Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs, 1948-2003 [Paperback]

The previous reviewer uses this review to express her own political biases that have little to do with this book. Rabinovich is a pro- peace liberal, you are not if you prefer Sharansky. I don't know what Malter's credentials are but a consensus is building that conservative Israelis killed the Oslo Accords not Arafat. It was a bad deal for everyone. There will never be a two state solution as long as the haredim control Jerusalem and the IDF generals control the government. Most politically active Israelis don't want peace because no one (not even the US)can make them accept the Palestinians as equals deserving rights to live where they were born.

Why isn't there peace? Well, it could be partly due to all the incitement against Jews having rights in the Middle East. It could be in part due to all the antizionist propaganda, and to the support for such propaganda at the UN, in the European Union, among the Arabs, and in much of the international media. It could be plenty of things. It could be in part due to insisting on blaming the wrong party much of the time.

That's why this book, which does have quite a few facts in it, seems to be less than what one would hope it to be.

There are a couple of places where the author had a chance to make a statement that would help put blame where it belongs and thus promote peace. At one point, Rabinovich quotes some folks who blamed Israel for the collapse of the 2000 Camp David "peace" talks. According to the quote, the Arabs "were more resigned to the two-state solution than they were willing to embrace it; they were willing to accept Israel's existence but not its moral legitimacy."

Well, this is just the place to say something strong against some extremist attitudes. Aggression is a crime. Obviously, to get it to stop, it will not suffice to convince a criminal that he or she ought not attack one particular victim for a little while and ought to concentrate on others instead! If it is legitimate for any human to exist, it is legitimate for Israelis and Israel to exist. If there is a complaint with some Israelis or with some Israeli action, those individuals and particular actions need to be questioned, not the right of humans to exist in general.

Agreement on moral legitimacy is a key and essential element of peace.

Moreover, I think we need to ask ourselves about the wisdom of a "two-state" solution that everyone wants except the combatants. Israel is small. It is land-poor. Why should it be forced to cede land? Shouldn't it be forced to buy it instead? Why should we force another Arab state on the world, one whose only purpose is to attack a neighboring state? If people want to live together, we ought to allow it. If not, we ought to help draw a border between them, not maliciously decide how much land to steal from an already land-poor minority. A minority that will be banned from living on the wrong side of the border!

But the author let all this pass, not seeming to realize that an insistence on having a right to slander, rob, ban, evict, and kill Jews is unacceptable, whether that "right" is enforceable or not. A "colorblind" approach to the problem was needed, where people would have rights no matter who they were. But that was unthinkable to the peacemakers as well as to the author.

Rabinovich had another chance to try to make a case to me. After all, I am a liberal and I am very open-minded. He did say that Ephraim Karsh, a noted historian, had said that accepting Arafat as a peace partner was "the single gravest strategic error committed by an Israeli government since the establishment of the state." The author disagrees. I suspect that Karsh is correct. Still, Rabinovich had a chance to make a case against Karsh. And I found the author quite unconvincing.

Read something else. I recommend Sharansky's book.