Israel Jordan Palestine The Search For A Durable Peace

This examination of the Middle East's troubled history traces the origins, development and politics of Israel's relationship with the Arab world and the West. It argues that peace with the Palestinians will leave Israel vulnerable to Iraq and Iran.

The complex, often uneasy, relationship between Transjordanians and Palestinians has profoundly influenced not only Jordan but also the entire Middle East peace process. At different times, Jordan's Hashemite royalty has sought to accommodate, embrace, exclude, or cooperate with the Palestinians and the PLO, and the impact of these efforts has been felt throughout the region. Today, Jordan has signed a peace treaty with Israel, and Palestinians account for over half of the Jordanian population--yet the dynamic relationship between the regime and its Transjordanian and Palestinians citizens still arouses powerful sentiments at home and can send shock waves through the West Bank and Israel. Abu-Odeh explores this relationship from its origins in the 1920s to the very latest attempts to cope with competing national identities and to sustain a peace process.

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.

For over a century, the conflict between the Arabs and Jews has remained the most intractable problem confronting the world. Hardly a day passes that the Arab-Israeli Conflict is not headlined in the media. It has turned the Arabs and Israelis against one another and embittered relations within the two communities, while drawing the rest of the world into the circle of disruption. The A to Z of the Arab-Israeli Conflict provides factual background through an introductory essay, a chronology, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the more significant persons, places and events, including the various wars and negotiations. The history, religion, culture, and archeology that this rivalry has sparked between the Arabs and Israelis over the same piece of territory is traced in this book, which offers the essential details using neutral terms and thereby allowing readers to draw conclusions for themselves.

Thoroughly updated and expanded, this new edition of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace examines the history of recurrent efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and identifies a pattern of negative negotiating behaviors that seem to repeatedly derail efforts to achieve peace. In a lively and accessible style, Laura Zittrain Eisenberg and Neil Caplan examine eight case studies of recent Arab-Israeli diplomatic encounters, from the Egyptian-Israeli peace of 1979 to the beginning of the Obama administration, in light of the historical record. By measuring contemporary diplomatic episodes against the pattern of counterproductive negotiating habits, this book makes possible a coherent comparison of over sixty years of Arab-Israeli negotiations and gives readers a framework with which to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of peace-making attempts, past, present, and future.

""In an innovative study, two historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict reflect on what their craft can contribute to peacemaking."" -- Middle East Quarterly ""A fine overview of the troubled Arab-Israeli negotiations since Camp David, filled with sound analysis and a wealth of documentary material. Students and diplomats alike will benefit from this thoughtful study."" -- William B. Quandt, Byrd Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia ""This timely book... will be invaluable for students of Middle East international relations and for policy makers who seek a mutually acceptable resolution of this protracted conflict."" -- Michael Brecher, McGill University ""No matter where one stands on the issues, this valuable work commends itself to students, peace makers, and anyone concerned about the Arab-Israeli conflict and its peaceful resolution."" -- Philip Mattar, Institute for Palestine Studies .."". Eisenberg and Caplan offer the reader lessons of the past and sound guidance for the present and the future.... a well-researched and well-written book."" -- Itamar Rabinovich, Tel-Aviv University What must change before the Arab-Israeli conflict is resolved diplomatically? By illuminating recurring factors that seem to doom peacemaking, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace offers a fresh interpretation of how, when, and why the process does and does not work and points to diplomatic strategies that may produce an enduring peace.