A long, often fractious history has shaped relations between present-day Israel and the emerging Palestinian autonomous areas. This area of the MIddle East has a significant role as the cradle of two of the world's major monotheistic religions and as well as a home to ancient sacred monuments and relics. This penetrating volume traces the history of land that is beloved and claimed by two cultures that share a common past and have been inexorably linked for centuries, based primarily on their love for—and claim to—a common homeland.