Description: Arguing that a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict depends on a resolution of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict within Israel as much as it does on resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, this timely book explores the causes and consequences of the growing conflict between Israel's Jewish majority and its Palestinian-Arab minority. It warns that if Jewish-Arab relations in Israel continue to deteriorate, this will pose a serious threat to the stability of Israel, to the quality of Israeli democracy, and to the potential for peace in the Middle East. The book examines the views and attitudes of both the Palestinian minority and the Jewish majority, as well as the Israeli state's historic approach to its Arab citizens. Drawing upon the experience of other states with national minorities, the authors put forward specific proposals for safeguarding and enhancing the rights of the Palestinian minority while maintaining the country's Jewish identity.
Brief description: Ilan Peleg is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Government and Law at Lafayette College and serves as a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. He is the author or editor of eight previous books, including Democratizing the Hegemonic State (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Human Rights in the West Bank and Gaza (1995), which was a winner of the Choice Award for Scholarly Excellence. Professor Peleg previously served as president of the Association for Israel Studies from 1995 to 1997 and was a founding editor of its scholarly journal, the Israel Studies Forum.
Review Quotes: "Mr. Peleg and Mr. Waxman...provide the socioeconomic evidence to show just how badly the Palestinians fare compared with Jewish Israelis... To continue along present lines, the two authors conclude, would be to invite a collision. So they have come up with a set of proposals that they describe as a compromise between doing nothing (or tinkering with cosmetic change) and the binational state that many Palestinians, inside and outside Israel, advocate... They suggest policies that would enhance both the collective and individual rights of the country's hefty minority, arguing that Israel's Palestinians should not only be recognised as a fully fledged national group, but should exercise autonomy in certain cultural areas...And their overall economic conditions should be improved through long-term development plans and fairer financial allocations to Arab municipalities."
- The Economist