Author Description

Definitions of the Al-Aqsa intifada have ranged from being part of the global war on terrorism, an asymmetric inter-state war, to being part of the on-going Palestinian struggle for national liberation. All have validity as explanatory paradigms, but equally, none can capture fully the dynamics of this conflict. By constrast, this volume seeks to explore whether the current violence, its origins and dynamics can best be understood as a manifestation of civil war. In so doing, it explores the following questions: how the use of violence by all parties has been conditioned and or constrained by the domestic factors pertaining to their societies; how external actors have dealt with the violence internally, and how, in turn, this has impacted on their relations with Israel and the Palestinians; and what does the conduct of the Al-Aqsa intifada suggest about the broader issue of state boundaries and state legitimacy in the contemporary Middle East.