The Great Delusion explores the gap that persists between the Zionist ambition to implement its project among the neighboring Arab world peacefully, achieving recognition and acceptance amicably, and the reality of a century-old permanent state of war and hostility towards Jews, Zionism, and Israel, which has been cultivated among the Arab populace.

In recent decades, and especially since President Donald Trump’s administration, American mediation has helped break that wall of enmity, at least on the governmental level. But on emotional and popular levels, the long years of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda seem much more difficult to eradicate.

This volume discusses the frustration on the part of Israel to attain a permanent peace with the Arab world.

(About the Authors)

Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s, and is the author of over 70 research books, a dozen edited books, and 100 scholarly articles about Islam.

Moshe Yegar is a retired Israeli diplomat and a historian of Islam in Southeast Asia. In 1956, he joined Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served in diplomatic posts around the world until his retirement in 1995. The author of books and research articles on the history of Zionism, he played a significant role in negotiating with Indian authorities to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. Yegar is a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.