A self-proclaimed guerrilla fighter for ideas, Baruch Kimmerling was an outspoken critic, a prolific writer, and a "public" sociologist. While he lived at the center of the Israeli society in which he was involved as both a scientist and a concerned citizen, he nevertheless felt marginal because of his unconventional worldview, his empathy for the oppressed, and his exceptional sense of universal justice, which were at odds with prevailing views. In this autobiography, the author, who was born in Transylvania in 1939 with cerebral palsy, describes how he and his family escaped the Nazis and the circumstances that brought them to Israel, the development of his understanding of Israeli and Palestinian histories, of the narratives each society tells itself, and of the implacable "situation"-along with predictions of some of the most disturbing developments that are taking place right now as well as solutions he hoped were still possible. Kimmerling's deep concern for Israel's well-being, peace, and success also reveals that he was in effect a devoted Zionist, contrary to the claims of his detractors. He dreamed of a genuinely democratic Israel, a country able to embrace all of its citizens without discrimination and to adopt peace as its most important objective. It is to this dream that this posthumous translation from Hebrew has been dedicated.

In a timely reminder of how the past informs the present, Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal offer an authoritative account of the history of the Palestinian people from their modern origins to the Oslo peace process and beyond.

Palestinians struggled to create themselves as a people from the first revolt of the Arabs in Palestine in 1834 through the British Mandate to the impact of Zionism and the founding of Israel. Their relationship with the Jewish people and the State of Israel has been fundamental in shaping that identity, and today Palestinians find themselves again at a critical juncture. In the 1990s cornerstones for peace were laid for eventual Palestinian-Israeli coexistence, including mutual acceptance, the renunciation of violence as a permanent strategy, and the establishment for the first time of Palestinian self-government. But the dawn of the twenty-first century saw a reversion to unmitigated hatred and mutual demonization. By mid-2002 the brutal violence of the Intifada had crippled Palestine's fledgling political institutions and threatened the fragile social cohesion painstakingly constructed after 1967. Kimmerling and Migdal unravel what went right--and what went wrong--in the Oslo peace process, and what lessons we can draw about the forces that help to shape a people. The authors present a balanced, insightful, and sobering look at the realities of creating peace in the Middle East.

Ariel Sharon is one of the most experienced, shrewd and frightening leaders of the new millennium. Despite being found both directly and indirectly responsible for acts considered war crimes under international law, he became Prime Minister of Israel, a political victory he won by provoking the Palestinians into a new uprising, the second intifada. From the beginning of his career Sharon was regarded as the most brutal, deceitful and unrestrained of all the Israeli generals and politicians. A man of monstrous vision, his attempts to destroy the Palestinian people have included the proposal to make Jordan the Palestinian state and the now infamous invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which resulted in the Shabra and Shatila massacres. Baruch Kimmerling's new book describes Sharon's quest to reshape the whole geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. He describes how Sharon is committed to politicide, the destruction of the Palestinian political identity, and how he has won the support of powerful elements within Israeli society and the present American administration in order to achieve this. At this time of crisis Kimmerling exposes the brutality of Sharon and his junta's "solutions" and constructs a devastating indictment of a man whose cruelty and ruthlessness have resulted in widespread and indiscriminate slaughter.

This thought-provoking book, the first of its kind in the English language, reexamines the fifty-year-old nation of Israel in terms of its origins as a haven for a persecuted people and its evolution into a multi-cultural society. Arguing that the mono-cultural regime built during the 1950s is over, Baruch Kimmerling suggests that the Israeli state has divided into seven major cultures. These seven groups, he contends, have been challenging one other for control over resource distribution and the identity of the polity. Kimmerling, one of the most prominent social scientists and political analysts of Israel today, relies on a large body of sociological work on the state, civil society, and ethnicity to present an overview of the construction and deconstruction of the secular-Zionist national identity. He shows how Israeliness is becoming a prefix for other identities as well as a legal and political concept of citizen rights granted by the state, though not necessarily equally to different segments of society.

Taking a fresh look at the past hundred years of shared Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli history, Baruch Kimmerling reveals surprising relations of influence between a stateless indigenous society and the settler-immigrants who would later form the state of Israel. Shattering our assumptions about these two seemingly irreconcilable cultures, Kimmerling composes a sophisticated portrait of one side's behavior and characteristics and the way in which they irrevocably shaped those of the other.

Though the studies in this volume span a twenty-year period, Kimmerling remains focused on the clashes, tensions, and complementarities that link Jewish, Palestinian, and Israeli identities. Drawing on his command of a vast body of sociological literature, Kimmerling explores the phenomena of reciprocal relationships between Jewish and Arab communities in mandatory Palestine; relations between state and society in Israel; patterns of militarism; the problems of jurisdiction in an immigrant-settler society; and the ongoing struggle of Israel to achieve legitimacy as both a Jewish and a democratic state.

By merging Israeli and Jewish studies with a wealth of scholarship on Palestinians and the Middle East, Kimmerling introduces a unique conceptual framework for analyzing the cultural, political, and material overlap of both societies. A must-read for those concerned with Israel and the relations between Jews and Arabs, Clash of Identities is a provocative exploration of the ever-evolving, always-contending identities available to Israelis and Palestinians and the fascinating contexts in which they take form.

Postzionism first emerged in the mid-1980s in writings by historians and social scientists that challenged the dominant academic versions of Israeli history, society, and national identity. Subsequently, this critique was expanded and sharpened in the writings of philosophers, cultural critics, legal scholars, and public intellectuals. This reader provides a broad spectrum of innovative and highly controversial views on Zionism and its place in the global Jewish world of the twenty-first century. While not questioning Israel's legitimacy as a state, many contributors argue that it has yet to become a fully democratic, pluralistic state in which power is shared among all of its citizens. Essays explore current attitudes about Jewish homeland and diaspora as well as the ways that zionist discourse contributes to the marginalization and exclusion of such minority communities as Palestinian citizens, Jews of Middle-Eastern origin (Mizrahim), women, and the queer community. An introductory essay describes Postzionism and contextualizes each contribution within the broader discourse. The most complete collection of postzionist documents available in English, this anthology is essential reading for students and scholars of Jewish identity, Middle-Eastern conflict, and Israeli history. This is the most comprehensive collection of postzionist writings available in any language. It provides readers with new and provocative ways to think about Israeli history, Israeli national identity, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is of particular interest to American readers is a section presenting writings by American Jewish intellectuals and scholars that contribute to the postzionist critique.