Turkey’s friendly relations with Hamas and Hezbollah constitute an indisputable reality in the Middle East the last six years. The AKP government has brought Turkey closer to the two radical Islamist organisations, to the detriment of the country’s long existing relations with Israel and the West, and despite the harsh internal reactions by the Kemalist establishment. Dynamics have started to change in the region. It remains to be seen what these changes will bring about for all Middle Eastern countries.

Both pro-Iranian and anti-Iranian camps have been taken in by the drama surrounding Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s visit to Lebanon. The idea of Ahmedinejad, who is considered to be Hizbullah’s chaperone, overlooking the northern border of Israel – the closest he has ever been to a country he does not recognize and utterly despises - is as ever in Lebanon one person’s nightmare and another one’s paradise. However, instead of indulging ourselves in images of glory and warfare scenarios, exploring the interests of the various ‘talented divas’, who have been keeping Lebanese politics busy for years and are equipped with a long-time performance experience – seems to be more reasonable. In other words, this visit is far too complex to be analyzed in a one-sided manner.

 Idith Zertal, a leading member of the new generation of revisionist historians in Israel, presents through her analysis the way in which Israel's collective memory of death and trauma was created and re-produced, and how it has been processed, coded and put in use in Israel's public space, particularly during the half century which has lapsed since the destruction of the European Jewry. This book offers a new perspective on Israel, its history and the construction of national identity.

Authors: Evangelos Diamantopoulos, Costas Faropoulos, Maria Kourpa, Iris Pappa, Charitini Petrodaskalaki, Aliki Sofianou

The importance of the Six Day war of 1967 lies in the major changes it brought about not only in the Middle East but also in the entire system of international affairs. Apart from its direct impact on the Palestinians, it has also led to the birth of a new group of Israeli historians who have adopted a critical approach in their study of Israel's history. They are called Post-Zionists or revinsionists and Tom Segev is one of them. Although not all New Historians have uniform views, there is a point of convergence: the Palestinian refugee problem. They have opened a discussion on the very nature of the Israeli state, with a view to exploring ways through which it could come to terms with the Palestinians. Furthermore the New Historians are racking up events and facts which were downplayed or suppressed by Zionist historians, in order to define the causes of the current situation. Accordingly, Segev uses a variety of sources, such as letters, diaries and interviews as well as Israel's official archives, and lets them speak for themselves. The most interesting fact is that he achieves to highlight the causes of the war not only through political and strategic facts but also through an analysis of Israel's psyche before and during the war.