cover image Intimate Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land

Intimate Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land

Meron Benvenisti. University of California Press, $50 (260pp) ISBN 978-0-520-08567-1

Israeli newspaper columnist, historian and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem (1971- 1978), Benvenisti argues that the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian accord granting limited self-rule to the West Bank and Gaza merely disguises unequal power relations between the two sides. The Israeli government, he maintains, fosters Jews' economic interests in the occupied territories while discriminating against Palestinian Arabs in all spheres--employment, social services, commercial licensing, budgeting, infrastructural development, environment and housing. Accusing Israeli hawks and doves alike of wanting to ``get rid of the Arabs,'' whether by suppression, population transfer or partition, Benvenisti rejects a two-state solution and calls instead for a confederation of Jews and Arabs in a single, undivided, pluralistic nation granting equal rights and economic opportunities to all. This outspoken, often provocative critique includes chapters on the Intifada, Israel's annexation of Jerusalem in 1967, the Gulf war and the 1990 Temple Mount massacre, in which Israeli police killed 17 Palestinians after Jewish ultranationalists announced their plans to lay the cornerstone of a temple within a mosque compound. (Sept.)