Author Description

The Thin Green Line: From Intractable Problems to Feasible Solutions in the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict by Leon S. Sheleff This book is an attempt to offer an understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an Israeli perspective, one that is critical of official Israeli policy and conventional Israeli thinking. It presents a more comprehensive analysis of the key issues than that contained in most standard accounts, as well as a more optimistic approach than that emanating from most governmental statements and a more comprehensive picture than that reflected in President George W. Bush's "road-map". In fact, the book opens with the suggestion that a road-map is too limited and one-dimensional to handle the many facets of the issue, and suggests the need for an "atlas", conjuring up the idea of a fuller confrontation with the most controversial issues, instead of the continual efforts to avoid an honest assessment of these issues. The intractable problems, discussed in separate chapters, are: - The status of Jerusalem; - The fate of the Palestinian refugees; - The question of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories. It is suggested that the basic issues are often obfuscated by inaccurate descriptions and definitions. For example, the sentimental attachment of the Jewish people to Jerusalem can be easily accommodated within a divided city, since the boundaries of the city have been arbitrarily drawn, covering an immense geographical area with no meaningful overlap with biblical sites. The political machinations and intricacies are described in detail, and an explanation is given as to how Jerusalem can be fairly divided between the two separate states of Israel and Palestine. From the Israeli point of view, the major problem is neither the division of Jerusalem nor the Palestinian claim for a right of return, but the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis (constituting 5-10% of the Jewish