Synopses & Reviews
An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments
Widely considered the foremost historian of the modern Middle East, Rashid Khalidi here zeroes in on the United States’ role as a purportedly impartial, honest broker in thirty-five years of a failed Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Khalidi closely analyzes the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, the 1991–1993 period covering the Madrid Peace Conference to the signing of the Oslo Accords, and President Obama’s retreat from his initially firm positions on the preconditions for a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. These three moments reveal how the United States and Israel have colluded to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state and preserve a status quo favorable to Israel. Brokers of Injustice shows why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, U.S. policymakers have masqueraded as an unbiased mediator working to bring the two sides together but, in fact, have been brokers of continuing injustice, actively preventing the compromises needed to achieve a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
Praise for Rashid Khalidi
“Rashid Khalidi is arguably the foremost U.S. historian of the modern Middle East.” —Warren I. Cohen, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“In a refreshing contrast to the yammering bazaar of complaint and allegation that has dominated American public discussion of the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, The Iron Cage is a patient and eloquent work, ranging over the whole of modern Palestinian history from World War I to the death of Yasser Arafat. Reorienting the Palestinian narrative around the attitudes and tactics of the Palestinians themselves, Khalidi lends a remarkable illumination to a story so wearily familiar it is often hard to believe anything new can be found within.” —Jonathan Shainin, Salon
“Unlike most so-called Middle East experts, Khalidi actually knows a great deal about that region.” —Professor John J. Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
“With a deep knowledge of the Middle East and a felicitous literary style, Khalidi . . . examines the history of U.S. involvement in the area against the backdrop of European colonialism.” —Ronald Steel, The Nation
“Rashid Khalidi’s extraordinary book [Resurrecting Empire] is enormously relevant for our times, especially in light of America’s growing involvement in the Middle East.” —Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize
“Khalidi’s role is as a historian, working to show how historical forces, largely ignored in the U.S., have shaped the modern Middle East. He takes particular delight in demolishing the various clichés used to describe the Middle East, bred out of what he terms ‘America’s historical amnesia.’” —Chris Hedges, New York Times
Synopsis
An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments
Widely considered the foremost historian of the modern Middle East, Rashid Khalidi here zeroes in on the United States’ role as a purportedly impartial honest broker in thirty-five years of a failed Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Khalidi closely analyzes the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, the 1991–1993 period covering the Madrid Peace Conference to the signing of the Oslo Accords, and President Obama’s retreat from his initially firm positions on the preconditions for a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. These three moments reveal how the United States and Israel have colluded to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state and preserve a status quo favorable to Israel. Brokers of Injustice shows why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, U.S. policymakers have masqueraded as an unbiased mediator working to bring the two sides together but, in fact, have been brokers of continuing injustice, actively preventing the compromises needed to achieve a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
Synopsis
Winner of the 2014 Lionel Trilling Book Award
An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments
For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. In this book, acclaimed historian Rashid Khalidi zeroes in on the United States’s role as the purported impartial broker in this failed peace process.
Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States’ involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine. The first moment he investigates is the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, when Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin refused to accept the Reagan administration’s proposal to reframe the Camp David Accords more impartially. The second moment covers the period after the Madrid Peace Conference, from 1991 to 1993, during which negotiations between Israel and Palestine were brokered by the United States until the signing of the secretly negotiated Oslo accords. Finally, Khalidi takes on President Barack Obama’s retreat from plans to insist on halting the settlements in the West Bank.
Through in-depth research into and keen analysis of these three moments, as well as his own firsthand experience as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 pre–Oslo negotiations in Washington, DC, Khalidi reveals how the United States and Israel have actively colluded to prevent a Palestinian state and resolve the situation in Israel’s favor. Brokers of Deceit bares the truth about why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, US policymakers have masqueraded as unbiased agents working to bring the two sides together, when, in fact, they have been the agents of continuing injustice, effectively preventing the difficult but essential steps needed to achieve peace in the region.
About the Author
Rashid Khalidi is the author of seven books about the Middle East, including
Palestinian Identity,
Brokers of Deceit, Resurrecting Empire,
The Iron Cage, and
Sowing Crisis. His writing on Middle Eastern history and politics has appeared in the
New York Times,
Boston Globe,
Los Angeles Times,
Chicago Tribune, and many journals. For his work on the Middle East, Professor Khalidi has received fellowships and grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. He is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York and is editor of the
Journal of Palestine Studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Dishonest Brokers
Chapter 1: The First Moment: Begin and Palestinian Autonomy in 1982
Chapter 2: The Second Movement: The Madrid-Washington Negotiations, 1991-93
Chapter 3: The Third Movement: Barack Obama and Palestine, 2009-12
Conclusion: Israel's Lawyer
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index