CHAPTER 2
Overview
F
or many Jews, the establishment of the State of Israel was the symbolic build-
ing of a “third temple” in Jerusalem to replace King Herod’s second temple,
which the Romans had destroyed nearly 2000 years earlier. For most Arabs, the
creation of Israel was al-nakba, the “disaster” imposed on them by self-interested out-
side powers. From whatever perspective, the establishment of Israel in 1948 is one of
the most important events of the twentieth century. Six decades later, it continues to
reverberate every day in the region and on a regular basis around the world.
Arabs and Israelis have fought a half-dozen or so wars—depending on how one
counts their confrontations—since Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion proclaimed
Israel’s independence on May 14, 1948, and to this day continue to engage in seem-
ingly endless cycles of violence. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, thou-
sands more wounded, and energies diverted from more productive enterprises. Some
people have long believed that the two sides could settle their differences and live in
peace if only they would talk responsibly to each other, rather than past one another.
Dozens of peace plans have attempted to achieve such a goal, occasionally with some
success. Wounds of victimization, however, remain too raw on both sides, and vio-
lence often has been too convenient an outlet in their expressions of grievance.
During the second half of the twentieth century, Israel developed a vibrant econ-
omy and one of the world’s most contentious democracies, while economic and polit-
ical development lagged far behind in the neighboring Arab states. For decades, most
Arab countries experienced a succession of military coups or assassinations and were
ruled by dictators or monarchs, few of whom had much interest in promoting such
Western concepts as democracy and the rule of law. Although national and per capita
incomes were high in the few Arab countries with large oil resources, the majority of
Arabs at the beginning of the twenty-first century were only marginally better off than
were their ancestors a century earlier.
Arabs and Jews had been a combustible combination even before the establishment
of Israel. The arrival of thousands of Jewish settlers in Palestine from the late nine-
teenth century through the 1930s had led to repeated outbreaks of violence, largely37