Palestinians: The Making of a People

The authors argue that the Israelis have failed to grasp the extent to which their own society has been shaped by its ongoing encounter with the Palestinians. In this compact, sobering, informative history of the Palestinians (``a people at the center of one of the most volatile conflicts of our time''), Kimmerling and Migdal assess the impact of Turkish, British and Israeli rule over the indigenous population, focusing primarily on the last 60 years. This period includes the Great Arab Revolt of the 1930s, the scattering of the Palestinian community in the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, the Six-Day War in 1967 (when the majority of Palestinians came under Israeli control), the Intifada (``shaking off'') that began in 1987, and the international discrediting of the PLO leadership for backing Saddam Hussein during the Gulf war. The authors conclude that Palestinian self-determination will be realized only with the assent of a secure Israel, and that Israeli acceptance throughout the Middle East will need Palestinian approval. Kimmerling is an associate professor of sociology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Migdal chairs the international studies program at the University of Washington. (Jan.)