"Middle East for Dummies"

"Very few Americans are aware that the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict has two basic dimensions: an interstate conflict between Israel and neighboring Arab states, and an intercommunal dispute between Palestinian Arabs and Jews," says Michael Rubner, professor in Michigan State University's James Madison College. "Even fewer Americans are knowledgeable about the interrelationships of these conflicts, or reasons behind changes in the salience of these two conflicts over the past century." Rubner can comment on the political, ideological, social, and psychological roots of the Arab-Palestinian-Israeli conflict, its manifestations in the 20th century, and prospects for the establishment of a just and lasting peace. Areas of expertise include the evolution of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism; Palestine under the British Mandate; the U.N. partition plan and the five Arab-Israeli wars; the roles and impacts of the U.N., the U.S. and the former Soviet Union; prospects for peace in light of the Camp David Accords, the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the recent rapprochement between Israel and the PLO within the context of the Oslo accords, the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, and the Second INTIFADA.