The Palestinian National Revival: In the Shadow of the Leadership Crisis, 19371967 [Hardcover]

Former Israeli intelligence officer Moshe Shemesh offers a fresh understanding of the complex history and politics of the Middle East in this new analysis of the Palestinian national movement. Shemesh looks at the formative years of the movement that emerged following the 1948 War and traces the leaders, their objectives, and their weaknesses, fragmentation, and conflicts with their neighbors. He follows the formation of the Sons of Nakba, the establishment of Fatah, the reframing of Jordan as analogous with the Palestinian cause, and the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its new expression of nationalism until the 1967 War. With unprecedented access to Arabic sources, Shemesh provides new perspectives on inter-Arab politics and the history of the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict.

Moshe Shemesh is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Senior Fellow at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute. He is author ofArab Politics, Palestinian Nationalism, and the Six Day War: The Crystallization of Arab Strategy and Nasir's Descent to War, 1957-1967.

This impressive book reflects a lifetime of immersion in Palestinian history, and as a result, throws a great deal of new light on many aspects of Palestinian society and politics. Moshe Shemesh adds new facts and insights to virtually every major episode in the forty-year period he covers.

The web of relationships woven by Palestiniansleaders and ordinary subjects of regimes that felt embattled and weakwas extraordinarily complicated and often changed as swiftly as did the regimes. Moshe Shemesh unravels these complexities and all students of the Middle East, no matter their background, will benefit.

Acknowledgements

Aims and Scope

Part I

The Leadership Crisis of the Palestinian National Movement, 19371963:

The Decline from Power of Mufti Haj Amin Al-Hul#%