This volume is an appraisal of the past ten years of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Particularly following Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2009, prospects for a viable Palestinian state existing alongside a secure and independent Israel seem increasingly out of reach. Nonetheless, peace initiatives remain largely limited to the prevailing two-state solution, without much serious attention paid to that paradigm's feasibility in the aftermath of: the Israeli separation barrier, rampant settlement of the West Bank, the crippling of Palestinian civil society by Israeli economic sanctions (and military campaigns), or growing loyalties among disillusioned Palestinians to militant groups like Hamas. Rather than attempt to articulate a new or more viable peace paradigm, this volume seeks to encourage more informed discussion of the present peace process by elaborating on its limitations in the aftermath of the past ten years. Featuring chapters from scholars of international law, political science, philosophy, history, and Middle East Studies, this interdisciplinary volume seeks to analyze the vicissitudes of the Israel-Palestine conflict over the past ten years, in a truly holistic manner.

The Invisible Arab traces the roots of the revolutions in the Arab world. Marwan Bishara, chief policy analyst of Al Jazeera English and the anchor of the program "Empire", combines on-the-ground reporting, extensive research and scholarship, and political commentary in this book on the complex influences that made the revolutions possible. Bishara argues that the inclusive, pluralistic nationalism that motivated the revolutions are indispensable to their long-term success. The Invisible Arab is a voyage in time from the Arab world's'liberation generation' through the'defeated' and'lost generations', arriving at today's'miracle generation'. Bishara unpacks how this new generation, long seen as a demographic bomb, has proved to be the agent of progress, unity and freedom. It has in turn used social networks to mobilize for social justice. Bishara discusses how Israel, oil, terrorism and radical Islam have affected the interior identity of the region as well as Western projections upon it. Protection of Israel, Western imperial ambition, a thirst for oil, and fear of radicalism have caused many Western regimes and media to characterize Arab countries and people as unreceptive to democracy or progress. These ideas are as one-dimensional as they are foolhardy. Bishara argues that the Arab revolutions present a great window of opportunity for reinventing and improving Arab ties with the rest of the world- notably the West-on the basis of mutual respect and mutual interest. The revolutions will be judged by how they realize freedom and justice, and how they can pave the way for reconciling and accommodating nationalism and Islam with democracy. Bishara argues that these pillars-liberty and justice reconciled with religion and nationalism, form the bedrock that will allow stability and progress to flourish in the Arab world and beyond.

This incisive analysis of where Palestinians and Israelis are and the possible avenues to a just and durable peace has been fully updated in the aftermath of September 11 and the Israeli Defence Force's campaign against the West Bank and Gaza. It lays out the causes of the Second Intifada and argues that this new rising shows that there can be no peace without justice. Israel may not yet have reached the point where, at the beginning of the 1990s, President de Klerk recognized this fact for South Africa, but the same hard choices must one day be made. Marwan Bishara shows how the asymmetry of power between Palestinians and Israelis was ignored by patrons of the Oslo 'peace process' - notably the United States. The ill-conceived transition process degenerated into the fragmented and dependent apartheid statelet that exists today in the West Bank and Gaza. The Oslo process was in fact doomed from the start. The seven accords that have been signed have produced seven years of prosperity for Israelis, and seven years of collapsing economy and increasingly impossible living conditions for Palestinians.