Violence and war have raged between Zionists and Palestinians for over a century, ever since Zionists, trying to establish a nation-state in Palestine, were forced to confront the fact that the country was already populated. Covering every conflict in Israel’s history, War over Peace reveals that Israeli nationalism was born ethnic and militaristic and has embraced these characteristics to this day. In his sweeping and original synthesis, Uri Ben-Eliezer shows that this militaristic nationalism systematically drives Israel to find military solutions for its national problems, based on the idea that the homeland is sacred and the territory is indivisible. When Israelis opposed to this ideology brought about change during a period that led to the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, cultural and political forces, reinforced by religious and messianic elements, prevented the implementation of the agreements, which brought violence back in the form of new wars. War over Peace is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the role of ethnic nationalism and militarism in Israel as well as throughout the world.
Uri Ben-Eliezer is a political sociologist and Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology, University of Haifa. His publications include The Making of Israeli Militarism and Old Conflict, New War: Israel’s Politics toward the Palestinians.
“Brilliantly demonstrates how the very cultural foundation of Israel has stood in the way of its pursuing peace. Israel’s leading sociologist of the military, Uri Ben-Eliezer, reveals the destructive effects of the country’s particular brand of nationalism and its penchant to solve political problems by military means. Through a careful analysis of the pre-state era and the ten separate wars since independence, he shows how Israel’s reigning ideologies have led it into a cycle of violence that has been impossible to escape.”—Joel Migdal, author of Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East
“In this comprehensive analysis of Israel’s history from the beginning of the Zionist national movement to the present, War over Peace offers a different and even innovative view of wars. Ben-Eliezer explains how militarism and ethnic nationalism crystallized, overpowered objectors, and were institutionalized to become a dominant and guiding perception in Israel.”—Béatrice Hibou, author of The Political Anatomy of Domination
“An impressive explanation of the entire history of modern Israel and its many wars and conflicts with the Palestinians, through the concepts of militarism and ethnic nationalism. Ben-Eliezer demonstrates that wars are often irrational—behind leaders there were always social forces that influenced decisions according to cultural, unchangeable, basic assumptions.”—Gökçe Yurdakul, coauthor of The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging
“The great strength of War over Peace is its ability to situate Israeli militarism in a broad historical perspective.”—Oren Barak, coauthor of Israel’s Security Networks: A Theoretical and Comparative Perspective
328 pp.6 x 9
9780520304345$34.95|£30.00Hardcover
Jun 2019