Bücher von John Quigley

The war of June 1967 between Israel and Arab states was widely perceived as being forced on Israel to prevent the annihilation of its people by Arab armies hovering on its borders. Documents now declassified by key governments question this view. The UK, USSR, France and the USA all knew that the Arab states were not in attack mode and tried to dissuade Israel from attacking. In later years, this war was held up as a precedent allowing an attack on a state that is expected to attack. It has even been used to justify a pre-emptive assault on a state expected to attack well in the future. Given the lack of evidence that it was waged by Israel in anticipation of an attack by Arab states, the 1967 war can no longer serve as such a precedent. This book seeks to provide a corrective on the June 1967 war.

During the early to mid-twentieth century, the Zionist Organization secured a series of political victories on the international stage, leading to the foundation of a Jewish state and to its ability to expand its territorial control within Palestine. The International Diplomacy of Israel's Founders provides a revisionist account of the founding of Israel by exposing the misrepresentations and false assurances of Zionist diplomats during this formative period of Israeli history. By comparing diplomatic statements at the United Nations and elsewhere against the historical record, it sheds new light on the legacies of such leaders as Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, Abba Eban, and Shabtai Rosenne. Including coverage of little-discussed moments in early Israeli history, this book offers an important new perspective for anyone interested in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestine as a territorial entity has experienced a curious history. Until World War I, Palestine was part of the sprawling Ottoman Empire. After the war, Palestine came under the administration of Great Britain by an arrangement with the League of Nations. In 1948 Israel established itself in part of Palestine's territory, and Egypt and Jordan assumed administration of the remainder. By 1967 Israel took control of the sectors administered by Egypt and Jordan and by 1988 Palestine reasserted itself as a state. Recent years saw the international community acknowledging Palestinian statehood as it promotes the goal of two independent states, Israel and Palestine, co-existing peacefully. This book draws on evidence from the 1924 League of Nations mandate to suggest that Palestine was constituted as a state at that time. Palestine remained a state after 1948, even as its territory underwent permutation, and this book provides a detailed account of how Palestine has been recognized until the present day.

The government of Soviet Russia wrote new laws for Russia that were as revolutionary as its political philosophy. These new laws challenged social relations as they had developed in Europe over centuries. These laws generated intense interest in the West. To some, they were the harbinger of what should be done in the West, hence a source for emulation. To others, they represented a threat to the existing order. Western governments, like that of the Tsar, might be at risk if they held to the old ways. Throughout the twentieth century Western governments remade their legal systems, incorporating an astonishing number of laws that mirrored the new Soviet laws. Western law became radically transformed over the course of the twentieth century, largely in the direction of change that had been charted by the government of Soviet Russia.