The Middle East Crisis: Resources

From Richard Gibson, 16 April 2002

Dear Friends, Several people have asked for quick readable resources on the crisis in the Middle East. Understanding that this is an extraordinarily complex situation, here are two short, and one long, pieces, forwarded to us by a friend in Mass.

A History of Palestine and Israel.

Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. This is a fairly good and relatively short history. It is at The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) at

http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/toc-pal-isr-primer.html

At the same site is a Primer on the Uprising in Palestine. It is at

http://www.merip.org/new_uprising_primer/primer_intro.html

Among many useful books about the history of Palestine and Israel, try Norman Finkelstein's Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, which contains very fine scholarship on the founding of Israel and the expulsion of Palestinians, the 1967 and 1973 wars, and the main historical developments up through the 1980s.

A useful history of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is Israel, the U.S. Watchdog, by Lance Selfa, from International Socialist Review. It is at

http://www.isreview.org/issues/04/Israel_watchdog.shtml