ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT: The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History

ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History, by David W. Lesch, Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. xi + 460 pages. Figures. Maps. Gloss. to p. 466. Chron. to p. 472. Further reading to p. 480. Index to p. 495. $38.95 paper. Reviewed by Ronald R. Stockton For those who teach a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are two very good books on the market. One is Charles D. Smith's Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and the other is Mark Tessler's A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Now David Lesch brings his book into the mix. It is a strong competitor, and anyone teaching such a course should consider it. Lesch says his goal is that the book be comprehensive and accessible, thematic, and chronological. It is, but the book's real strength lies in the way diplomatic issues are covered. Lesch is a specialist on such issues. He has written books on Syria and on US policy, and has edited some of the most recent and innovative scholarship on Middle East diplomacy. His expertise in foreign policy brings in a wealth of details and perspectives not well known except to specialists. Some quotes by key players are very rich. While Smith's strength is historical development and Tessler's is political insight, Lesch shows that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be detached from the international environment. As his title suggests, his focus is Arab-Israeli rather than Israeli-Palestinian. The book's 50 documents (plus 17 maps and 17 photographs) are valuable additions. They also show the author's orientation. His documents include excerpts from the Rogers Plan and the 1998 Wye disengagement agreement, but not the Hamas Charter or Jabotinsky's Iron Wall essay, both of which illustrate how militants view the conflict. A political scientist might have made different choices in some cases. There are litmus test issues that measure how well a book on this topic covers complex or difficult matters (e.g., the Lavon Affair, the attack on the USS Liberty, and the Uganda Scheme). The Lavon Affair of 1954 involved the use of Egyptian Jews to commit attacks on Western positions in Egypt. This would be blamed on Muslims to generate anti-Arab sentiment in the West. When the saboteurs were caught and two executed, the plot was denied and the punishments were portrayed as anti-Semitism. The text captures the internal Israeli intrigues and aggressive tendencies that led to this fiasco. The USS Liberty incident involved an Israeli attack on an American intelligence ship during the 1967 war. …