Whose Land?: A History Of The Peoples Of Palestine (Pelican)

Plot

Who has the right to live in Palestine - settlers or natives? Or both? Are there special rights in Palestine, whereby a settler-population may displace the ordinary one? And what is the unique attraction of this land, which today the Zionists seem determined to hold on to and call 'Israel', and which the Palestinians seem equally determined to win back? Or is it not unique at all?James Parkes, author of A History of the Jewish People, gives here the historical background to present-day Middle-Eastern aspirations, enabling us to find answers to these important and perplexing questions. He narrates the history of Palestine's conquerors and populations - Canaanites, Hebrews, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks and Zionists, all of whom have left their mark and bequeathed to us an intractable political problem. Fundamentally the problem is moral: who has the right to live there now?Dr Parkes's sympathies are for the Zionist case; but no one interested in the Palestinian - Israeli conflict can afford to be without Whose Land?, for it forces us to ask again the key questions: what is really relevant to the dispute and what is merely propaganda and special pleading?