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Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid: Prospects for Resolving the Conflict
This incisive analysis of where Palestinians and Israelis are and the possible avenues to a just and durable peace has been fully updated in the aftermath of September 11 and the Israeli Defence Force's campaign against the West Bank and Gaza. It lays out the causes of the Second Intifada and argues that this new rising shows that there can be no peace without justice. Israel may not yet have reached the point where, at the beginning of the 1990s, President de Klerk recognized this fact for South Africa, but the same hard choices must one day be made.
Marwan Bishara shows how the asymmetry of power between Palestinians and Israelis was ignored by patrons of the Oslo 'peace process' - notably the United States. The ill-conceived transition process degenerated into the fragmented and dependent apartheid statelet that exists today in the West Bank and Gaza. The Oslo process was in fact doomed from the start. The seven accords that have been signed have produced seven years of prosperity for Israelis, and seven years of collapsing economy and increasingly impossible living conditions for Palestinians.
Marwan Bishara shows how the asymmetry of power between Palestinians and Israelis was ignored by patrons of the Oslo 'peace process' - notably the United States. The ill-conceived transition process degenerated into the fragmented and dependent apartheid statelet that exists today in the West Bank and Gaza. The Oslo process was in fact doomed from the start. The seven accords that have been signed have produced seven years of prosperity for Israelis, and seven years of collapsing economy and increasingly impossible living conditions for Palestinians.
173 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
Marwan Bishara
6 books16 followersMarwan Bishara (b. Nazareth) is a Palestinian journalist. A former professor of International Relations at the American University in Paris and Research Fellow at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales; currently, he works for Al Jazeera, as the senior political analyst. Marwan is a brother of Azmi Bishara (an Arab Christian politician; former member of the Israeli Knesset representing the Balad party). Bishara is an author who writes extensively on global politics, he is widely regarded as a leading authority on the Middle East and international affairs. [1]
"Growing up in Nazareth, an Arab in a Jewish state, a secular Christian in a traditional Muslim society, a leftist in a Baptist school, I learned firsthand how managing ideological, religious and national differences helps us evolve peacefully. Succumbing to them generates fundamentalism and antagonism. Applying brute force to overcome them-as Israel, my country, has done to my people, the Palestinian Arabs-fails utterly." [2]
"Growing up in Nazareth, an Arab in a Jewish state, a secular Christian in a traditional Muslim society, a leftist in a Baptist school, I learned firsthand how managing ideological, religious and national differences helps us evolve peacefully. Succumbing to them generates fundamentalism and antagonism. Applying brute force to overcome them-as Israel, my country, has done to my people, the Palestinian Arabs-fails utterly." [2]
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 9, 2008
Anything about establishing peace and finding hope for it deserves 5 stars!
May 19, 2024
While i do value this book as a review of the conflicts history from roughly 2000 onward, as a historical account this doesn’t add much value. Bishara acts as if he is trying to discover if Israel is an apartheid state, but starts with such preposition, and never defends it. he also very rarely is giving dates, documents, quotes, or figures that can be externally validated. mostly just a grand narrative, adding erroneous details to try and normatively load the facts to make israel seem more malicious. For example:
“Allowing the military to use M-24s and other new weapons instead of the M-16, insuring maximum casualties.”
This is phrased in a way to place an insidious thought process on the Israeli leadership, that they are intentionally trying to kill as many civilians as possible. In reality, if you are in a war, do you expect a fighting force to intentionally use worse weapons than they have access to in order to be less sure of their sides victory? and “insuring maximum casualties” as a moral flaw is ridiculous, the point of a gun, in a war, is to kill people. war is sad, death is sad, but a military using a gun in war is not an attempt to increase “maximum casualties” for the sake of killing.
“Allowing the military to use M-24s and other new weapons instead of the M-16, insuring maximum casualties.”
This is phrased in a way to place an insidious thought process on the Israeli leadership, that they are intentionally trying to kill as many civilians as possible. In reality, if you are in a war, do you expect a fighting force to intentionally use worse weapons than they have access to in order to be less sure of their sides victory? and “insuring maximum casualties” as a moral flaw is ridiculous, the point of a gun, in a war, is to kill people. war is sad, death is sad, but a military using a gun in war is not an attempt to increase “maximum casualties” for the sake of killing.
February 20, 2015
actors during Oslo and Camp David (II) negotiations but sorely lacking alternative perspectives. This book seeks to call to account the international community for complicity and inaction during peace processes and on that subject it is thought provoking, though the utility of such an accusatory approach is questionable.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews