Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World is the outstanding book on Israeli foreign policy, now thoroughly updated with a new preface and chapters on Israel's most recent leaders
In the 1920s, hard-line Zionists developed the doctrine of the 'Iron Wall': negotiations with the Arabs must always be from a position of military strength, and only when sufficiently strong Israel would be able to make peace with her Arab neighbours.
This doctrine, argues Avi Shlaim, became central to Israeli policy; dissenters were marginalized and many opportunities to reconcile with Palestinian Arabs were lost. Drawing on a great deal of new material and interviews with many key participants, Shlaim places Israel's political and military actions under and uncompromising lens.
His analysis will bring scant comfort to partisans on both sides, but it will be required reading for anyone interested in this fascinating and troubled region of the world.
'The Iron Wall is strikingly fair-minded, scholarly, cogently reasoned and makes enthralling ... reading' Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph
'Anyone wanting to understand the modern Middle East should start by reading this elegantly written and scrupulously researched book' Trevor Royle, Sunday Herald
'A milestone in modern scholarship of the Middle East' Edward Said
'Fascinating ... Shlaim presents compelling evidence for a revaluation of traditional Israeli history' Ethan Bronner, The New York Times Book Review
Avi Shlaim is Professor of International Relations at St. Antony's College, Oxford. His previous books include Collusion Across the Jordan (1988) and War and Peace in the Middle East (1995).
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
July 30, 2015 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780141976785
- File size: 17110 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780141976785
- File size: 17110 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 3, 2000
Optimism about the prospects for a Middle East peace agreement has accompanied the recent election of Ehud Barak as Israel's prime minister, but if this book is any indication, the war over Israel's history is likely to rage on. Shlaim (War and Peace in the Middle East, etc.) is a leader among revisionist historians who are challenging Israel's most cherished myths about itself: that it has been a peaceful nation forced into war by bellicose Arab neighbors incapable of accepting its existence. A professor of history at Oxford, he covers relations between Israel and the Arabs from Israel's 1948 War of Independence to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral defeat this past May. Rarely have as many fresh details been presented together about Israel's inner political scene and the Jewish state's contacts with the Arab world in its early years. Shlaim ably sets out the belief, shared by Israeli leaders of all political stripes, that the country had to build up an "iron wall" of strength and security in order to bring Arab leaders to the negotiating table (Shlaim himself thinks the iron wall was a mistake). But Shlaim's revisionist enthusiasm too often gets the better of him: he fails to marshal the necessary evidence to support his contention that Arab rulers were "prepared to recognize Israel, to negotiate directly with it, and even to make peace with it." Shlaim's explanations of Arab political constraints, especially the pragmatism of Arab rulers relative to the extreme anti-Israel sentiment of the Arab street, is illuminating. But his view of Palestinian terrorism as a reaction to Israeli militarism is far too simplistic. Revisionism is one thing, but Shlaim employs a double standard: while he tends to view Israeli leaders, most notably Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as villains, he heaps praise on the "realism" of Arab leaders. A comprehensive, balanced history of Israel's history with its Arab neighbors needs to be written, but this is not it. Photos not seen by PW.
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