"Klein's excellent survey of these realities and dynamics will remain an important brief for decision-makers in the future."--"The Journal of Israeli History"

"A book of considerable weight and an important contribution to the growing genre of political studies in Jerusalem."
-- Michael Dumper," Journal of Palestine Studies"

Jerusalem, which means "city of peace," is one of the most bitterly contested territories on earth. Claimed by two peoples and sacred to three faiths, for the last three decades the city has been associated with violent struggle and civil unrest. As the peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis reach their conclusion, the final, and most difficult issue is the status of Jerusalem. How and to what extent will these two nations share this city? How will Christians, Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem and around the world redefine their relationship to Jerusalem when the dust settles on the final agreement? Will the Israelis and Palestinians even be able to reach an agreement at all?

Menachem Klein, one of the leading experts on the history and politics of Jerusalem, cuts through the rhetoric on all sides to explain the actual policies of the Israelis and Palestinians toward the city. He describes the "facts on the ground" that make their competing claims so fraught with tension and difficult to reconcile. He shows how Palestinian national institutions have operated clandestinely since the Israelis occupied the eastern half of the city, and how the Israelis have tried to suppress them. Ultimately, he points the way toward a compromise solution but insists that the struggle for power and cultural recognition will likely continue to be apermanent feature of life in this complicated, multi-cultural city.

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.

This landmark volume presents vivid and intimate portraits of Palestinian Presidents Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, revealing the impact these different personalities have had on the struggle for national self-determination. Arafat and Abbas lived in Palestine as young children. Uprooted by the 1948 war, they returned in 1994 to serve as the first and second presidents of the Palestinian Authority, the establishment of which has been the Palestine Liberation Organization's greatest step towards self-determination for the Palestinian nation. Both Arafat and Abbas were shaped by earlier careers in the PLO, and each adopted their own controversial leadership methods and decision-making styles. Drawing on primary sources in Arabic, Hebrew and English, Klein gives special attention to the lesser known Abbas: his beliefs and his disagreements with Israeli and American counterparts. The book uncovers new details about Abbas' peace talks and US foreign policy towards Palestine, and analyses the political evolution of Hamas and Abbas' succession struggle. Klein also highlights the tension between the ageing leader and his society. 'Arafat and Abbas' offers a comprehensive and balanced account of the Palestinian Authority's achievements and failures over its twenty-five years of existence. What emerges is a Palestinian nationalism that refuses to disappear.

In 2003, after two years of negotiations, a group of prominent Israelis and Palestinians signed a model peace treaty. The document, popularly called the Geneva Initiative, contained detailed provisions resolving all outstanding issues between Israel and the Palestinian people, including drawing a border between Israel and Palestine, dividing Jerusalem, and determining the status of the Palestinian refugees.

The negotiators presented this citizens' initiative to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and urged them to accept it. One of the Israeli negotiators was Menachem Klein, a political scientist who has written extensively about the Jerusalem issue in the context of peace negotiations. Although the Geneva Initiative was not endorsed by the governments of either side, it became a fundamental term of reference for solving the Middle East conflict. In this firsthand account, Klein explains how and why these groups were able to achieve agreement. He directly addresses the formation of the Israeli and Palestinian teams, how they managed their negotiations, and their communications with both governments. He also discusses the role of third-party facilitators and the strategy behind marketing the Geneva Initiative to the public.

A scholar and participant in the Geneva negotiations, Klein is able to provide both an inside perspective and an impartial analysis of the diplomatic efforts behind this historic compromise. He compares the negotiations to previous Israeli-Palestinian talks both formal and informal and the resolution of conflicts in South Africa and Algeria. Klein hopes that by treating the event as a case study we can learn a tremendous amount about the needs and approaches of both parties and the necessary shape peace must take between them.

The size and intensity of the Israeli army's operations since 2000 as well as the unprecedented scale of settlement construction brought about a qualitative change in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis, altering it, Klein argues, from a border conflict to an ethnic struggle, pure and simple. Jewish Israel has now established its ethno-security regime over the whole area, from Jordan to the Mediterranean, a process that was accelerated and facilitated by election results in Israel, the United States and the Palestinian Authority. Arguing against the prevailing wisdom, which describes Israel's control system as merely one of 'occupation', in The Shift Klein contends that it is based now on twin ethnic and security pillars and seeks to include Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin. The core of his book examines the current ruling structure of the shrinking Jewish majority over the almost majority Palestinians and its different levels: Israeli Palestinian citizens, the residents of Jerusalem, the two West Bank groups divided by the Separation Barrier and those living under siege in the Gaza Strip. The Shift is based on primary sources and data that usually are published separately. Klein weaves them into his ground-breaking book, offering the reader a comprehensive portrayal of the on-the-ground realities and providing a new framework for understanding the status of the durable Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its history, and its likely future course.

Translated by Haim Watzman
"A unique account of a complex and subtle negotiation about the most disputed city in the world. Its point of view is clear, but it is nonetheless a balanced presentation. In place of generalizations it tries to get at what really happened."--David Matz, University of Massachusetts, Boston
"Anyone concerned with the horrible violence between Palestinians and Israelis will want to read this fascinating, behind-the-scenes account of the negotiations that preceded the violence, and why they failed. It was like a thriller that I could not put down, even though I knew the gory ending."--Joel S. Migdal, University of Washington

Assessing one of the most serious issues of our day, Menachem Klein is the first to employ rigorous research to analyze all sides of official negotiations over Israeli-Palestinian territorial disputes. He focuses especially on the Camp David talks of 2000 and the Taba talks of 2001 and on discussions of the future of Jerusalem, offering a clear balance sheet of what went right, what went wrong, and what remains of the failed peace process.

Klein, an advisor to the Israeli team during the Camp David talks and a member of several Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy groups, argues that the negotiations themselves created a negative dynamic and that the violent outcome was neither inevitable nor entirely determined by the personalities of their participants. He maintains that the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and leaders interacted destructively and that the American interaction with each side was detrimental; the prevailing strategy was one that set out lines that could not be crossed, instituting a style of bargaining that stymied negotiations. While all three parties shattered long-held preconceptions about how issues should be resolved, the talks ended in bloodshed. Moreover, neither side has ever drafted a single definitive document delineating what was understood and said at Camp David.

Beginning with the opening of the official permanent status talks, which sparked strong initial hopes, Klein tracks diplomacy on all sides from 1994 onward. He synthesizes a profusion of unresolved issues, including Palestinian state borders, Israeli settlements, and the future of the Palestinian war refugees of 1948, and he disproves a number of claims made by the Israeli and Palestinian actors involved in the process. He also illuminates such questions as whether the talks commenced too early for one or both sides, whether the push for a final settlement was the caprice of three or four senior decision-makers disconnected from their constituencies, and whether the cycle of violence has turned back the clock.

Based on Klein's personal experience in official and informal talks between the two sides, this absorbing book offers a rare perspective and level of detail on international negotiation. It will become a prerequisite for all future theoretical discussion of issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict.

Menachem Klein, senior lecturer in political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, is the author or editor of four books, including Jerusalem: The Contested City and Doves in the Jerusalem Sky: The Peace Process and the City, 1977-1999. He served as an adviser to the Israeli team during the Camp David talks and is a member of several Israeli-Palestinian track-two diplomacy groups.

Although Israelis and Palestinians are adamant that they will not negotiate or indeed compromise over the status of Jerusalem, agreements have been made and understandings reached between the two protagonists, as well as between other Arab states. This book sheds light on the political history of Jerusalem in Arab-Israeli relations over the last 25 years. The author adopts a multidisciplinary approach -involving history, political science, geography, city planing, sociology and international relations - in order to integrate the political status of the city on the negotiating table with its complex urban reality, thereby dispelling many of the myths that shape political discourse about the city. Too often, he argues, Jerusalem's complex political geography has been overlooked in the rush to maximise short-term political gains. The first chapter presents the geographical and urban reality and its historical background: the second describes how Jerusalem was treated during the peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt in 1977-9; the third analyses the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from the early 1980s to the Declaration of Principles signed by Israel and the PLO in September 1993; the fourth discusses the status of the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, as well as the status of Jordan in the negotiations concerning Jerusalem and the city's Islamic holy sites; the fifth analyses the Palestinians' position regarding Jerusalem and relations between their local representatives and the Palestinian Authority's national institutions; the sixth examines whether the uniqueness of East Jerusalem also finds expression in its politics. To this end, it analyses the political profile of East Jerusalem's inhabitants and of their representatives in the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority. The seventh chapter addresses Israeli policy and actions, under the Labour and Likud administrations. The conclusion discusses the permanent status negotiations, including the unofficial underst