Clash of Identities

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By revisiting a century of shared Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli history, Baruch Kimmerling uncovers unexpected influences between a stateless indigenous society and the settler-immigrants who established the state of Israel. Challenging assumptions about these seemingly irreconcilable cultures, Kimmerling presents a nuanced portrait of how one side's behaviors and characteristics have irrevocably shaped the other. He examines the clashes, tensions, and complementarities that connect Jewish, Palestinian, and Israeli identities. The exploration includes reciprocal relationships between Jewish and Arab communities in mandatory Palestine, the dynamics between state and society in Israel, patterns of militarism, jurisdiction issues in an immigrant-settler society, and Israel's ongoing struggle for legitimacy as both a Jewish and democratic state. By integrating Israeli and Jewish studies with extensive scholarship on Palestinians and the Middle East, Kimmerling offers a unique framework for analyzing the cultural, political, and material overlaps of both societies. This work is essential for anyone interested in Israel and the relationships between Jews and Arabs, providing a provocative examination of the evolving identities of Israelis and Palestinians within their complex contexts.