Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy
His most penetrating insight is that, in the traumatic transition from the Holocaust to independent statehood, the Jews never lost the psyche of what Levi Eshkol, Israel's wisecracking prime minister in the s, dubbed in Yiddish "Shimshon der Nebechdiker" - "poor Samson", the strong man beset by crippling insecurity who feared a pogrom round every corner.
Pessimism, a sense of vulnerability and suspicion were the enduring result. Thus it was, in the formative s, inside the young state's tortuous "Auschwitz borders", that native-born soldiers like Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon pushed strategies that fuelled the "tragic logic" of mutual misperceptions. Ben-Ami brilliantly describes the postwar euphoria: And the Palestinians, reeling from this second "nakba" catastrophe , were barely visible except as terrorists.
So when, a decade and many Israeli settlements later, Egypt's Anwar Sadat electrified the world by coming to Jerusalem to declare "no more war", the Palestinians were sidelined. Menachem Begin offered them "autonomy", but handed back the Sinai to Egypt.
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War in Lebanon, Sharon's mendacious grand design for crushing the PLO, was followed by the first intifada, the "war of the stones", when the Palestinians, as Ben-Ami quips, "discovered the power of their weakness and the Israelis the weakness of their power". It has taken suicide bombings to drive the message home. On the ornithological scale of Israeli politics, Ben-Ami is a "dove" who has long advocated a two-state solution. Oxford University Press, In the latter capacity, he played a critical role in the Camp David summit in , as well as further negotiations at Taba and Sharm al-Sheikh extending into His perspective is thus informed by a combination of dispassionate scholarly insight and hands-on policy-making experience.
Despite Ben-Ami's involvement with the Labor Party, this is not a partisan tirade. Surprisingly, by contrast he has a good deal of admiration for Menachem Begin.
Essentially, he argues that the much heralded Labor leaders all missed a series of opportunities to open peace negotiations with various Arab regimes, especially Egyptians. He is especially hard on Golda Meir, whom he regards as rigid and unimaginative. By contrast, he sees Begin as a visionary dramatist, enabling him to become the first Israeli prime minister to seize the diplomatic opening provided by Anwar Sadat, leading to the revolutionary Camp David summit of and the first formal peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state. Ben-Ami further sees Camp David as laying the foundations for the Oslo process, in that it established an autonomy plan for the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, and the creation of a Palestinian police force.
In other words, although Begin achieved his immediate goal of a free hand in the territories in exchange for full withdrawal from the Sinai, he was unintentionally laying the groundwork for future peace negotiations with the Palestinians. None of the Camp David principals Begin, Sadat, and President Carter favored or intended to permit the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Ben-Ami notes caustically that they nevertheless invited the Palestinians to join the Camp David process for the purpose of attaining limited autonomy.
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Mar 19, Al-anoud Al-Sarhan rated it really liked it. What was of paticualr interest,was the palestinian family names Ben ami mention,who evidently sold their lands to the jews. However,knowing that many of those families reside in jordan.
Scars of War, Wounds of Peace
Sep 15, Liam J rated it really liked it. Interesting to read from viewpoint of moderate Israeli. Good history of region from s. Jun 21, Alonzo rated it it was amazing Shelves: 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 excuse A thorough and well-written work on this tragic conflict, that even as I started reading this was in the media headlines, again. He makes an effort to show how both sides have dropped the ball in the peace process, and makes no excuses for either: 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. Oct 16, Stanley Friedland rated it it was amazing.
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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. Oct 18, Matt rated it really liked it. 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.