"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 from 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 while preserving 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
unbiased mediators 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.
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."
By:
Rashid Khalidi
Imprint: Beacon Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 228mm,
Width: 153mm,
Spine: 15mm
Weight: 227g
ISBN: 9780807033241
ISBN 10: 0807033243
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 01 September 2018
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
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
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 Studiesat Columbia University in New York and is editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. From the Hardcover edition.
Reviews for Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
Praise for Brokers of Deceit What has happened to the Palestinian people since 1948 is one of the great crimes of modern history. Of course, Israel bears primary responsibility for this tragedy. However, as Rashid Khalidi shows in his smart new book, American presidents from Truman to Obama have sided with Israel at almost every turn and helped it inflict immense pain and humiliation on the Palestinians. At the same time, they have employed high-sounding but dishonest rhetoric to cover up Israel's brutal behavior. As Brokers of Deceit makes clear, the United States richly deserves to be called Israel's lawyer. --John J. Mearsheimer, coauthor of The Israel Lobby Drawing on his own experience as a Palestinian negotiator and recently released documents, Rashid Khalidi mounts a frontal attack on the myths and misconceptions that have come to surround America's role in the so-called peace process which is all process and no peace. The title is not too strong: the book demonstrates conclusively that far from serving as an honest broker, the US continues to act as Israel's lawyer - with dire consequences for its own interests, for the Palestinians, and for the entire region. Professor Khalidi deserves much credit for his superb exposition of the fatal gap between the rhetoric and reality of American diplomacy on this critically important issue. --Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford and author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Khalidi has combined history, common sense and his first-hand understanding of arab-israeli peace talks, as brokered by Washington, to make the case that American national security interests would be best served by a just peace in the Middle East. Instead, he writes with great sadness, Washington's efforts to be an honest broker fall somewhere between high irony and farce --and puts democratic America, with its avowed commitment to freedom for all, in the positi
