Thomson Learning’s new series The Middle East Online delivers a major overview of the political history of the Middle East in the 20th Century, based on primary source documents from The National Archives, London.

Series One – Arab-Israeli Relations 1917-1970 – offers the widest range of original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers from the 1917 Balfour Declaration through to the Black September war of 1970-1. Here major policy statements are set out in their fullest context, the minor documents and marginalia revealing the workings of colonial administration and, following the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, British diplomacy towards Israel and the Arab states.

Additional value has been added to this Series 1 by the expansion from the original 562 TNA records to over 17,000, thus substantially improving access to over 137,000 pages documenting the politics, administration, wars and diplomacy of the Palestine Mandate, the Independence of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Topics covered include:

• the background to the establishment of the State of Israel as a Jewish national home
• Black September
• the Border wars of the 1950s
• the British capture of Jerusalem
• the Cold War in the Middle East
• Formation of the United Arab Republic
• Jewish terror groups
• milestones in the Palestine-Zionist tension and their impact on British policy leading to the Partition of 1948