Product Description

As Washington struggles to revive the Arab-Israeli peace process, Kurtzer and Lasensky offer the definitive guidebook on how to broker peace in the Middle East. Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace sets forth a compelling, interests-based framework for American engagement in the peace process; provides a critical assessment of U.S. diplomacy since the end of the Cold War; and offers a set of ten core lessons to guide the efforts of future American negotiators.

This concise volume is the product of the United States Institute of Peace s Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking, which brings together some of America s most respected and experienced authorities in the field: William B. Quandt (University of Virginia), Steven L. Spiegel (University of California-Los Angeles), and Shibley Z. Telhami (University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution). The book draws on nine months of groundbreaking consultations with dozens of statesmen, political leaders, and civil society figures who have defined Middle East peacemaking in recent years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309727 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 210 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781601270306
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
...a trenchant guidebook --Newsweek

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In Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace, Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky provide a peerless example of sound public-policy analysis, in which American national interests are the paramount value pursued. Practitioners, scholars and students are unlikely to see anything like it in literature on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The indictment of America s failures jumps off every page. The author s hard-hitting, no-nonsense descriptions of U.S. failures in exploiting opportunities, of U.S. inability to create openings for peace, and of U.S. neglect of the terrible costs to the people of the region who suffer from a lack of peace, are a reminder that America s impotence has significantly eroded our national interests in the region. This is not a patient, soft-spoken, diplomatic treatise on the niceties of how to negotiate peace treaties. Rather, it is closer to an indictment of how a great country like the United States, with all its resources and strengths, cannot match its power with sophisticated leadership necessary to bring all parties of the Arab-Israeli conflict to an agreement. To be sure the reader does not miss the point, the authors use the word failure and its synonyms over 172 times throughout the text. . .

The 84 pages of narrative, including 10 critical lessons that are the heart of the book, together with 37 pages of chronology and 57 pages of documents and sources, present the reader with an understanding of the requirements for conducting negotiations between the parties. This is not a book about what is needed to get the parties to agreement, but rather a how to on structuring negotiations and nurturing a process toward a final agreement that meets the needs of the Arabs and Israelis and satisfies U.S. interests.

The book is unique in the literature on the Arab-Israeli conflict because it lacks villains, other than the the failure of American leadership. The authors avoid blaming the parties in a one-sided fashion. They identify mistakes and point the way forward, not with optimism but with realistic methods. The book points out on page after page how American leaders missed crucial opportunities because they were not adept at recognizing the difference between tactics that could lead to peace and those used to stall for time. . .

If the lessons in this clear-eyed analysis are followed, perhaps there will be no need for another book on how to make peace in the Middle East. --Middle East Policy Journal

A well-reasoned, realistic study setting out what works and what does not in this dinstictive diplomatic arena. Today's leadership (and tomorrow's) cound usefully build on the lessons presented here. --Foreign Affairs

Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace focuses on the Clinton and the two Bush presidencies, presenting a manual on what future officeholders should and should not do....an impressive and refreshingly concise book. --New York Review of Books

About the Author
Daniel C. Kurtzer is a former United States ambassador to Israel and Egypt, and currently holds the S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Scott B. Lasensky is a senior researcher and Middle East expert at the United States Institute of Peace. He and Kurtzer co-direct the Institute's Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking.

Customer Reviews

Please read this Mr. President
This book provides the basis for sucessful Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Foremost, this book is relatively short. It contains only 84 pages of main body, but a whopping 93 pages of included source documents and 5 maps. Because the main body is short, the book can be a quick read. However, the book is dense and assumes some reader background on the Middle East Peace Process.

What this is not is an 800-page discourse of every minute detail and personality who took part in the Peace Process under Presidents H.W. Bush, Clinton, and W. Bush. Simply, this book is a (successful) attempt to review what has worked (and failed) under the last three presidents with regard to the Middle East Peace Process. The interviewees behind this book represent a balanced assortment of the players within the Peace Process from within both the region and the United States. From the US, some of the names include James Baker, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Aaron Miller, Dennis Ross, and Anthony Zinni.

This book pairs well with some of the other books that have come out on the Peace Process, as well as some of the PBS documentaries (notably "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs"). At the back of the book is an extensive recommended reading list.

This is a fantastic book. I consider it an essential reference on the Peace Process.

A straight forward guide to improving US diplomatic efforts for Arab/Israeli peace
This book should be required reading for anyone involved in diplomacy, Mid East affairs, government service or any other service related to Arab-Israeli relations. I have never read a more concise or straightforward approach to Arab-Israeli diplomacy as in this book right here. This team has done a fantastic job putting this powerful book together. I can't say enough about how important this book is for those parties interested in peace between Arabs and Israelis, and how US policy can facilitate that peace.

This book is very short with only about 85 pages for the main body. The very short size of this book belies its strength though. The main body is broken down into basically four parts. The first part is a quick assessment of the failures and successes of past policies. It breaks down the importance of US influence in the process, and describes some lessons that should be gleaned from past experiences. The next section is a quick report card of the last three US presidents and how their policies faired. This will be the purview of the rest of the study. It focuses in on the last three administrations and derives lessons from each ones failures and successes. This is where the third section and the majority of the text will focus. This third section breaks down the last three administrations into ten key lessons that should be learned from each. The book ends with a recommendation for the next administration and his team.

To understand and learn the lessons that each of these three administrations offer this team has went and interviewed the major players from inside these administrations, Arab and Israeli officials and people from all vantage points that could possibly shed light on US diplomatic efforts during these administrations in order to attempt to create a whole picture, and this team has come closer than any other assessment I have ever read to creating that whole picture. Their discussion of the failures and accomplishments provides a lucid backdrop for their poignant and direct recommendations on how to improve US diplomatic efforts in the future.

With the small size this makes this book a relatively quick read, but potential readers should understand that the book is written with the assumption that the reader is bringing the requisite base knowledge of the history of this region and US diplomatic efforts without the authors having to spoon feed the readers that history. While you don't need to be an expert an Israeli/Arab history or US diplomatic efforts in this region it is important to have an understanding of historical events and the complexity of the situation in order to be able to take away everything this book has to offer.

Lastly this book offers a nice timeline of important events, and a very good appendix section with a nice sampling of some important documents. This makes this book a nice reference as well. This is a very important work that is essential reading for those interested or directly involved in US policy decisions. I hope everyone interested in this area will read this mighty little work. Highly recommended.