Enemies and Neighbours (2017)

The best single starting point here: a chronicle of the hundred years from 1917 to 2017 by Ian Black, a veteran Middle East reporter for the Guardian, writing as an outsider to both communities. What makes it useful for a newcomer is its method. Black draws on sources from both sides as carefully as he can, so Arab and Jewish experiences of the same war or uprising appear side by side rather than in separate books. He is a journalist rather than an academic historian, and it shows in a readable, event-by-event pace rather than a grand argument. Read it first, then turn to the partisan accounts below knowing the outline they are arguing over.