Theodor Herzl's dream of a national homeland for the Jewish people was a triumph achieved in little more than half a century. Yet it was made possible through the deaths of millions of European Jews and the fragmentation of Palestinian society. Whatever their historical or emotional attachment to the land they came to rule, the Jews of Israel had supplanted another people, another people who would not forget. Herzl's dream of ending Jewish insecurity, once and for all, would prove illusory.This important new study shows how little the dynamics of the conflict have actually changed; how eerily reminiscent today's antagonisms and falsehoods are of yesteryear's; how 'modern' leadership is anything but; and how much today's self-righteous intransigence owes to what went before. It poses the vital question: have the nationalist dreams of both peoples been doomed by the determined refusal of Jew and Palestinian to contemplate what life must be like for the other?While the story of the conflict between Jew and Palestinian in the past century has its share of both political and military and human triumphs, too often the recurring themes are those of lies and hypocrisy, myth-making and mutual demonisation and of a determined, energetic refusal to contemplate and acknowledge the other's history and point of view. Peter Rodgers brings a rare understanding of the recent history of the region to explain with fair-minded clarity the nightmare of modern Israel and Palestine.