system affects how Palestinians relate to their state. Through education the Palestinian Authority (PA) transforms the parameters of identity to serve the requirements of state-building and the peace process. International assistance to the PA affects all of these processes through the disbursal of political rent, whose primary function is to bolster the PA and to keep the peace process going. The new Palestinian Authority has assumed two seemingly contradictory functions: state building and resistance, and the dynamic tensions between the two raise key questions for political and policy analysis. Are these functions mutually exclusive or complementary in the context of the ongoing peace negotiations, and state-building? Can the Palestinian leadership transform the Palestinian national movement from a revolutionary organization to a pragmatic state apparatus? Are the PLO and the PA interchangeable? What type of power does the PA need to cultivate the support, or to secure the compliance, of the Palestinian people for the state-building project? Clearly, the answers to these questions have a direct bearing on the education system. Will this system promote a resistance identity or a state-building legitimizing identity

Countdown to Statehood, based on Arabic, English, and Hebrew language sources, analyzes the form that the Palestinian state is likely to take. The book looks at past institution-building patterns in the West Bank and Gaza, the relationship between the PLO and the local Palestinians, and the nature of the conflict with Israel from 1967 through the first year of the Palestinian Authority under Arafat's leadership. A major reference point in this analysis is the Zionist experience of state-building in Israel's own pre-independence era. Not only did the Zionist experience serve as a model of a successful protagonist that Palestinians wished to emulate, but both also began as diaspora-based. These similarities and, even more so, the dissimilarities between these two struggles for national determination allow the reader to assess the potential likenesses and disparities of the future Palestinian state compared to its Israeli counterpart. The concluding chapter analyzes the findings in the broader context of third-world state-building by arguing, contrary to the common wisdom that "war makes the state," that more peaceful routes to statehood lead to better states in the post-independence era.

An examination of options for strengthening the housing and transportation infrastructure of a potential future independent Palestinian state in the context of a large and rapidly growing Palestinian population. The book includes initial cost estimates for improving and expanding infrastructure to facilitate successful development.