One of the most crucial issues to affect national policy in the state of Israel is that of relations between its Jewish and Arab citizens. The confrontation of October 2000 demonstrated the explosive potential of the unresolved dilemmas posed by these relations.
This edited collection offers the academic community and the general public a comprehensive analysis of the most significant factors to have contributed to current conditions. The writers are all leading experts in their respective fields, covering history, sociology and politics and offering a variety of viewpoints and methodologies. This should prove useful reading for all concerned with Israeli-Arab relations in the Jewish state for years to come.

Israeli Prisoner of War Policies: From the 1949 Armistice to the 2006 Kidnappings examines the development of Israel's policies toward prisoners of war across multiple conflicts. Taking POWs is an indication of strength and a method of deterrence. However, the conditions leading to the release of POWs are often the result of the asymmetry in diplomatic power between two parties, or, as in the case of Israel, the gap between military might and diplomatic weakness within a single country. Consequently, the issue of POWs and their military and diplomatic significance represents at least two levels of actors' behavior: what the criteria should be for taking POWs and what mechanism should be employed and what price should be paid in order to secure their release. Studying the prisoner exchange deals involving Israel reveals three eras in the emergence of Israeli POW policy. Israel has had no comprehensive policy or guiding set of directives. The lack of a well-established policy was not only the result of the unstable nature of Israeli politics, but was to a large extent the result of the tendency of most Israeli cabinets to delay critical decisions. Successive Israeli governments have witnessed three distinct periods of conflict requiring unique approaches to POWs: a confrontation with nation states, 1948/49 to the June 1967 War; a mixed challenge posed by national and sub-national players, 1967 to the aftermath of the October 1973 War; and the long battle with sub-national actors, first Palestinians and later Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims. This volume seeks to apply the lessons of Israel's complex POW policies to conflicts around the world.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War did not only have external implications on Israel, but also some dramatic internal implications, particularly with regards to the civil-military relations as well as the fields of psychology and political sociology. To this day, the consequences of this war are still prevalent in Israel, in terms of drafting security policies and the military doctrine. After the war, new identities were formed in the Israeli civil society, which began to function as active agents in shaping security policy. These players are not a unique Israeli case, yet their actions in Israel serve as a case study that illuminates their significant impact in other countries as well. This is due to the fact that the "Israeli Laboratory" is a liberal democratic society living with an ongoing conflict; it has a mandatory army that is sensitive to fluctuations in public opinion, culture and the media; and issues of national security and military conduct are always a top public concern. Consequently, this book examines the rise of five identities and agents that were formed after the 1973 War and highlights the effects they had on the formation of Israeli defense policy from then on. The book also clarifies the importance of exposure to these agents' activities, referring to the psycho-political social factors that may actually dictate a state's international policies. It therefore forms a study that connects sociology, political psychology, international relations, the field of culture studies and studies of strategy planning. Thus, the book is of interest to both the domestic-Israeli field of research and to the global scholarly discourse, particularly to academic disciplines engaged in civil-military relations (political sociology, political science).

This book - now in paperback - uncovers the true force behind most of the political processes in the Middle East for half a century. Through constant confrontations and negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians, under the watchful eye of the United States, King Hussein managed to create a new Middle Eastern nation-state the Jordanian country and its people. The focus of the book is Hussein's deep concern for the future of the last Hashemite monarchy, together with his own set of personal and ideological convictions, as they impacted on many of his strategic decisions and their contribution to the formation of present-day Jordan.

This volume uncovers the force behind most of the political processes ion the Middle East over almost 50 years. Through constant confrontations and negotiations with Israel and Palestinians under the watchful eye of the US, the King managed to create a different Middle Eastern nation-state: the Jordanian country and its people.;The book's focus is Hussein's deep concern for the future of the last Hashemite monarchy, together with his own set of personal and ideological convictions which impacted many of his strategic decisions, and contributed to the formation of modern Jordan.

One of the most crucial issues to affect national policy in the state of Israel is that of relations between its Jewish and Arab citizens. The confrontation of October 2000 demonstrated the explosive potential of the unresolved dilemmas posed by these relations.
This edited collection offers the academic community and the general public a comprehensive analysis of the most significant factors to have contributed to current conditions. The writers are all leading experts in their respective fields, covering history, sociology and politics and offering a variety of viewpoints and methodologies. This should prove useful reading for all concerned with Israeli-Arab relations in the Jewish state for years to come.