| Description |
ix, 196 pages : maps ; 18 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes index. |
| Contents |
pt I. The crisis -- Why is there so much violence in the Middle East? Isn't there violence on both sides? -- Why should we care about violence in the Middle East? -- Why is the Middle East so important to the US and internationally? -- What caused the Israeli-Palestinian crisis that began in 2000? -- Why is the violence so intense? -- Isn't Israel just trying to fight terrorism, as the US and the UK tried to do in Afghanistan? -- Are all Palestinians terrorists or supporters of terrorism? -- Why are Palestinians in Israel at all? -- Who are the Palestinians? Where did they come from? -- What are the occupied territories? -- What does "military occupation" mean? -- Who are the Israelis? Where did they come from? -- What's the difference between Jews and Israelis? -- Who are the Israeli settlers? Why are the Israeli settlements located outside Israel's borders? -- What do the Palestinians want? -- What does Israel want? -- Who controls the West bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip? -- Why does Israel still occupy those areas? -- If Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, why are there so many Palestinians in the eastern part of the city? -- Who are the Palestinian refugees and why are they still living in refugee camps? -- What is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)? -- What is the Palestinian Authority (PA)? -- Who are the "suicide bombers" and why are they killing themselves and others? -- Why are only Palestinians carrying out these suicide bombings? -- What is the Wall that Israel is building in the occupied territories? -- What does the rest of the world think about the Wall? -- Why do South African Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former President Jimmy Carter, and others describe Israel's policies towards the Palestinians as "apartheid"? -- What was the significance of Yasir Arafat's death? -- What does the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have to do with the US war in Iraq? -- What is "transfer"? Why did talk of "transfer" of Palestinians increase during the build-up to war in Iraq? -- What was Israel's "convergence plan" for the West Bank, and why did President Bush endorse Israel's unilateral 2004 plans to annex much of the West Bank? -- What is Hamas? -- Why did the Palestinians choose Hamas in the January 2006 elections? -- What are Israel's "targeted assassinations"? -- Didn't Israel's occupation of Gaza end with its withdrawal of soldiers and settlers in 2005? -- Why did Hamas capture an Israeli soldier in June 2006 after Israel had withdrawn from Gaza in 2005? -- Doesn't Israel have the right to defend itself against Hamas in Gaza, as well as against Hezbollah in Lebanon? -- |
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pt. II. The other players : the role of the US, the UN, Arab states, and Europe -- Why is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so important on the global stage? -- Why does the rest of the world care, and get so involved, in this conflict in such a small place? -- What is the international response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? -- Is there international agreement? -- Why hasn't the US been part of that consensus? -- Why is the US the central player in the Middle East? -- What explains the US-Israeli "special relationship"? -- Is the US an "honest broker" in the conflict? -- How does the US support Israel? -- Why was the Bush administration so much less involved than the Clinton administration in Israel-Palestine diplomacy? -- What has the George W. Bush administration's Middle East policy been all about? -- Where does US aid to Israel fit in the broader scheme of US foreign aid? -- Does the US also provide aid to the Palestinians? -- Didn't the US support creation of the Palestinian Authority? Why did the US treat it differently than the PLO, which Washington usually tried to undermine or sideline? -- If not the US, then who else should be at the center of Middle East diplomacy? -- Didn't the United Nations create the state of Israel? Why didn't it create a state of Palestine too? Why doesn't it now? -- Why is Israel so often criticized in the UN? Aren't other countries just as guilty of human rights violations? -- What is the role of the UN in the Middle East these days? Why isn't the UN in charge of the overall peace process? -- Why is Israel isolated from Arab countries in the region and in the UN and other international forums? -- Since Jordan's population is about two-thirds Palestinian and there are 21 other Arab countries, why do the Palestinians insist on having a new state of their own? -- Don't the Arab countries want to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea? -- How does Israel see its role in the Middle East region? -- What role does European Union play in the conflict? Why doesn't it do more? -- |
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pt. III. Recent history : rising violence -- Why did violence break out again in 2000? What is this second '"intifada," and how is it different from the first intifada of 1987-1993? -- What was the "road map" that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the eve of the Iraq war, seemed so convinced would end the Israeli- Palestinian conflict? -- Did the road map have any potential to actually bring about a new peace process? -- These developments happened after the famous 1993 handshake on the White House lawn. Wasn't that supposed to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians? -- What was the Oslo process? How did the Oslo process start? -- Why didn't the Oslo process work? -- What were Oslo's "final status" issues? Why were they so difficult? -- Whose capital is Jerusalem? -- What happened to Israeli settlements and settlers during the years of the Oslo process? -- What would a Palestinian "state" as determined by Oslo/Camp David have looked like? -- What happened at Camp David? Why did it fail? -- Didn't Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak make the most generous offer in history to the Palestinians? Why did they reject it? -- What would a real, comprehensive peace have looked like at Camp David? -- |
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pt. IV. Looking backwards (1900-1991) -- What was the Madrid peace conference in 1991? -- What kind of diplomacy followed the Madrid conference? -- What happened to Israel and Palestine during the 1991 Gulf War? -- What was the first "intifada" all about? -- What were conditions like in the occupied territories before the first intifada? -- How did Israel come to be in control of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem? -- What was the international community's response to the 1967 war? -- How did the US respond to the occupation? -- What was the 1982 Lebanon war all about? What was Ariel Sharon's role? -- What was the Sabra-Shatila massacre in Lebanon? -- Did the Palestinians demand national rights and an independent state before the 1967 war? -- How was the PLO viewed in the Arab Middle East, the UN, and in the rest of the world? -- What is Zionism? Do all Jews support Zionism? -- |
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pt. V. The future -- What would a just and comprehensive peace between Israel and Palestine look like today? -- Won't a Palestinian state be a threat to Israel's security? -- What about terrorism? -- How would a secure Israel and an independent Palestine living side by side affect the Middle East and the rest of the world? -- Is a two-state arrangement really fair and based on justice? -- Maps -- United Nations partition plan, 1947 -- Palestinian refugees : UNRWA refugee camps, 2001 -- Map of the Wall -- Oslo, 1995 -- Diminishing land of Palestine -- Index. |
| Subject |
Arab-Israeli conflict.
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United States -- Foreign relations -- Middle East.
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Middle East -- Foreign relations -- United States.
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| ISBN |
9781566566858 |
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1566566851 |
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