The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

by Martin Gilbert

Book Overview

The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict traces not only the tangled and bitter history of the Arab-Jewish struggle from the early twentieth century to the present, including the death of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415281172
• ISBN13: 9780415281171
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.0" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

Excelent Visual Reference

I have been reading different books on the Arab-Israeli conflict and I found this book very helpful in visualizing not only maps but also key dates in the history of this conflict. I highly recommend this book as an additional reference for better understanding this conflict that continues to affect our world.

The best resource on the Arab-Israeli conflict

This little volume is one of the best books ever written on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is almost all maps. The book starts with some maps that show the ancient borders of Israel. That allows the reader to see what borders Diaspora Jews associated with the word "Israel." And in fact, one can see where in this region Jews tried to settle after being expelled from Spain and elsewhere near the end of the fifteenth century. Next it shows the places where Jews began settling starting with the advent of modern Zionism in around 1880. I found this part fascinating. The book explains that the Jews purchased their land from Turks and Arabs at high prices. Given that, one can see the hypocrisy of Arabs complaining that the Jews stole their land, and that the land ought to be given to those who were the majority in 1880. Even more interesting, Jews were easily the majority in what is now "East Jerusalem" in 1880, but very few Arabs would want to assign that land to Israel today: more likely they would complain that the place is being "judaized!" The book continues past World War 1, showing proposed boundaries of the region where Jewish settlement would be permitted and encouraged, promises made by Britain in order to acquire the Mandate over the area. As we discover, Britain broke these promises to the Jews and to the international community, after Arab aggression against the Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936-1939. Gilbert is to be commended for giving a detailed accounting of the violence. The maps continue with great effect, showing all of Israel's wars and battles with Arab terrorism, along with borders suggested by various peace plans, right through Camp David and Taba in 2000. There are a few omissions in this book. The most serious is simply leaving out the entire Jewish revolt against the British and their perfidious White Paper of 1939. We don't see the routes of boats like the Patria or even the Exodus. The omission is all the more serious given Gilbert's background in both British and Jewish history. Of course, strictly speaking, these incidents were part of a conflict between Jews and British, not Jews and Arabs, but I think they are an integral part of the overall picture. Finally, a few maps are a little silly, such as showing the travels of US Secretaries of State Baker and Christopher in the Middle East in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, all in all, it is a wonderful resource and I highly recommend it.

An invaluable resource for understanding the conflict

This set of maps is an invaluable resource for understanding the Arab- Israel conflict. It shows the historical claims of the sides, where the lines have been drawn and where they are drawn now. It is instructive in showing how the Arab side might had it been ready for peace had an even more miniscule Israel as its neighbor than the little Israel it has today. The irony that the Arab nation which has such a superabundance of Land should have made ' Land the sole issue ' when it might have devoted its efforts to internal development cannot escape one who looks at the map of the area.

Pictorial history of a 122-year jihad

My 1993 edition of this classic reference contains 147 maps imparting great wisdom, and a depth of understanding rarely presented in the evening news. Only three maps concern periods before the twentieth century. The third shows the Turkish conquerors' vilayet re-districting of the Holy Land in 1888, plus areas of Arab-Jewish conflict during the last three decades of Ottoman rule. The book's fourth map clearly outlines the areas excluded in 1915 from the independence promised by the British to the Arabs, and requested by Hussein of Mecca for Arab cantons. Neither side mentioned southern Palestine, the Mutasarriflik of Jerusalem or the Jewish people--at all.Further maps also evidence the eagerness of Arab property owners to sell waste land to Jewish settlers at very high prices, for very large tracts were made available.Still others show the locations of Arab attacks on Jewish communities beginning in 1882. Through 1914, bands of Arabs assaulted at least 10 Jewish settlements between Jaffa and Jerusalem and in the Jezreel Valley. From 1920 on, the maps show progressively more attacks, in which Arab assailants destroyed the new landowners' forests, wheat fields, orange groves and cattle, burned and stoned their shops and factories--and murdered unarmed Jews. A March 1920 attack by a large number of Halsa Arabs on the Jews in Tel Hai killed six; an April 1920 attack on B'nai Yehuda killed one. In May 1921, Arab riots prompted Britain, the League of Nations' trustee of all Middle Eastern Mandates, to end Jewish immigration and "close settlement of the land" throughout Transjordan, both of which the League had sought, with Arab approval, only a few years earlier. Only these attacks, and the Arab 1929 riots that killed 20 Jewish children and elders in Safed, 7 in Hacarmel, 6 in Motza, 1 in Hulda, 6 in Tel Aviv, 2 in Beer Toviya--and 59 in Hebron-- persuaded previously passive Jewish farmers to take up arms, thereby defying British prohibitions against Jewish self-defense.The fact is, Arab riots occurred well in advance of Israel's creation. They took scores of Jewish civilian lives. And then (in 1921)--as now--the only Arabs killed by Jews were killed in counter-attacks that followed the initial Arab assaults.All this shows clearly on the maps readers reach page 14.From here, the pictorials exhibit the precise dimensions of the 1936 Arab riots, with one page devoted to each of four months. The casualties to Jewish life and property were massive and nationwide. More riots in 1937 and 1938 followed.Most enlightening of all, however, are those maps detailing the various partition plans over the years. The first of these, which the Jewish people accepted, and the Arabs rejected, was the 1937 Peel Commission proposal. The Peel Commission envisioned a tiny Jewish State, an L-shaped affair perhaps 6 or 8 miles-wide along the Mediterranean coast, from south of Rehovot to a few miles north of Acre with a northern corridor no more than 30 miles deep running from

Great Book, Very Worthwhile

Very informative. Gives a good understanding of the conflict by one of the best historians alive right now. Buy it.