This final book from Rosemarie Said Zahlan, renowned scholar of Middle East Politics and History, explores the relationships between Palestine and the Gulf since the 1930s. She demonstrates how the regional Gulf politics will long continue to be impacted by the abiding non-resolution of the Palestinian problem.

The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Gulf Arab States comes at a time when the world's attention is riveted on the Middle East. The small states covered in this volume_Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)_possess about 20 percent of the world's total oil reserves. Beyond the strategic and economic importance conferred upon them by their vast oil reserves, the Gulf Arab states are worthy of attention for the inherent interest of their history and culture. No area of the world has yielded more revealing and exciting archaeological finds in the past few decades than these states. Investigations have brought to light extensive evidence of an important culture as old as Egypt of the Pharaohs or ancient Babylon, which was virtually unknown previously except through rare references in the records of other civilizations. This expanded second edition covers the history of the five countries through a chronology broken down by country, a list of acronyms and abbreviations, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, and events of each country. Everything from the Abbasids to Zubarah is covered in this essential reference on this increasingly important region of the world.

For many decades the Arab Gulf was considered to be a Western – particularly British – sphere of influence. Much has changed in recent years: the states in the region have come to control their own destinies much more, and Britain has been supplanted by the US as the Western country with the greatest interests in the region. However, the picture has been complicated by differences of opinion within the region and by wider international relations issues. This book, first published in 1985, examines the relations between the Arab Gulf and the West in all their ramifications. Considering the question from historical, economic, cultural and international relations perspectives, it puts forward views both from a Western and a Gulf standpoint. It concludes with a discussion of current trends and likely future developments.

This book studies how smaller Gulf states managed to increase their influence in the Middle East, oftentimes capitalising on their smallness as a foreign policy tool. By establishing a novel theoretical framework (the complex model of size), this study identifies specific ways in which material and perceptual smallness affect power, identity, regime stability, and leverage in international politics. The small states of the Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) managed to build up considerable influence in regional politics over the last decade, although their size is still considered an essential, irresolvable weakness, which makes them secondary actors to great powers such as Saudi Arabia or Iran. Breaking down explicit and implicit biases towards largeness, the book examines specific case studies related to foreign and security policy behaviour, including the Gulf wars, the Arab Uprisings, the Gulf rift, and the Abraham Accords. Analysing the often-neglected small Gulf states, the volume is an important contribution to international relations theory, making it a key resource for students and academics interested in Small State Studies, Gulf studies, and the political science of the Middle East.

Presents the history of modern Palestine and biographies of important Palestinians.

The Palestinian conflict has produced one of the most tragic refugee crises since World War II, with the number of refugees caused by the violence associated with the creation of the State of Israel numbering around 11 million in 2011. The much lauded first edition, in 1998, of The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law was the first book to comprehensively analyse the legal aspects of the Palestinian refugee crisis, yet the last two decades have seen multiple developments. New waves of conflict and displacement have affected Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, and there has been Israeli encroachment on Palestinian territory. Hamas has grown, and a schism has formed within the first Palestinian government. The so-called "Arab Spring" has impacted the life, fate, and legal status of thousands of Palestinian refugees. In international legal jurisprudence, change has been similarly rapid. In 2004, the International Court of Justice delivered a crucial advisory opinion on the Separation Wall, authoritatively elucidating the international legal framework applicable to the Israeli occupation. Numerous international human rights bodies and UN fact-finding missions have added their analysis to the mix. The possibility of the State of Palestine joining the International Criminal Court has spurred discussion relating to the applicability of international criminal law to Palestinian refugees. Clear, compelling, and authoritative, Lex Takkenberg and Francesca Albanese discuss the status quo both on the ground and in the courts, and pose future scenarios to come.

This book presents a coherent picture of the origins of the Palestinian problem. The author offers an analysis of factionalism in Arab society, with a detailed examination of the social and political history of the Palestinian Arabs between 1939 and 1948. Khalaf weaves together the socio-economic, sociological, political, and politico-military dimensions that have led to social disintegration. He focuses on the role of the urban elite in perpetuating factionalism and using nationalism as a weapon to deflect opposition during a period of rapid social change. For those who are concerned with peace in Israel, the book provides a meaningful historical appreciation of a highly-charged, emotionally-laden conflict.

The Middle East conflict, be it between the state of Israel and Arab states or between Jews and Palestinians, is a staple of international news. Utilizing both theoretical approaches and empirical evidence, Hemda Ben-Yehuda and Shmuel Sandler argue that despite the recent upswing in violence, particularly over the Palestinian issue, conflict has gradually been giving way, since the 1970s, to a more orderly regime of conflict management. By integrating ethnonational theoretical literature into their analysis, the authors move beyond the current International Relations debate over the relative merits of realist/neo-realist approaches versus neo-liberal-institutional approaches. Ethnic-state disputes are the primary source for failing to terminate the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since the 1970s, the Latin Based on new or newly interpreted Israeli, British and Arab documents, this book attempts to integrate present controversies concerning the development of the Jewish-Palestinian war from December 1947 to mid-May 1948 and the consecutive Israeli-Arab war. It follows the organization of both sides at the beginning of the war and the shaping of their respective war policies. Further, it describes the creation of the invading coalition and its disintegration in the wake of the Arab armies' military failure. The book stresses mainly the processes that led Palestinian society to its collapse and mass flight and the Israeli reactions and policies that turned this temporary escape into a long-lasting refugee problem. Emphasizing the different historical and cultural perspectives of the adversaries and the context of the war's development, it criticises the approach of the Israeli 'New Historians' who tend to isolate the refugee problem from the broader issues of the war and treat it separately. Includes a glossary of Arab/Israeli wartime operations.