Product Description
by Ian Black (Author)
"Comprehensive and compelling...a landmark study" of the Arab-Zionist conflict, told from both sides, by the author of Israel's Secret Wars (Sunday Times, UK).
Setting the scene at the end of the nineteenth century, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in the Ottoman-ruled Holy Land, Black draws on a wide range of sources--from declassified documents to oral testimonies to his own vivid-on-the-ground reporting--to illuminate the most polarizing conflict of modern times.
Beginning with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government promised to favor the establishment of "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, Black proceeds through the Arab Rebellion of the late 1930s, the Nazi Holocaust, Israel's independence and the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe), the watershed of 1967 followed by the Palestinian re-awakening, Israel's settlement project, two Intifadas, the Oslo Accords, and continued negotiations and violence up to today.
Combining engaging narrative with political analysis and social and cultural insights, Enemies and Neighbors is both an accessible overview and a fascinating investigation into the deeper truths of a furiously contested history.
Author Biography
Ian Black is visiting senior fellow at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics. He has been the Middle East editor, diplomatic editor, and European editor for the Guardian. He has also written for the Economist and the Washington Post and is a regular commentator on TV and radio on Middle Eastern and international affairs. He has an MA in history and political science from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in government from LSE. He lives in London.
