Israel Jordan And Palestine

"A Crown Center for Middle East Studies Book."

An astute assessment of the relationship between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians, with scenarios for the future of Palestinian statehood

For over a decade the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has been exploring federal solutions for Israel, the Palestinians, and Jordan as the only way out of the Middle East conflict. In this volume, edited by renowned scholar Daniel J. Elazar, eleven separate options are presented and extensively explored, and a path is suggested for bringing peace to Israel and the Middle East. The work is a must read for anyone interested in this ever growing focal point of international debate and conflict. Co-published with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Israel and Jordan, even though self-proclaimed enemies of one another, practiced a relationship of interdependence based on corresponding interests. In the years following the 1967 war, these two countries' fates were delicately intertwined because of many factors like mutual reliance on natural resources (especially water) and parallel interests in the subordination of the Palestinian national movement. These conditions of commonality led to extensive ties between the two countries and approximated a state of de facto peace that— ironically—made an official peace treaty almost impossible to sign. A formal peace treaty would have required not only Israel's withdrawal from the West bank but also Jordan's acknowledgement of the clandestine contacts between the two formal enemies. Yehuda Lukacs gives us an account of how this relationship changed in 1988 when Jordan disengaged from the West Bank. This event, combined with the Palestinian uprising and the Gulf War, paved the way for Israel and Jordan in 1994 to sign the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty. By systemically examining the impact of functional cooperation between two official enemies, Lukacs makes an important contribution to Middle East studies and international conflict resolution.

This study examines the process of national identity formation. It argues that national discourse are systems of meanings in which identities develop via difference.

Drawing from newly declassified records in Israeli, American, British and United Nations archives, this penetrating book examines the critical two years following the June 1967 Six Day War, dispelling the myth of overall Arab intransigence and arriving at new and unexpected conclusions