Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy

by Shlomo Ben-Ami

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami was a key figure in the Camp David negotiations and many other rounds of peace talks, public and secret, with Palestinian and Arab officials. Here he offers an unflinching account of the Arab-Israeli conflict, informed by his firsthand knowledge of the major characters and events.

Clear-eyed and unsparing, Ben-Ami traces the twists and turns of the Middle East conflict and gives us behind-the-scenes accounts of the meetings in Oslo, Madrid, and Camp David. The author paints particularly trenchant portraits of key figures from Ben-Gurion to Bill Clinton. He is highly critical of both Ariel Sharon and the late Yasser Arafat, seeing Arafat's rejection of Clinton's peace plan as a crime against the Palestinian people. The author is also critical of President Bush's Middle East policy, which he calls "a presumptuous grand strategy." Along the way, Ben-Ami highlights the many blunders on both sides, describing for instance how the great victory of the Six Day War launched many Israelis on a misbegotten "messianic" dream of controlling all the Biblical Jewish lands, which only served to make the Palestinian problem much worse. In contrast, it has only been when Israel has suffered setbacks that it has made moves towards peace. The best hope for the region, he
concludes, is to create an international mandate in the Palestinian territories that would lead to the implementation of Clinton's two-state peace parameters.

Scars of War, Wounds of Peace is a major work of history--with by far the most fair and balanced critique of Israel ever to come from one of its key officials. This paperback edition features a new Epilogue by the author featuring an analysis of the most recent events in the Israeli-Arab situation, from the disappearance of Ariel Sharon from public life to the emergence of Hamas and Israel's recent war against Hizballah. It is an absolute must-read for everyone who wants to understand the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East, Israel, Politics, The World, War

432 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2005

Reviews

[Kaleb Wulf · Rating 4 out of 5]

We were separated by a gigantic and high wall which you tried to build throughout a quarter of a century, but it was destroyed in 1973. It was a wall of constant psychological warfare which kept smoldering and escalating. It was a wall of intimidation by brandishing a powerful force, capable of the entire Arab nation from one end to another. It was a wall that alleged that the Arab nation had turned into a sweeping lifeless corpse... It was a wall that always threatened us with the use of the long arm capable of reaching any position in the Arab world. It was a wall that threatened us with annihilation and destruction should we try to use our legitimate right to liberate our occupied lands.

We must admit together that this wall fell and was destroyed in 1973. But another wall remained.

This other wall forms a complicated psychological barrier between us; a barrier made of suspicion; a barrier of animosity; a barrier of fear, of deception; a barrier of doubt about any action or decision; a barrier of erroneous, cautious interpretation of every event or statement.

This psychological barrier is what I meant when I said in official statements that it constitutes seventy percent of the problem. I ask you today - through my visit to you - why don't we extend our hands in faith in sincerity, to shatter this barrier together?

- President Anwar Sadat's speech to the Israeli Parliament, 1977

I've been thinking about a lot, in particular the 2 million Palestinian Arabs that live within Israel. It shocked me to learn that large of a Palestinian population could live side by side with Israelis and no one talks about it in relation to current events. It's been floating in my head since about halfway through this book. I've been struggling to put a number of contradictory thoughts in order and find myself failing and losing motivation.

I think the problem is I kinda hate both sides of this conflict.

Hate is a strong word and sure I feel sympathy for the people out of control of the situation and suffering the most, but reading about people who choose war so readily, no matter the justification, makes the sympathy wane. Neither side will acknowledge the mistakes they have made or the suffering they have caused. I'm also not an expert or a genius, so instead of trying to summarize the conflict, I will just detail a few of the things that surprised me from dissecting it, things that seem missing from the mess of social media.

1. Idealist solutions in which neither side sacrifices something will never go anywhere. Ben-Ami's wrap up on Yasser Arafat illustrates the point well

That the hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian peace were frustrated was the responsibility of both sides. The inbred capacity of the Israelis to abandon the politics of fait accompli, and their obsession with settlements in the occupied territories, were a major reason for the despair of the Palestinians. The hopes of peace were also wrecked on the rocks of a dysfunctional Palestinian system led by a leader, Arafat, incapable of renouncing the drug of Palestinian martyrdom, and fearful of the task of leading the big leap to the end of the conflict... Arafat's rejection of the Clinton peace parameters was as a close witness to the process, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Bandar Bin Sultan, defined it, "a crime against the Palestinian people and peoples of the region". Arafat should be given credit for being the initiator of the political peace process with the 1988 Algiers Declaration. But in Algiers he also established the conditions for a settlement with Israel from which he never deviated. To him, the peace process was not meant to be an open ended give and take. He had already given, now he had only to take: a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, the right of return for the refugees, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

2. The bravest steps forward taken by Israeli's were ALWAYS from former hawks.

Learning the backstory of Yitzhak Rabin as a renown general during the 1967 war, at the time saying he will march all the way to Cairo, then 20 years later being the first Prime Minister to open the doors to negotiations with Palestinians, complicates the simple peacenik narrative a lot of people have about him. Of course, no one is simple, especially people in this region faced with impossible decisions. For example, I have a lot of problems with Menachem Begin, but I have to appreciate the insanity of his entire life. In college, he leads self-defense groups in Poland to protect Jews from pogroms and harassment, but he gets captured in Vilnius by Russians in the midst of an invasion coordinated with Germany. In the shake up during Germany's betrayal of Russia, he is released from prison and wiggles his way out to British Palestine, where he had been sending smuggled Jews from out of Poland. Begin joins the Irgun and works his way to leadership, emphasizing sabotage and terrorist attacks against British and Palestinian civilians. He makes enemies of the major Jewish fighting force, the Haganah, by refusing to moderate and incorporate into the IDF, so they fire upon his ship outside of Tel-Aviv. Begin narrowly escapes and swims away. A lot of these early experiences make him think of himself as some messianic figure with an inflated sense of destiny. I could talk about all the insane shit this guy has said and done, but I'm about to skip A LOT to point out 30 years later he has made his way to the seat of Prime Minister. And he is the one to sign peace with Israel's constant adversary Egypt.

There are so many stories like this (see Ariel Sharon, Moshe Dayan), but Ben-Ami repeats, the doves in Israel are never able to deliver on peace, it is ALWAYS the hawks. Even the delusional Menachem Begin. He gives a few reasons that come in and out of the forefront. It may be that dove coalition governments are always too tenuous to carry peace talks long. Maybe the Arab nations and Palestinians find themselves more willing to work with someone they consider a military equal, someone the Arabs have battled into the negotiation table, regaining a sense of pride lost in 1949. Maybe it's a sort of instinct of military strategy that allows them to know when it is the right moment to strike a deal. But it is ALWAYS the hawks.

3. Here's the frustrating thing for me and what makes me hate this conflict.

The competing narratives of national birth and the diverging tactics between Israel and Palestine poison the peace process. I'll start with Israel.

Jews, by nature of their exclusion and oppression in Europe/Russia prior to Zionism seems to have made them an incredibly tenacious people (the hard times make strong men theory). It has also made them color blind to any oppression aside from their own, someone I know refers to it as a sort of national autism. For the entire creation of Israel, this combination has made Israelis be RUTHLESSLY pragmatic when it comes to the defense of Zionism. They work on all cylinders, strengthening the army, soliciting support from world Jewry, negotiate deals with Western nations, build a modern country on top of bullshit arid land with no resources, integrate slowly with the Arab nations when they can, they do it all - except cave on issues regarding the Palestinians. For so long, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were the last thing that Israelis wanted to handle. It still is to a certain extent. And this is partly because of the Israeli mythos. "We were a people from nothing, who defended ourselves from enemies on all sides, we who came and built something from nothing". But there wasn't nothing

Palestinians, by nature of being an agrarian people living in a pretty inactive region of a collapsing Ottoman Empire, seems to have made them a simple, but innocent people facing a mass migration of European/Russian Jews to their lands (the good times make weak men theory). It's no wonder that this incredibly weak, tenuous Mandatory system led to a lot of disorder and confusion between Arab nations-in-progress, which is to a certain extent exploited by these Western Jews. There isn't much of a Palestinian identity at first, but the two peoples in conflict brings out a unifying feature, displacement and dispossesion. For the entire history of Palestinian struggle, this combination has led to a culture of restoring pride and dignity. It may be clunky but something is budding, they're living as refugees, but they have the support of the Arab world. The Arabs lose battle after battle and start signing peace agreements with Israel, but the Palestinians don't give up. Hard decisions have to be made, but miraculously effective resistance networks are set up. Universities somehow sprout up, making Palestinians the most educated Arabs in the region. Propaganda fronts, international refugee support, connections with regional militias - until the entirety of a society is centered around achieving justice. "We were a people wronged and abandoned, and we will not be ignored, we will not give up, every setback will be met with a new way to fight, and we will fight forever". But you can't fight forever.

These narratives feed into each other in a vicious way. They justify endless settlements and continuous rockets. I don't even think a one state or a two state solution solves the problem because the narratives are virtually incompatible and deeply ingrained. A one state solution with demographic you don't trust and threatens your safety builds towards civil war. A two state solution with heavily monitored partition lines and suspicion/grudges/unfinished business conjures images of the North/South Korea demilitarized zone, rockets testing nearby. The only thing that pushes the peace process forward is a reconciliation of narratives and that only happens in dialogue, working with each other. I keep thinking about the 2 million Palestinians in Israel that are never mentioned. And then I read an article about work permits being revoked for West Bank Palestinians. And it all feels like the hardening of these narratives and taking step by step backwards.

I look forward to not thinking about Israel or Palestine for a very long time

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly intelligent, nuanced, balanced account of the origins and course (up to 2006) of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict, written by the man who was one of Barak's chief negotiators at Camp David II. Highly recommended.

[abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben-Ami provides a very honest, balanced and insightful perspective on the history of the state of Israel, its turbulent history and relationship with its Arab neighbours. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace is likely the most objective and analytical history that can be found written by an Israeli - particularly, a former foreign minister who negotiated in peace negotiations with Arafat during Camp David II. He is sensitive to and realistic about the plight of the Palestinians, and conveys in a very straightforward manner the series of tragic wars and varied peace initiatives that culminated in Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 at the time of this book’s publication. Starkly, there is very little in the way of progress of peace with the Palestinians since this history was written, and rather a sharp return to the ‘capsule theory’ of peace with other surrounding countries that Ben-Ami was critical of in the book. Despite the disheartening lack of progress since its publication, this book provides a very important and interesting perspective, and Ben-Ami’s sincerity and concern surrounding the peace process is very valuable and appreciated at such a difficult and heartbreaking moment in the history of Israel and Palestine. I was pleased to find that he has written some fantastic articles across a number of publications recently, and am glad to have found a rational and highly analytical voice in him through this book.

[Brian Magid]

you can tell what the glaring biases will be just from the title but this is valuable for its close, personal detailing of the author’s experiences at the camp david summit and for articulating the basic premises of how the tel aviv israeli liberal bloc (now an endangered, if not entirely extinct species) viewed the post-mortem of the peace process. basically this is the last argument for liberal zionism, as the political horizon which allowed for its existence comes crashing down around the author in its final pages (late 2003). startling now to read the way ben-ami’s worst case scenarios are not even close to how bad things are. what he has to say about the israeli political system is inevitably much more valuable than what he has to say about the palestinians, about arafat and his inner circle, about their strivings and their philosophies. his diagnosis of the contradiction of israeli self conception is correct: they can’t be at once a powerful regional power and a jewish ghetto always awaiting the next pogrom, a member of the global village with defined borders and a yishuv seeking more land grabs. but he stops short of saying what my own conclusion is: that this contradiction is precisely the template out of which a politics of fascism emerges. fascism is the ideology by which this exact contradictory self-conception, by no means unique in its broad strokes to israel, is reconciled. fascism masterfully imbues a society’s political fabric with a circular logic that at once dramatizes its strength though the deployment of the indomitable military apparatus and re-entrenches its sense of victimhood through the fearfulness and reciprocal violence that these displays breed. The acquisition of strength and territory (the basic fascist prerogative) bolsters both conceptions, but in the very act of reconciling the contradiction it deepens the gap between its two constituent elements, which of course can only be reconciled with more acquisition of strength and territory. a vicious, addictive feedback loop. ben-ami’s book, when viewed through this lens, becomes an instructive example of liberalism’s fundamental shortcomings when up against the forces that breed fascist ethnonationalism, forces encoded in israel’s DNA. in the wake of oct 7th, israel’s sudden, vivid return to a feeling of weakness and emasculation galvanized the political sector, the military apparatus and in turn the vast majority of civil society towards the ultimate and inevitable project of the fascist paradigm: genocide. it is strange to read this sober, pious, weak liberal analysis, beating the drum that israel is drunk with power, on the other side of this new and terrible escalation. i wish i was less obsessed with this period of 90s unipolarity in I/P and the peace process with its bullshit overtures but i find myself drawn constantly into its mire, not in the least because it’s the source of the american jewish community’s most persistent and aggravating justification: we offered them a state and they didn’t want it. i am left sorting through the wreckage of this shitty process and this shitty deal trying to find a counterargument, when, like everything around this subject i argue about with my jewish elders and peers, the frame of the discussion is already wrong, already geared towards its own conclusion, its own justification, its own flat and unthoughtful defense mechanism. my own vicious feedback loop. back into the mire i go.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very information-dense and some background knowledge on the issue would be helpful prior to reading it. I was looking for a nuanced perspective on the Israel/Palestine conflict and this definitely fit the bill. I came away with a better understanding of why this conflict has not been resolved and why both sides own some of the blame.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Ben-Ami gives a detailed and well balanced accounting for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In terms of the formatting of the book Ben-Ami gives an accounting of what Palestine did wrong and/or well(no strong leaders for peace, weak leaders, not accepting any deals/not coming to peace discussions in good faith), then gives an account of what Israel did wrong and/or well (creating more and more settlements keeping peace further and further away, taking more and more land off the back of terrrorist attacks from palestine, Israel never being the bigger person when close to peace, Israel not helping relations between Israelis and Palestinian-Israelis living in Israel) then sometimes gives his thoughts or opinions which I think gives a lot of credibility as an author for a contentious topic.

Toward the end of the book I took note of a comment Ben-Ami made which was; "The middle east is a cemetery of missed opportunities" which I think is a perfect sentence and sentiment to end his book.

[Al-anoud Al-Serhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy reading personal accounts like this one, they tend to have an interesting approach to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and the road to Madrid and Oslo.
What’s of particular interest to me is the palestinian families Ben ami mentioned , who evidently sold their lands to the jews according to him. I don't know if it matters much whether lands were sold or confiscated, because there isn't much land left for the Palestinians now, with the illegal expansion of settlements and ongoing systemic killing of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.

[Will Nassau · Rating 3 out of 5]

honest, uncomfortably honest. should be read by anyone who doubts that statehood is a bloody birth with villains on both sides.

[Dewey Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first full novel I've read cover to cover on this topic, so I'm by no means an expert. But from what I can tell, this is an extremely in depth, and impartial look into the Israeli-Arab conflict. Ben-Ami, as a key Israeli negotiator in the Camp David summit, is unafraid of casting a critical eye towards his own people and party to show the wrongs that were committed on all sides. Even giving a in depth look at what the international community has done to further, or in some cases hamper, the various peace opportunities that were missed by all sides.

While not the best book for an introduction into this conflict, as he does often times assume at least a basic understanding of the struggle, making it so as at least this reader had to spend a good chunk of time while reading looking up various historical and political references, it does serve as an unbiased view of the conflict ranging for the early 1920s, to the post Clinton parameters of the early 2000s.

If I could give more than 5 stars, I would.

[Bicho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otro muy buen broli de Shlomo Ben-Ami. Se trata de un recorrido por las diferentes negociaciones de paz entre Israel y el mundo árabe, obviamente desde una perspectiva sionista “progresista”. Lo mejor, como siempre, es la autocrítica y la (aunque sea limitada) objetividad con las que Ben-Ami toca todos estos temas.
Shlomo Ben-Ami fue parte de las negociaciones de paz de Camp David en el año 2000, por eso, y por haber estudiado el tema en profundidad, es tan esencialmente significativa su visión de los hechos, en los que se despacha tanto contra palestinos como contra israelíes por todas las oportunidades de paz perdidas.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. For a Jewish boy growing up in a Zionistic home and school environment, this book was eye opening. It helped me see so much of the historiography that I was raised with and how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is truly due to a failure on all sides to be bold in trying to reach pragmatic and just resolutions. It is especially appreciated to see a writer who is clearly a Zionist-- and has served in some of the highest positions in the Israeli government-- also be so understanding of the Palestinian plight. This is the book they should be using to teach modern Jewish history in Jewish day schools.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent even though it took me months to finish. It covers such a long period of time, and from so many angles that it's understandably pretty dense although not actually that long. This was the best explainer of the history of the conflict on a political level that I've read so far, it gives great insight into what motivated various decisions and movements in the conflict, particularly at exposing how in many instances it was motivated by total misunderstandings and neuroses on both sides that I think are not obvious to an outside observer but were real driving forces in so many disastrous decisions. Very balanced and also very readable.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book to learn the history of the Israel-Arab backdrop in light of what is happening between Israel and Gaza today. Wow! What a history lesson it was!
\My head is reeling. To say it is complicated is a huge understatement. Much of the book went over my head as I don't have any prior knowledge of this history. I am very glad I read the book and I will look to other works by this author.

[Kayley Breslin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This had so much potential man. But I really didn’t enjoy the writing. So bland and so many run-on sentences. Also some of the things he said were actually just wild. I know it was written a long time ago but holy moly it’s so out of touch

[Liam J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read from viewpoint of moderate Israeli. Good history of region from 1940s.

[Alonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough and well-written work on this tragic conflict, that even as I started reading this was in the media headlines, again.

Ben-Ami is Israeli, but his book is as objectively written as I have read. He doesn't give easy, pat answers to the problem; and, he doesn't try to pigeonhole the problem into this or that category. It's not all about religion; and it is also not all about politics.

He makes an effort to show how both sides have dropped the ball in the peace process, and makes no excuses for either: making it quite clear that both sides have done atrocious things to the other.

If you want to get up to date on what is happening in this critical geographical location and what has gone on before, this is an excellent place to begin.

I took a while for my first read through because I wanted the depth as well as the breadth of what was and is happening in this conflict.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about as balanced as your going to find a history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Schlomo Ben-ami was a former foreign minister of Israel under Barak, but he sympathizes a great deal with the Palestinians.

[Stanley Friedland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an history of the modern Middle East and Israel state. It is of a very rare intelligence in its understanding of war and peace process.
The tragedy of history is examined with courage sincerity and intelligence.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben-Ami is of the more sympathetic Israelis ever to have negotiated with the Palestinians.