Gabriel Ben-Dor (ed) . The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict: Studies in their History, Sociology and Politics. Turtledove Publishing . Tel Aviv. 1978. 
(Third World Quarterly, July, 1980, Vol. 2, No. 3)

Professor Ben-Dor, the editor of this weighty volume - a collection of papers delivered at a conference held at Haifa University in April 1976 - believes that Israeli scholars (the majority of the contributors) exhibit 'extra caution, effort and bending over backwards to maintain a sense of detachment, remoteness and conscientiousness' when dealing with Middle Eastern affairs. The evidence, whether from this vol~me, or from the writings of other Israeli 'experts' and 'Arabists' doeS not support this contention. Indeed Gil Carl Alroy, writing in this volume, comes nearer the truth when he says '. .. Zionist perceptions of Arabs cannot really enlighten us on the reality of the Arabs, it can indeed tell us a great deal about the Zionists.
The papers in this collection make it clear that Israeli'experts' refuse to recognise that the Palestinian people's struggle for self-determination is at the centre of the Middle East conflict, and to this they add their own rejection of Palestinian claims to an independent state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza strip.
The papers of the conference fall into two categories: those dealing with aspects of Palestinian history during the British Mandate, and those pertaining to current political questions. Those falling within the first category, such as Porath's on the Land Problem, Baer's on the Village Mukhtar, and Kupferschmidt's on the Supreme Muslim Council, are scholarly works which make a vital contribution to an understanding of the period and are probably unequalled by anything produced by Arab historians.
The majority of papers, however, fall into the second category. A few of these read like straightforward intelligence reports which in all probability they are, (eg,'The Professional ~lite in Samaria'). The impetus for a lot of what passes as Israeli scholarship is the pervading imperative of'knowing the enemy'. It is not uncommon for Israeli academics to double as advisors to the Military Government in the occupied areas, while a large number of the studies undertaken since 1967 have been part of an all out effort to study all facets of West Bank life under Jordanian rule. The material for this is culled from the files of the Jordanian administration which fell into the hands of Israel as a result of its occupation of the West Bank in 1967. This material which is now in the Israeli State Archives in Jerusalem is not accessible to the general public.
The papers detailing the relations of the PLO with various states (the Soviet Union, Algeria, Eastern Europe, the EEC) are all based on secondary sources and are little more than compilations of newspaper and radio reports. Likewise, they are more akin to intelligence-oriented 'information gathering' than to serious scholarship.
A number of studies attempt to develop new theoretical concepts to facilitate an understanding of the Palestinians as a 'society without a state' and as a 'nationalism without sovereignty', pointing to the inherent weakness of Palestinian nationalism, and to the role of the neighbouring Arab states as a factor in continuously weakening the Palestinian National Movement and keeping it subservient to their regional interests. The lip-service paid to Arab unity and community of interests continues to be one of the most important weapons in this armoury.
Yet these papers have one thing in common with the other contributions in this volume; they are marred by an implicit hostility and an ideological partisanship which even serious Israeli scholarship does not seem able to escape.