At this moment and time, the news outlets have it that Israel has commenced its ground assault against Gaza. To all who are curious about the genesis of the Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, here is a book that will offer you a detailed historical account of not just the Palestinian conflicts, but those of the whole Middle East which is loosely defined to include Egypt.
The book is divided into ten chapters. Chapter one addresses the history of the wider Arab-Israel conflict—a conflict that was triggered by a surge of immigration of Israelis back to Palestine and the false promises of the Balfour Declaration to the Arab leadership (that Arabs would control much of the region following the defeat of the Ottomans) and the Zionists (that the British would support the establishment of a Jewish national home in Arab Palestine). Five wars are recounted: (a) the 1948 war that pitted a newly constituted state of Israel against the triumvirate of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria (backed by forces from Lebanon and Iraq); (b) the 1967 war that saw Israel expand its territorial jurisdiction to include the Gaza strip (formerly under Egyptian control), the West Bank (formerly under Jordanian control) and the Golan Heights (formerly under Syria); (c) 1973 war involving Israel and Egypt; (d) 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel for the purposes of routing out PLO; and (e) 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah. Chapter two zeroes in on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with special attention to the two intifadas of 1987 and 2000 respectively. Chapter three sheds light on the role of Russia and the US in the Middle East conflicts. Jihad is the subject of chapter four. The next four chapters address conflicts that featured middle- eastern countries and peoples other than Israel and Palestine. Chapter five concerns itself with Lebanon’s sectarian conflict. Chapter six is about the ethnic conflict involving the Kurds. The Iran-Iraq war is described in chapter seven. Chapter eight covers Iraq’s invasion of Kuwaiti. The last two chapters dedicate themselves to the failed peacemaking attempts and America’s attack of Iraq.