In this path-breaking study about Israel's position vis-à-vis the Mediterranean Arab states of the Middle East and Maghreb, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, as well as the France, Italy, and Spain, wide regional neighboring relationships are analyzed and defined by dominant factors such as "fluctuating relations," "confrontation and realpolitik," "radicalism versus moderation," and the "complexities of political, military, intelligence, economic, and cultural connections." A central motif is the challenge of "uneasy coexistence."

The work is based on extensive archival and other primary source documentation, including newspapers and Internet sites in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish. Some of the most vital source material is found in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the U.S. Department of State-Office of the Historian, the Central Intelligence Agency data released recently through the Freedom of Information Act, the American presidential libraries, especially of Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, the Israel State Archives, and the Central Zionist Archives. Selected documents invaluable for understanding the major problems affecting the Mediterranean region are published in an appendix. Much of the source material is hitherto untapped or has received scant attention from researchers. Israel and the Mediterranean will emerge as the standard work on Israel's coexistence in the Mediterranean basin during her first fifty years of nationhood, an indispensable source for scholars of Israeli history, political scientists specializing in regional conflicts and conflict resolution, inter-Arab affairs, and Israel alignment with its non-Arab and European Mediterranean neighbors.
About the Author:

Michael M. Laskier is professor is professor of modern history in the Department of Middle Eastern History, Bar-Ilan University, and director of the Center and Endowed Chair for the Study of Resistance Movements named after Israel's former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. His publications include books which concentrate on Israel and the Arab world, inter-Arab politics, Egypt and the Maghreb, Mediterranean politics and society, Jewish-Muslim relations in the lands of Islam and Western Europe, and the relations between the European Union and the Middle Eastern & Maghrebi states.

Ronen Yitzhak is the Head of Middle Eastern Studies Department at Western Galilee College in Acre, Israel. He is the author of Abdullah al-Tall - Arab Legion Officer: Arab Nationalism and Opposition to the Hashemite Regime.