Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine

by Hussein Agha, Robert Malley

Two insiders explain why the Israeli–Palestinian peace process failed, and anticipate what lies ahead.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters killed more than eleven hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages, prompting an Israeli response that has in turn taken tens of thousands of lives and devastated the Gaza Strip. The conflict upended the region and the world. Why did this happen, and can anything be done to grant peace and justice to Israelis and Palestinians alike?

In Tomorrow Is Yesterday, the analyst Hussein Agha and the diplomat Robert Malley offer a personal and bracing perspective on how the hopes of the Oslo Peace Process became the horrors of the present. Drawing on their experience advising the Palestinian leadership (Arafat and Abbas) and US presidents (Clinton, Obama, and Biden) and their participation in secret talks over decades, Agha and Malley offer candid portraits of leading figures and an interpretation of the conflict that exposes the delusions and lies of all sides. They stress that the two-state solution became a global goal only when it was no longer viable; that Hamas’s onslaught and Israel’s war of destruction were not one-offs or historical exceptions but historical reenactments; and that the gaps separating Israelis and Palestinians have less to do with territorial allocation than with history and emotions. They show how US officials preferred technical schemes and linguistic formulations to a frank reckoning with the past.

In incisive prose and revelatory anecdotes, Agha and Malley lay bare the inner workings of a peace-processing industry that failed to achieve its goals because it created an alternative, inauthentic reality and substituted it for what truly mattered to and moved Israelis and Palestinians. Throughout, they illustrate how there is no better guide to what lies in store tomorrow than what happened yesterday.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Middle East, Israel, War, Social Justice

272 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2025

Reviews

[Jan Rice]

Right on the cover flap, the publisher's blurb say that Israel responded to Oct. 7 (2023) with a "war of destruction."

"Israelis want genuine acceptance and normalcy; they want eternal security, which is hard to distinguish from eternal dominance," -- Prologue

"They seek refuge in violence: Palestinians in a raw expression of pent-up rage and and desire for vengeance; Israelis in the unleashing of prodigious force, modern technology in the service of age-old ferociousness."... "Despair has sprung from illusions and lies; hope can come from discarding deceit and facing truth." -- Prologue

"In scope and brutality, Hamas's assault on Israelis exceeded any prior Palestinian act. Israel's military attacks in Gaza were an onslaught governed by unusual rules, in which the death of Palestinian fighters seemed like collateral damage, while the massive indiscriminate slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, appeared the main event. Killing was the purpose." ... "Horror also came at the hands of the West's collusion and Arab governments' indifference...." ... "The war..unleashed a regional escalation that spread to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Red Sea, and Iran."... ("T)he war...restored the Palestinian question to the center of world politics." -- Beginnings

The statement that the Palestinians have been held captive in the Gaza strip, blockaded (that is, in an 'open-air prison').

The book equates the opinions and feelings of Hamas with those of Palestinians in general.
Also equates self-defense with ethnic cleansing and genocide; equates resistance with terrorism.
Says pinning the problem on Netanyahu and his right-wingers is not accurate, nor, similarly, can the blame be put on Hamas/Yahya Sinwar -- because most Israelis accept the allegedly genocidal goals of Netanyahu, and most Palestinians accept Sinwar's goals.
The authors make a moral as well as a historical equivalence.
The indignity of the Palestine predicament (since most do not accept Israel's legitimacy or concede the right of return) -- that is, their disgrace -- and the way most of their leaders negotiated.
The equating of Hajj Amin Husseini and David Ben Gurion, of Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, of Sinwar and Netanyahu, and indeed of all three of those pairs
The assumption that Zionism was racism, that Israel was actually a settler colonial state, and that the key fact of history to know is that America's strongest civil rights activists supported the Palestinian cause--all taken from Beginnings. These latter assumptions constitute cherry-picking of history to confuse and mislead the reader.

All these quotes and points are taken from the publisher's blurb (on the flap), the Prologue, and the section "Beginnings." They're taken from the book flap and the pages up to the top of p. 13.

The authors speak of facing truth, but the book is crafted in the service of a narrative rather than the truth. No, the purpose of the war was not ethnic cleansing, i.e., to kill as many civilians as possible. No, all Palestinians don't share Hamas's view. Nor are the dynamics of Israel and Hamas equivalent, either currently or historically. Nor did Zionists from the get-go want to exclude all Arabs from the land.

Re that latter allegation, AI may currently tell you it's true, based on one entry in Theodor Hertzl's manic brainstorming in his diary after he had first hit on the idea of a Jewish state. That allegation is currently being promulgated by the usual suspects, similar to scholarship attempting to show that there never was a historical Israelite presence in the Levant.

However, much can be learned from historical study, for those who wish to learn. But first give up the inversion by which the loudest accusations come from those who are themselves doing what they accuse others of doing.


Here's an instructive 1939 quote from Yusuf Hanna, the editor of Filastin:

There is not an Arab who wants to see himself ruled by the Jews, but there is not also an Arab with sense who wants to see himself ruled by assassins."

For the curious, there's a lot to learn.

So that why I say, enough of this book. No need to read multiple books along the same line.

Palestinians should follow the example of the Zionists: stop avenging the past and start building the future. Until then, they are being colonized by Islamists. More accurately, they are being sacrificed by the Islamists.
To coin a phrase,

Build it and they will come

Thanks to my public library for making this book available.

[Venneh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may have suffered from reading it so closely to a book that acknowledges the Palestinian struggle, but this delves (to a point) to the US mediated peace process between Israel and Palestine over the last thirty years or so, given that our two authors were intimately involved, and why they failed on both sides and then conveniently fails to look too closely at the last three years or so. I understand that's because they haven't been too involved in the last three years, but it still feels pretty cowardly to give your perspective on everything happening up till that point, because they clearly have one. Solid read but isnt willing to take a stand.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good explanation of why a two-state solution has historically been something imposed on the situation from outside, despite not making any sense and despite it being something neither Palestinians nor Israelis really want.

Good for insight into how Palestinians and Israelis think, the logic behind their views and their historical contexts presented in a clear, comprehensive, objective manner.

Good, I suppose, if you’re a reader who needed convincing that this is not a hard conflict to understand, it’s just something that fundamentally can’t be solved by American chauvinism; it, in fact, has been hurt by it.

But not good at all for saying anything of substance about why readers should care, or perhaps do something to pressure our government to stop perpetuating it; not good at all, by presenting the Palestinian view (of the Nakba and everything following as a genocide) as just one of many ways to view it, as if it could be argued any other way. At least the authors had the balls to additionally use the words “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “settler-colonialism.” I just wish they meant it when they said it.

Mainly, good for the overall history of the peace process since the Camp David Accords. which is as interesting as it is infuriating.

[Jaschi · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting descriptions of the actors involved based on their insider information, very heavy on narratives (with focus on one side's); it is hard for me to believe that they are as central to the conflict as the book seems to imply, although they must play a major role

-3/4 for not distinguishing radical ideas and actors from moderate ones, and lack of estimates about their spreads

[Patrick Fassnacht · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good read that adds to the knowledge, the context, and in shaping how we all got here.
saying that, having read 6 or 7 recent books recently in trying to better understand things, this one was simply Good.
several other reviewers speak about the middle-of-the-road approach.. and the seeming reticence in taking any meaty or substantive position on much of anything throughout.. .. . . while i admire their attempts to give insight and perspective to 'both sides' along with other players in this historical tragic reality.. in posturing to be Informative and Factual and Unbiased... they lost whatever voice they really had.

a bland and attempted-impartiality is all well and good.. unless, or until, it isn't.
then, it simply seems week. and shallow attempt to be helpful in any real way.
certain things are not impartial. some things are simply black or white-- or, at least, tinged with some human moral reality. avoiding calling something what it really is... is simply not helpful.

definitely informative. absolutely adds to the conversation and informative.
just lacking an ample dose of confidence in its own voice. and losing its import through its overly-bland and overly-neutral handling of things.

saying that, i am tempered by 6 or 7 other reads and perspectives recently. each one of which has shared a TON of insight and learning that has been huge. this one very much included.

[Milena Pavlova- McCartney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading “Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine” by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha. It is a book that I wish I had had at my desk as a young reporter covering the Middle East.
For anyone watching the news from Israel and Palestine and wondering, "How did we get here?", this book provides an essential perspective and answers. “Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine, a compelling and eloquently written firsthand account of the conflict's history, is authored by two individuals with deep, personal ties to the peace process: Hussein Agha and Robert Malley.
Both Agha and Malley are respected scholars and diplomats with more than four decades of experience in the Middle East. Hussein Agha, an associate at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, was a principal behind-the-scenes negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and an advisor to its chairman, Yasser Arafat. Robert Malley, a lecturer at Yale University, has served as a key U.S. envoy for the region under the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations.
Their upbringings almost destined them for this work. Malley's father, a prominent Egyptian-Jewish journalist and anti-Zionist, introduced his son to Yasser Arafat. Agha was a close advisor to Arafat himself. This unique access provides the book with an unparalleled view of the events.
Tomorrow is Yesterday takes you behind the scenes of the Israel-Palestine conflict, from the Oslo Accords to the present day. It guides you through the intimate details of events on the highest political stage that led to high hopes and shattered dreams, missed opportunities, and repeated betrayals and promises with no guarantees.
The book is a persuasive and insightful tool for anyone seeking answers and a glimpse into the future. The authors show us that even amid devastation and the impossible "two-state" or multinational single-state solutions, there is a possible, albeit painful and costly, path forward.

[Sanjida · Rating 4 out of 5]

More an extended, often repetitive, essay about the failure (inevitable) of the two state proposal for Jewish Israeli and Palestinian national ambitions. Worth reading for cutting through the bullshit of mainstream media and politicians. The authors do not provide a roadmap out, other than try something else, something both peoples actually want.

[Blaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many books I have read on recent history and current affairs, I thought that this book did not tell me very much more than I have already learned from my other reading and could have been condensed to about 25% of its length, so I ended up reading the first two chapters, the last two chapters and skimmed the rest.

I thought it gave a good statement of the complexity of solving the problems of Israel and the Palestinians and presented some good thinking on alternative structures to the two state solution. The fact that it is "unrealistic" in the immediate future does not make it naive or unwanted. The world and peoples' opinions about what is possible, good or desirable can change in surprising ways in shorter time spans than we think possible at the time.

One point I read in this book and elsewhere that I have never understood is the assertion that the extremists make deals with fellow extremists on the other side more productively than with moderates. I just don't see this actually happening. Yes, Nixon went to China, Begin did a deal with Sadat and Reagan got Mr Gorbachev to "tear down the wall" (a year after Reagan left office, though not really through negotiation), but did any of them succeed in making the kinds of transformational rearrangements that lasted? The Middle East is still in turmoil, and Russia and China and the US are still fundamentally at odds. They produced a cold peace subject to continuing high defense expenditures and flare-ups. Contrast this with the peace negotiated by Clinton and Blair in Northern Ireland, and the transformation of Europe under the Marshall Plan. I'm open to counter-argument, but I just don't see it.

[Tim Driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less of a history of the conflict, and more a deep look at the feelings held by both sides and the inconsistent ideas that make progress difficult. I thought it was really interesting to hear about their concept of the "dual-mind" that many Palestinians and Israelis hold where the ideas of violence and peace coexist in a way, and are not mutually exclusive, and how that concept is extremely difficult for many outsiders looking in to accept. I also found it to be the most illuminating book I've read on the Palestinian national movement, its inner workings, and the deep held beliefs that make it what it is today - in other books I've read about the conflict this topic has only been explored from a factual, historical perspective and less so from the subjective perspective of the people involved.

[David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two long-time peace process advisors, one to the United States, the other to the Palestinians, provide an insider's account of the many missteps that have occurred in Israel-Palestine peace negotiations over the past 40 years. They argue that the two-state solution never stood a chance given the often obliquely communicated preferences of the two parties and the United States' reluctance and/or inability to understand the their wishes. They also highlight the failure of the Israelis to anticipate the attacks of October 7 despite clear and public telegraphing by Hamas. Hindsight provides clarity, but their arguments suggest that peace mechanisms that were less bold than a two-state solution could have yielded results, but the time for those options may have passed.

[Sofia Allami · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very biased answer one sided view of the conflict. if you don't have much background or knowledge on the history of the region, it can be be very misleading....

[Cole Himali · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're going to read a book about Israel/Palestine, it's this. It is by far the best book I have read on the topic. Both of their expertise is unmatched to the extent that they can give inside perspectives into peace talks without having to worry about their political images in the way that Jimmy Carter's book would have. They gave such a good synopsis of the history of the conflict with the key points and painted a full picture of each leader's character. Additionally, there ideas for possible ways to move forward were very innovative without the assumption that it is the end all be all the same way the two-state solution is.

[Annarosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Game over for American imperialism

[Myles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be one of the more honest and knowledgable appraisals of the prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Today its prospects are nil. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in 1,000 years.

The book is also an honest appreciation of America as a broker for peace in the Middle East. America has for a variety of reasons been a terrible broker for peace. For one: its presidential election cycle is too short. For another: American perceptions of the Palestinian catastrophe have never been taken seriously. And for a third: for domestic politics, America must always give in to the Israeli prime minister no matter who he or she is.

I personally have almost never been a champion of a two state solution and I remain antagonistic to the idea to this day.

On a simple, practical level, in this world, the land we are talking about is simply too small and resource poor to sustain two independent states. Government costs money. A lot of it. And it’s hard to get right.

I’ve spent time there. Believe me: it’s a small place.

I come from a big place with lots of resources: Canada. We struggle to enforce our sovereignty, and support the aspirations of our people.

Contrary to popular belief: we need the cooperation of each other to make it work. Even (especially?) Canada depends on the goodwill of its neighbours.

Here’s another reason I remain opposed to a two state solution: my reading of the Middle East is that it has a lot of such disputes, maybe not exactly the same as this one but many which are longstanding and many in which subdividing the land further (I’m thinking Kurds, Yazidis, Yemenese, to quote a few examples) doesn’t really help people. It just further divides affections.

Although the big powers created mirrors of their states following WWI, the model never made sense and is making less sense by the day.

Small blocks of very rich people control the Middle East and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

In the city I grew up in many, many different people have learned to get along in small blocks with a few basic rules. When people play by the rules everybody gets to sleep in peace. It’s when the rules become ends in themselves that, I believe, is when things go off the rails.

[Colin Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. Wasn't as worth the hype that the *liberal intelligentsia* was touting. The first 3/4 of it was a look at history of the conflict generally, history of the negotiations and the US role in that, along with criticisms of how things have turned. The writing in this wasn't very gripping. The last fourth of the book was probably the best part. The authors, involved in negotiations for the last few decades, I believe tried their best to stay neutral and analytical of both camp's genuine emotions, fears, and desires, although I believe some who read this would see it as leaning toward a "pro-palestine" viewpoint, which is a bit simplistic in the grand scheme of things. Especially considering the consistent criticism the authors have toward Palestinian negotiators and actors. Important to remember, especially in the way things are discussed today in such black and white terms, that explaining something is not excusing or justifying something. It did feel like the book spent more time on the psyche of the Palestinian viewpoint, which is reasonable in many ways, but could have maybe been a more complete work if a bit evened out in the area of explaining both group's aspirations and how that drives things. Overall, fine. I would go 2.5/5 if possible. But closer to a 3 than a 2.

[Ted · Rating 1 out of 5]

horribly biased without supporting data/evidence.

[A B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley's Tomorrow is Yesterday is frustrating because it's kind of both redundant AND necessary. It’s diffuse and incisive, elegiac and diagnostic.

The title captures their thesis: "Tomorrow is yesterday because yesterday—before the pretense that history matters little and before sanitized negotiations between two unequal parties mediated by a powerful third that sides with the stronger of them—is where Israelis and Palestinians are." The Oslo peace process was an aberration, a "foreign, externally promoted notion" that became a "historical detour leading to a political dead end." October 7 wasn't an anomaly but "the past's formidable revenge."

For anyone who’s followed the news for the past thirty years, the first half of this book feels like reading back issues of The New York Review of Books. The Camp David revisionism, the critique of American mediation, and the documentation of settlement expansion have all been said before, often by Agha and Malley themselves. And yet the value lies in the work’s comprehensiveness. The book is an authoritative record written by insiders who can cite the history of the negotiations chapter and verse.

One of the book's strengths is its portrait of American mediators as catastrophically ineffectual. Biased toward Israel, impatient with history and narrative, focused on technical fixes, limited by the ticking clock of four-year terms. The United States "showed undue deference to Israel, excessive bias against Palestinians, a constant desire to exert regional primacy." Clinton could be a "master of words yet at a loss when it came to their deeper meaning."

Reading their critique of America’s role in the conflict, I couldn’t help thinking of an article I recently read that argued that if America withdraws from the conflict entirely, we'll be left with a zero-sum game between Palestinians and Israelis with no one to tell the Israelis to stop.

The book's thesis feels a little elusive. Firstly, it’s diagnostic: The two-state solution is dead. It was always an "outsider's image" designed for "Israeli liberal Zionists and secular Palestinian moderates" but unable to spread beyond narrow ranks. Secondly, it is prescriptive, and this is where Agha and Malley become maddeningly vague: They call for rethinking participants, including hard-liners excluded from Oslo, considering unconventional alternatives like Jordanian confederation or binational arrangements. But they refuse to endorse specifics: "It would make no sense to suggest a general outline of an Israeli–Palestinian agreement because the prospect is wholly academic, detached from reality."

They're right that focusing on 1967 is arbitrary, that American impatience with "narrative issues" was catastrophic, that excluding religious Zionists and Islamists guaranteed failure. But what does this mean in practice? Truth commissions? Open-ended talks? They don't argue one way or the other.

Reading Tomorrow is Yesterday after Sari Nusseibeh's Once Upon a Country made the sadness of the situation all the more acute. Nusseibeh was exactly the kind of Palestinian moderate Agha and Malley describe as unable to spread beyond narrow ranks. His book ends with the same recognition: the fairy tale about awakening the sleeping Crusader knight remains unfinished "because after decades of effort, the magical formula for solving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict seemed more elusive than ever."

Agha and Malley's answer is less a solution than an acceptance of irresolution. "Optimists are pessimists if they can promise only more of the same. Pessimists are optimists if they break free of orthodoxy." The search for a solution with clean borders and clear sovereignty is itself the problem. The conflict doesn't resolve; it transforms.

Nusseibeh mourns specific lost opportunities. Agha and Malley mourn the entire framework. The peace process wasn't a noble effort that failed; it was flawed from the start. By excluding history, negotiating through unrepresentative moderates, treating it as bilateral when it's regional, and rushing toward solutions when wounds needed acknowledgment, the entire enterprise was doomed.

Agha and Malley offer no alternative except to wait for new conditions, think new thoughts, include new voices. "Time horizons will stretch out, impervious to foreign calendars or US presidential terms, eyes fixed where they long gazed: on the ancient past and faraway future. Jews did not forget their attachment to the Holy Land after two thousand years; Palestinians will not forget in a few decades."

The book left me feeling a little unmoored. Agha and Malley demolish the peace process without replacing it. But perhaps that's the point. Perhaps we need to sit in the ruins without the comfort of solutions before anything new can emerge.

"Only then might tomorrow be sweeter than yesterday."

[Robert M A'Hearn · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.65

Content wise, there is a lot of times focused on the logistics and ultimate futility of the Oslo Accords and 2000 Camp David Summit, and their ramifications on the present day region. Both authors were in many of these diplomatic sessions. They make good if not obvious points on why all of these "attempts" for peace failed. Over time their opinions on the two state solution has soured, and they make a lot of good arguments about how improbable it is a solution and how it definitely is not the panacea for almost a century's worth of conflict that Western/Liberal actors make it out to be.

The writing made this quite a slog to get through. For context, I have read two other books and a few Wikipedia rabbit holes on this subject which by no means makes me an expert or well versed, but I feel like it gives me a good chance at digesting works about Palestine/Israel. Their verbose, academic prose, inconsistent structuring/timeline, and constant call backs and anecdotes at times makes the works frustrating but more frequently than not it makes it boring or bland. The boring/bland is not helped by the fact that they take an almost overly-neutral tone on most things. They employ a device of weighing their perception of Israel/Palestine/Any relevant parties' points of views on literally every subject matter as a form of 'both sides'ing (at times this helped me better understand other potential view points) which sometimes unequally weighs two actions or beliefs against each other that are orders of magnitudes different like Israel's existential fear of being attacked and Gazan's being forced to live in an open air prison. This impartiality just makes the arguments of the book feel so weak and voiceless. They sometimes brush up against phrases like "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing", but their neutrality honestly makes the words ring hollow.

I learned quite a bit of more specific history and arguments, but I was ultimately disappointed at the spirit or lack there of in this work.

[Harold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomorrow is Yesterday is one of the best books I have read about Israel, Palestine and the peace process, and I have read several. It takes a historical approach, but more than most books looks and the personal, political and psychological problems with the peace process, as well logical two state solution path which the US (but they point out, no one else) has clung to for 50 or more years. As they say: “The Israeli–Palestinian conflict inhabits two worlds at once: worlds of the rational and irrational, of reason and emotion.” The US in our efforts to mediate a two state solution has neglected both the political and emotional realities of the adversaries in repeated efforts to pound the square peg of two state solution into the round hole of peace. After 50 years of failure, in which the US failed to see the Palestinian point of view (and often the Israeli point of view as well) the peace process has lost all meaning and become for the parties a tool to hold on to the status quo.

While much of the book focuses on the failures of the past, albeit in a very different light than other books, at the end it does turn toward the future. As they say, “If the best argument for the two-state solution is that no other outcome will work, then it is not an option with much of a leg to stand on.” So they suggest other potential outcomes of the box options, not so much that they are solutions, but that we all need to think more broadly and inventively about how to address the problem.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tomorrow is Yesterday is a deep dive into the conflict between Israel and Palestine and particularly the involvement of the United States in attempting to be brokers of peace. I came to this book with a baseline understanding of the history and hoped it would help me be better informed on the topic. While I did learn a lot, it was incredibly dense and hard to get through. I believe this book would be better suited to someone who already has experience with the Palestine/Israel conflict and interest in the U.S. historical involvement. Both the authors are experts in their field and have the experience to show it. But such expertise makes it a difficult jump for the layman trying to get a big picture understanding of what led Israel and Palestine to the conflict there is today. This would be a great read for people within the field of foreign relations and/or conflict in the Middle East just not so great for the average reader for pleasure.

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

[Jaques · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully well written perspective on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The authors self-define as insiders and their historial account and political conclusions attest to their claim. After reading many other historical books about the creation of the state of Israel and the Palestine conflict, I found novel and refreshing perspectives here about the reasons for the failure to reach a political and geographic compromise about its long-dragging war. The authors make a concerted effort to state and critically analyze all involved parties. The described reasons for political failures are soundly exposed. The book is quire contemporaneous by looking at the post September 2023 era. My only disappointment was the brevity at which the possible future options are described, discussed and defended. Perhaps this reflect the current sad reality of the conflict. I was left with the impression that not only tomorrow is yesterday, but it brings no hope beyond the current military tragedy imposed by Israel and the US on the Palestinian population.

[Flynn Ryker · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Potent and Redundant as the Conflict Itself

J.K. Rowling once said she strategically made reading the search for the Horcruxes arduous so the reader could better appreciate the struggle experienced by the characters. Similarly, I feel Hassain and Robert wanted their readers to feel the perpetual - and arguably extraneous - cyclical rhetoric of the conflict in this text. In my opinion, both were well executed. Having said this, the book is very well written, but perhaps a bit too erudite with its vocabulary and seemingly esoteric as an inevitable byproduct. In lay terms, "bring it down a notch."

As for the content, it was exquisite! I knew a little about the key players in the Israel/Palestine conflict and a small portion of the regions general history, but I didn’t know how little I knew till now. Furthermore, I felt the outlined events and opinions issued gave me a deeper understanding of the sentiments held by all parties in ways I did not see coming. Well worth the read, but there was so much I think I need to read it again.

[Mike Hartnett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be a super frustrating read. There’s a palpable bitterness throughout—fair enough given the situation and the authors’ roles in it. But they criticize the groups they were part of endlessly without addressing what they did individually to change any of it. (I understand they were individuals in larger hierarchical groups and likely did not have the power to unilaterally change anything. It just feels a little unfair to use personal experience as a platform from which to direct so much bitterness at others while simultaneously skipping over your own failures.)

I also didn’t like the structure at all. Skips around in time, dropping anecdotes here and there. Doesn’t seem to be building much of a coherent case apart from “everything that happened was bad and wrong and we would have done it differently but we won’t say how.” Obviously the U.S. has handled this terribly from the beginning. Not a revelation to say that. But what would the authors have done differently if they could have controlled it? Not really clear.

[Doug Stotland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionally good read for me. Israel/palestine has been a decades long situation of great interest am stress for me. I’ve thought and read and listened and argued many many hours on the topic.

This was THE most illuminating and even read of all for me. I wish I graduated the read with more hope but at least feel I have a more rounded and deeper appreciation for the nuances and challenges. Also got a better framing of much of the history and culture underlying the conflict.

The authors are brilliant writers. Dry dry material presented in an easy to read and enjoy form. They know so much and impressed me as credible thinkers that anyone intending to understand such a complicated struggle would value. Also credible that anyone interested in enhancing their POV on what’s more/less fair/feasible would value.

Great read. Want to discuss with others who grew up Jewish of my vintage .

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A passionate, heartbreaking and deeply knowledgeable book by two colleagues who have been deeply involved in failed negotiations over 50 years and through this experience they have great wisdom and sobriety in imaging what could be possible in the context of that failure. Possible but unlikely- still, even to think of possibilities is a way to refrain from indulging in despair. The combination of historical knowledge, insight, sober understanding that there is no way forward without acknowledging the deepest desires and passions of the Palestinian people and of Israeli Jews, of all players in this conflict. And perhaps in some future time the United States will acknowledge our ignorance, arrogance and responsibility in maintaining the conflict. All respect to these brilliant writers. And gratitude.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard book to read.

The authors have advised leaders and been part of the middle-east-peace-negotations-industrial-process for decades. They wrote this book together cataloging how 70 years of efforts have failed and how that failure state has gotten its own momentum and staying power.

They are against the two-state solution as unworkable and unwanted by those closest to it.

They don't suggest a better one.

They ask a lot of poignant questions. One that made laugh out loud, and will haunt me: "What is the point of the United States?" (180).

The book was hard because of the subject matter, and also because it assumed a level of knowledge about the players that I lacked. It would have been helped with an index and a timeline.

I'm glad I read it. I know more about what I do not know about.

[Ahmad Alzahrani · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Tomorrow is yesterday: Israel, as it has so many times in years past, searches for alternative ways to manage Palestinian territory. It experimented with direct military rule after the 1967 war; toyed with handpicking West Bank Palestinians to do its bidding under the Village Leagues initiative in the late 1970s; gambled with the Palestinian Authority after Oslo. Tolerating Hamas’s rule in Gaza was another attempt; forcibly displacing Palestinians from their land was a recurrent desire. In most instances, Israel looked in vain for a way to control territory without governing its people, for Palestinians who were sufficiently strong and representative to maintain calm, but also domesticated, subdued, or quiescent enough not to become a threat."

[Klynn]

Soooo dense….its an 11 hour listen…I lasted an hour. It’s well written…but I can’t imagine enduring 10 more hours. What I did get from the first hour of listening-neither Israel or Palestine has ever wanted a two state solution. It has always been a lot of “words” for other nations to hear…for those other nations to feel like the peace process was going somewhere…but neither side has had a ruler that ever wanted…or thought a two state solution could work.
I applaud the tenacity of anyone who finishes this one. It’s important information…and we would all be better off with a deeper understanding of events, and motives….but I will have to garner my understanding of this complex relationship from other sources.

[Ziad Daoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did Yasser Arafat reject Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp ‎David in 2000? ‎

The authors’ account — informed by their participation in ‎the negotiations — points to three reasons:‎

‎1. The offer wasn’t serious. There were no maps, no written ‎proposals, and Barak later wrote that he only made it to ‎expose Arafat not to reach peace.‎

‎2. It wasn’t complete. Nothing on Jerusalem or refugees —‎‎only the West Bank.‎

‎3. It didn’t meet the minimum conditions acceptable to ‎the Palestinians. Their view: we’ve already conceded 80% ‎‎of historical Palestine; nothing less than 100% of the ‎‎remainder would suffice.‎

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book that is going to propose a way to peace in Palestine and Israel, but it's a good, detailed history of the past peace processes and what worked (very little) and what did not work. It also gives a cogent analysis on what was missing--addressing the core identity concerns from both the Palestinians and Israelis, reinforcing that borders, politics, money, and land are symptoms of a greater struggle and not the core debate. A worthy read as a history book, though does not plot a path forward (because no viable one exists)