Often regarded as the only true manifestation of political pluralism in the contemporary Middle East, the state of Israel has dominated the history and politics of the region for over fifty years. Yet despite its position as a regional superpower, Israel continues to struggle with the whole issue of its own identity, the complexities of which have exposed deep clefts throughout Israeli society that threaten to undermine the collective ideal of a viable Jewish polity in the Middle East....

Relations between Israel and the Gulf states are not anything new. In the immediate aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords, both Qatar and Oman established low-level yet open diplomatic ties with Israel. In 2010, Ha'aretz reported that the former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, was on friendly terms with Shaykh Abdullah Ibn Zayed, her counterpart from the UAE, despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties between the two states. The shared suspicion towards the regional designs...

This book examines the local and international dynamics and strategies that have come to define the often violent relationship between Israel and Lebanon.Since the end of the Cold War, academic debate over the nature of war in the contemporary world has focused upon the asymmetric nature of conflict among a raft of failed or failing states, often held together by only a fragile notion of a shared communal destiny. Little scholarly attention has been paid, however, to one such confl...

This volume examines the new, the changing, and the enduring features of international security in the post-Cold War era. In so doing, it examines the extent to which present state structures and institutions have been able to adapt and accommodate themselves to the diversity of security threats.

For over sixty years the state of Israel has proved adept at practising clandestine diplomacy--about which little is known, as one might expect. These hitherto undisclosed episodes in Israel's diplomatic history are revealed for the first time by the contributors to this volume, who explore how relations based upon patronage and personal friendships, as well as ties born from kinship and realpolitik both informed the creation of the state and later defined Israel's relations with a host of...

Half a century ago, Britain abandoned Aden, its last colonial outpost in the Arab world as itsattempt to establish a new polity foundered amid a rising tide of Arab nationalism, tribalinfighting and anti-colonial sentiment that eventually gave rise to the establishment ofSouth Yemen. Yet just over three years later in 1971, a new state, the United Arab Emirates,emerged in Arabia, formed from the old Trucial states over which Britain had long heldsway...

This volume seeks to explore whether the current violence, its origins and dynamics can best be understood as a manifestation of civil war. In so doing, it considers how the use of violence by all parties has been conditioned and/or constrained by the domestic factors pertaining to their societies, how external actors have dealt with the violence internally, and how this has impacted on their relations with Israel and the Palestinians, and what does the conduct and scope of the al-Aqsa Int...

In 1968 a group of young people took over a derelict trouser factory in a rundown part of Leeds and set about producing programmes that were to define the British television world of the late 20th Century.These included the investigative documentary series First Tuesday, Darling Buds of May, Whickers World, Do'nt Ask Me and Heartbeat.At the same time they attracted, indeed often created, stars of international fame such as James Mason, Catherine Zeta Jones, Alan Whicker, Da...

The conflict between Palestine and Israel is one of the most highly publicized and bitter struggles in history. In this accessible and stimulating Very Short Introduction, Martin Bunton clearly explains the history of the problem, reducing it to its very essence - a modern territorial contest between two nations and one geographical territory. Adopting a fresh and original approach, each section covers a twenty-year span, to highlight the historical complexity of the conflict throughout su...

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is one of the most enduring and complex in the modern world. But, why did the conflict break out? Who is demanding what, and why is peace so difficult to achieve?The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict tackles the subject and analyses the conflict from its historical roots in the late nineteenth century to the present attempts at conflict resolution in the twenty-first century.Framing the debate and analysis around issues suc...

Palestine is fast disappearing. Over many decades Israel has developed and refined policies to disperse, imprison and impoverish the Palestinian people in a relentless effort to destroy them as a nation. It has industrialized Palestinian despair through ever more sophisticated systems of curfews, checkpoints, walls, permits and land grabs. It has transformed the West Bank and Gaza into laboratories for testing the infrastructure of confinement, creating a lucrative 'defence' industry by pi...