Part one: What's going on?: Jews and Israel: where do we start? ; The Zionist idea: organizing, immigrating, building (1860s-1917) ; Wait, there were people here: what about the Palestinians? ; The British are coming: World War I, the Balfour Declaration, and the establishment of the British Mandate (1917-1939) ; Israel and the Nakba: independence and catastrophe (1947-49) ; The dispossessed ; The fifties: state building and Suez ; The big bang: the 1967 war and the reality it created ; Roller coaster: from the Yom Kippur War to the First Intifada (1968-87) ; Shaking it off: the First Intifada ; Israel is waiting for Rabin ; As the clever hopes expire: the end of Oslo ; The bulldozer's last surprise ; The democracy recession

Part two. Why is it so hard to talk about Israel?: The map is not the territory ; Israel's Arab citizens: shared society of segregation ; A love story? Israel and the American Jewish community ; The settlements ; What we talk about when we talk about BDS ; The a-word ; The other a-word ; Red cows in the heartland: Israel and Armageddon ; The case for hope

A lexicon of the conflict.