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In increasing numbers, feminists are turning their attention to the Middle East. New interpretations of history are available, the consequences of political and economic developments for women are highlighted, and the voices of women from the Middle East are being heard. In this book, the author focuses on the role of Israeli Jewish women and Palestinian women, especially since the intifada. This is an important and overlooked angle, and Sharoni is right to underscore the part played by women on both sides in furthering the peace process. At times, however, she seems so determined to make gender the issue around which all else revolves that she essentializes the concept, as if all men and all women will adopt political views congruent with this one dimension of their identities. If traditional writers have tended to ignore the part played by gender in politics, others risk exaggerating it, as this study does.
