The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A History

This is a must read book for those who want to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict. Especially, if you haven’t already picked a side.

For those of us who don't really understand the history of the present day conflict this is an essential read.

This books merits a much longer review from me. Suffice it to say that this was precisely the treatment for which I was hoping -- one that went sufficiently far back to provide enough context to appreciate the current dynamics, one that wasn't at all hesitant to analyze problematic steps on every side concerned, one that was multi-layered in its treatment of the forces at work creating, maintaining, and opposing the modern State of Israel. I recommend this unreservedly.

As noted by the author in his very introduction, this is a book about the creation, evolution, interaction, and mutual definition of two national communities. Gelvin recounts history like a story - a story of culture, people, trust, nationalism, and conflict. It’s almost tragic that history cannot be accepted by so many people. And this book is a start at changing that. It is not an opinion piece, it is an academic success.

For a beginner acquiring historical context for the current war in Gaza post Oct. 7th, Gelvin's book is a great primer. Gelvin's narrative starts generally in the 1850s (there are some high level historical snippets that go back further) during a time of decline of Empires and rise of nation states. This context is vital for understanding how both Jewish and Palestinian nationalism developed during the late 19th century. Nationalism was in the air! Gelvin is a gifted story teller and brings a lot rich detail to help the reader better understand the key moments throughout the conflict from 1850 through 2020. However, while he does a great job of explaining the historical "what" and "why's" from 1850 to 2020, I finished the book with the feeling that he was more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Especially in the second half of the book...post 1948 to 2020, my read was that he overall wanted the reader to view Israel as an occupier oppressing the Palestinians. Now that's not meant to detract from the book at all. Again, I learned a ton from the book and now have a solid foundation for understanding the historical context of the current war in Gaza. Plus, I gather that it's rather impossible to read a completely unbiased, non-political, entirely objective historical account of the conflict. But for anyone who may read this review, I just wanted to point out the slight bias I picked up on, and why I gave four instead of five stars. That said, Gelvin clearly is passionate about the history of this region and as mentioned, his deep knowledge and ability to craft a story was quite engaging. Plus much of his writing was quite prolific. Case in point, this is literally the last three sentences of the book in reference to Trumps/Likud's policy in 2020 towards Palestine: "But successfully ending or disengaging from the Palestinian imbroglio may not be on the cards for Israel: The state has a history of underestimating the resilience of Palestinian nationalism and Palestinian resistance. This is a mistake it may be making once again."

One wonders if those who wrote negative reviews of this scholarly, well researched and extraordinarily well written history actually read the book. My thanks to Professor Gelvin for providing this accessible account of the continuing challenges and changes of this confict.