Islam and salvation in Palestine : the Islamic Jihad movement /

This is an enlarged version of a study first published in Hebrew in 1994. It outlines in extensive, and occasionally confusing, detail the origins of the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine in the early 1980s, its doctrines, its links to other Islamic resistance movements, and its response to PLO diplomacy. Hatina (Tel Aviv Univ.) also discusses the activities and thought of the leadership, notably Fathi al-Shiqaqi, who was assassinated by Israel in 1995. Although the book is generally reliable, its details and assumption of familiarity with terms and organizations will confuse the nonspecialist. Its stress on links between Fatah, Iran, and Islamic Jihad in the 1980s is questionable, especially given Hatina's emphasis on the secular nature of the PLO, whose apparent separation from Fatah is never explained. Finally, the bibliography, though somewhat updated and useful, does not cover all available sources in Arabic and ignores the basic source in English on the PLO, Yezid Sayigh's Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 (CH, Dec'98). The book should be used with caution by specialists, but it would overwhelm and possibly mislead those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the subject. C. D. Smith University of Arizona