The flaring up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the early 2000s caught most experts by surprise. The 1990s euphoria of the Oslo ‘peace process’ suddenly dissipated, replaced by a second intifada; the newspeak of ‘peace dividends’ gave way to debates about ‘imperialism’; and instead...

The unravelling of the Middle-East peace process continues to baffle the pundits. The early optimism of the Oslo peace accord has now turned into despair. Prime minister Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist. The Palestinians have embarked on a new Intifada. And Israel has re-occupied...

The April 21, 2005 issue of the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS carried a lead article titled ‘Blood for Oil?’ The paper is attributed to a group of writers and activists – Iain Boal, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts – who identify themselves by the collective name ‘Retort.’ In...

Many observers of the Israeli scene have been perplexed by the country’s apparent resilience to bad political news. The headlines of late seem uniformly dreadful. While the country is still licking its wounds from a botched, if not humiliating war with Hezbollah, the Palestinian territories...