This book explores the development of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from a liberation movement to a national authority, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Based on intensive fieldwork in the West Bank, Gaza and Cairo, Nigel Parsons analyzes Palestinian internal politics and their institutional-building by looking at the development of the PLO. Drawing on interviews with leading figures in the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, delegates to the negotiations with Israel, and the Palestinian political opposition, it is a timely account of the Israel/Palestine conflict from a Palestinian political perspective.

Map making and, ultimately, map thinking is ubiquitous across literature, cosmology, mathematics, psychology, and genetics. We partition, summarize, organize, and clarify our world via spatialized representations. Our maps and, more generally, our representations seduce and persuade; they build and destroy. They are the ultimate record of empires and of our evolving comprehension of our world. This book is about the promises and perils of map thinking. Maps are purpose-driven abstractions, discarding detail to highlight only particular features of a territory. By preserving certain features at the expense of others, they can be used to reinforce a privileged position. When Maps Become the World shows us how the scientific theories, models, and concepts we use to intervene in the world function as maps, and explores the consequences of this, both good and bad. We increasingly understand the world around us in terms of models, to the extent that we often take the models for reality. Winther explains how in time, our historical representations in science, in cartography, and in our stories about ourselves replace individual memories and become dominant social narratives—they become reality, and they can remake the world.

This book is a reference work for those interested in the Israeli/Palestinian problem. It contains no original material, but provides most of the major international agreements on the Israel/Palestine problem in chronological order and all in one handy volume. This volume ranges from the documentation of the MacMahon Letter of 1915 through the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Hamas Charter of 1988, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 up to the Riyad Declaration of 2007. This is a superb compact reference volume for those researching the Israel/Palestine problem and contains all the relevant international documents on the subject.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • “A rich, penetrating, and moving portrayal of Arab-Jewish hostility, told in human terms.”—Newsday Now expanded and updated • “The best and most comprehensive work there is in the English language on this subject.”—The New York Times In this monumental work, extensively researched and more relevant than ever, David Shipler delves into the origins of the prejudices that exist between Jews and Arabs that have been intensified by war, terrorism, and nationalism. Focusing on the diverse cultures that exist side by side in Israel and Palestine, Shipler examines the process of indoctrination that begins in schools; he discusses the effects of socioeconomic differences, the clashes of Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives, religious conflicts between Islam and Judaism, views of the Holocaust, and much more. And he writes of the people: the Arab woman in love with a Jew, the retired Israeli military officer now disillusioned, the Palestinian militant devoted to violent means, the Israeli and Palestinian schoolchildren who reach across the divides in search of reconciliation. Their stories, and the hundreds of others, reflect not only the reality of “wounded spirits” but also the healing inside minds necessary for eventual coexistence in the promised land.

This book contains an evidence based qualitative research study, as well as articles by various authors on the Arab/Israeli conflict. As a result of this research, criteria for a 'Map for Peace' from the perspective of Israeli and Palestinian people was derived. One of the findings of the study is, that there is uncertainty _ and even some confusion _ regarding what social-interaction-roles Israelis and Palestinians would like to have when communicating with each other. These and other factors make it difficult for Israeli and Palestinian people to find common ground, and to break the cycle of violence. According to this evidence based study, Peace Building in the form of psycho-social counseling, problem-solving workshops, community work and pedagogic counseling for young persons and adults is necessary, to manifest the elusive win-win situation in this region.