Israel's Elections and Their Implications

The assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, a spate of bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the refusal of Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad to play ball in the peace process, and a change of heart among Israel's new Russian immigrants all contributed to the election in May 1996 of the most right-wing government in Israel's history, led by Likud hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu. Among the likely consequences the author explores are the virtual freezing of the peace process, the rise of Palestinian frustration with the ensuing lack of progress, a resumption of anti-Israeli violence in the self-rule areas and in Israel, and increased pressure from Hizballah on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.

Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, is author of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), and Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), which will be reissued in an expanded and revised edition in 1997.