Dynamics of the Arab-Israel Conflict

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. Introduction: Many Paths to Knowledge

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 1-8

3. Historical Roots

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 9-14

4. Struggle for Jerusalem

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 15-33

5. Arab–Israel Perceptions

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 35-42

6. Israeli Leaders’ Perceptions of the Arabs, the Arab–Israel Conflict, and Peace: Formative Generation, 1948–77

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 43-52

7. Encounters with Arab Intellectuals and Officials: Views on Israel, Palestine, and Their Conflict (1975)

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 53-116

8. Conflict-Sustaining Acts in the Arab–Israel Protracted Conflict

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 117-126

9. Crises Within the Arab–Israel Protracted Conflict: 1948–2014

   • Michael Brecher

   Pages 127-143

10. The Arab–Israel Military Balance: 1967 and 1973

    • Michael Brecher

    Pages 145-156

11. Israel’s Behavior in the 1967 and 1973 Wars: Overall Findings

    • Michael Brecher

    Pages 157-276

12. Evidence on Conflict Resolution: Partial Agreements and Overall Failed Attempts, 1937–2014

    • Michael Brecher

    Pages 277-314

13. Assessments of the Way Out

    • Michael Brecher

    Pages 315-327

14. Israel at 68: Beneath the Glitter

    • Michael Brecher

    Pages 329-363

15. Back Matter

    Pages 365-410

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This book comprises findings from the author's wide-ranging research since 1948 on the unresolved Arab/Israel protracted conflict. Brecher reflects back on his detailed analysis of the UN Commission created in November 1947, and his near-seven decades of research and publications on this complex protracted conflict continued since the first of nine Arab/Israeli wars. The book includes an analysis of the crucial early phase of the unresolved struggle for control of Jerusalem in 1948-49 and beyond, based on extensive interviews with Israel’s leaders and prominent Egyptian senior officials, journalists and academics. It addresses the many diverse attempts at conflict resolution, including a peace plan to resolve the Arab/Israel conflict of the author's own design. It concludes with historical reflections about Israel’s behavior, domestically and externally, in 1948-1949 and 2008 and beyond. No other book on this protracted conflict contains so many important interviews with the first two generations of Israeli leaders and Egyptian officials and academics, and no other author can speak from such a deep and prolonged engagement.

• Israel
• Palestine
• conflict
• military
• United Nations

“In this volume Michael Brecher reveals many fascinating aspects of his own intellectual autobiography. Eschewing narrow disciplinary loyalties, he provides a sophisticated overview of the complex Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian disputes. Brecher’s Ben-Gurion/Sharett paradigm for analyzing Israel’s foreign policy options (ch. 5) has become classic, but his contributions to this field go far wider and deeper, as this multi-faceted collection attests. The author is inclusive and pluralistic in offering explanations of the history, evolution and dynamics of this protracted conflict, incorporating the insights of a lifetime of personal experience and displaying the highest standards of academic rigor. A rare example of wise and engaged scholarship speaking about – and to – the real, but flawed, world of decision-makers.” (Neil Caplan , author of “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories” (2009) and co-author (with Laura Eisenberg) of “Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, Possibilities” (2nd ed., 2010))

• McGill University , Montreal, Canada

  Michael Brecher

Michael Brecher has authored 20 books and 85 articles, and edited 6 books in International Relations and Political Science, including two prestigious book awards, from the American Historical Association, for Nehru: A Political Biography (1959), and the Woodrow Wilson Prize, American Political Science Association, for the best book in politics and international affairs, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (1972). He has received Nuffield, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Canada Council Research Fellowships, and has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago, USA, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, University of California, Berkeley, USA, and Stanford University, USA.

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