A political science professor presents a balanced account of the historic conflict between Israel and Palestine. Mark Tessler's highly praised, comprehensive, and balanced history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the earliest times to the present—updated through the first years of the twenty-first century—provides a constructive framework for understanding recent developments and assessing the prospects for future peace. Drawing upon a wide array of documents and on research by Palestinians, Israelis, and others, Tessler assesses the conflict on both the Israelis' and the Palestinians' terms. New chapters in this expanded edition elucidate the Oslo peace process, including the reasons for its failure, and the political dynamics in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza at a critical time of transition. "[Tessler is] thoughtful, well-informed and resolutely fair-minded . . . rigorous and commiserative alike, and his gloss on the fallout from the creation of Israel, which included a counterflow of millions of Jewish immigrants from the Arab world, is among the best things in the book." ―New York Times Book Review