Dome of the Rock seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Creative Commons
Dome of the Rock seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Creative Commons
Dome of the Rock seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Creative Commons
Jerusalem
Karen Armstrong 1996 Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths
Eric Cline 2005 Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel
Amy Dockser Marcus 2007 Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Simon Sebag Montefiore 2024 Jerusalem: The Biography
Jodi Magness 2024 Jerusalem through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades
Archaeologist at Tel Zeitah, courtesy of Uzi Baram
Dome of the Rock seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Creative Commons
Dome of the Rock seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Creative Commons
Archeology
Thomas Levy (ed 1998 Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman 2001 The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts
Eyal Halfon and Ran Barkai 2024 They Were Here Before Us: Stories from the First Million Years
Theory
Edward Said is a towering intellectual figure of the 20thcentury. His major contribution shifted an entire academic field of study:
Edward Said 1978 Orientalism
Israel shown on Google Earth
Dome of the Rock seen from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Creative Commons
Map of the Ottoman Empire at its Height. Creative Commons
The Region
Geography plays a key role in the conflict, starting with the British survey and then the historical maps by a historical cartographer opens an avenue for studying the spatial aspects of history.
Claude Reignier Conder and Earl Horatio Herbert Kitchener 1888 The Survey of Western Palestine (8 volumes)
Martin Gilbert 2012 The Routledge Atlas of Arab-Israeli Conflict
Map of the Ottoman Empire at its Height. Creative Commons
Arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, British Mandate High Commissioner 6/30/20 Library of Congress
Map of the Ottoman Empire at its Height. Creative Commons
The Ottoman Empire 1683
David Fromkin 1989 A Peace to End All Peace: The Fallt of the Ottoman Empire and The Creation of the Modern Middle East
Caroline Finkel 2005 Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire
Donald Quataert 2019 The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922
Arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, British Mandate High Commissioner 6/30/20 Library of Congress
Arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, British Mandate High Commissioner 6/30/20 Library of Congress
Arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, British Mandate High Commissioner 6/30/20 Library of Congress
British Mandate for Palestine
Colonialism came to the eastern Mediterranean in the aftermath of the First World War. In hindsight, some see the decades of their grandparents or parents in a positive light; that is a colonial amnesia.
Tom Segev 2001 One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
Theodor Herzl during Fifth Zionist Congress December 1901. Ephraim Moses Lilien
Arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, British Mandate High Commissioner 6/30/20 Library of Congress
Arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, British Mandate High Commissioner 6/30/20 Library of Congress
Zionism
Discussions of the nationalist movement are varied; reading Herzl’s vision, the debates of the 2010s, and having an introduction is probably a good start:
Theodor Herzl 1902 Altneuland: Old New Land (a novel)
Laurence J. Silberstein 2013 The Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture
Michael Stanislawski 2016 Zionism: A Very Short Introduction
Noa Tishby 2022 Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
The State of Israel
Palestinian History and Identity
Palestinian History and Identity
The State of Israel
There are many books on Israel and everyone has their favorites. Here is a sampling to start broadening the view:
Tom Segev 1998 1949: The First Israelis
Oz Almog 2000 The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew
Michael B. Oren 2003 Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Abraham Rabinovich 2004 The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East
Dennis Ross 2005 The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace
Howard M. Sachar 2007 A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time
Benny Morris 2008 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War
Daniel Gordis 2017 Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, the Israeli People and their Nation
Palestinian History and Identity
Palestinian History and Identity
Palestinian History and Identity
Palestinian History and Identity
The contest over Palestinian identity and life in Israel makes for a challenging intellectual terrain. Here is a sampling that offers important entry points for understanding the Palestinian nationalist movement among Palestinians.
Emile Habibi 1974 The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist(a novel)
Rashid Khalidi 1997 Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness
Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal 2003 The Palestinian People: A History
Proposals: A Sampling
Palestinian History and Identity
Suleiyman the Lawgiver (1494-1566)
Solutions
There are even more publications on solutions to the conflict than histories.
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and Mary Evelyn Hocking (eds)1992 The Struggle for Peace: Israelis and Palestinians
Paul Scham, Walid Salem, Benjamin Pogrund (eds) 2005 Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue
Robert I. Rotberg (ed) 2006 Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History's Double Helix
Sandy Sufian and Mark Levine (eds) with contributions by Moussa Abou Ramadan, Thomas Abowd, Samer Alatout, Uzi Baram, Michelle Campos, Nadav Davidovitch, Geremy Forman, Mark LeVine, Daniel Monterescu, Rhona Seidelman, Alona Nitzan-Shiftan, Shifra Shvarts, Sarah S. Willen 2007 Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine
Izzeldin AbuElaish 2010 I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Maia Carter Hallward 2011 Struggling for a Just Peace: Israeli and Palestinian Activism in the Second Intifada
Dafna Hirsch (ed) 2024 Entangled Histories in Palestine/Israel: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives
Suleiyman the Lawgiver (1494-1566)
Suleiyman the Lawgiver (1494-1566)
Key Names from Ottoman Imperial Rule to early Israeli Statehood
Suleiyman the Lawgiver ordered the construction of the walls around Jerusalem
Ha'ari / Isaac Luria (1534-1572): leading rabbi and Jewish mystic in Safed, considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah
Zahir al-‘Umar (1690-1775): ruler of Galilee, fortified Akko, and expanded cotton production
Theodor Herzl (1860-1904): father of modern political Zionism, spiritual father of the Jewish State
General Edmund Allenby (1861-1936): British conqueror of Jerusalem during the Great War
Lord Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930): Balfour Declaration of 1917
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini (1897-1974): Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein (1882-1951): king of Transjordan / Jordan
David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973): primary national founder and first prime minister of the State of Israel
Moshe Dayan (1915-1981): commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 War
David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. Ben-Gurion House Archive
Prime Ministers of the State of Israel
David Ben-Gurion (first time, 1948–53)
Moshe Sharett (1953–55)
David Ben-Gurion (second time, 1955–63)
Levi Eshkol (1963–69)
Golda Meir (1969–74)
Yitzhak Rabin (first time, 1974–77)
Menachem Begin (1977–83)
Yitzḥak Shamir (first time, 1983–84)
Shimon Peres (first time, 1984–86)
Yitzḥak Shamir (second time, 1986–92)
Yitzḥak Rabin (second time, 1992–95)
Shimon Peres (second time, 1995–96)
Benjamin Netanyahu (first time, 1996–99)
Ehud Barak (1999–2001)
Ariel Sharon (2001–06)
Ehud Olmert (2006–09)
Benjamin Netanyahu (second time, 2009–21)
Naftali Bennett (2021–22)
Yair Lapid (2022)
Benjamin Netanyahu (third time, 2022–
Primary Documents
Key Primary Documents with Links
Balfour Declaration https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
UN Resolution 181 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/res181.asp
Declaration of Independence https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence
UN Resolution 242 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/un242.asp
1967 Khartoum Resolution The Three No’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution
Camp David Accords 1978 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/campdav.asp
Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization Agreement / The Oslo Accords 1993 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/isrplo.asp