Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs at the End of the Century

When a veteran Israeli diplomat such as Rabinovich tackles the daunting task of bringing clarity to the relationships between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians, readers should avail themselves of the opportunity to learn something. This lucid primer on Middle East diplomacy is timed to coincide with Israels May elections. As head of the Israeli delegation that negotiated with Syria from 1992 to 1995 and as a former ambassador to the U.S., Rabinovich had a good view of the diplomatic footwork that followed the Madrid conference and the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. While he offers summaries of Israels postCamp David cold peace with Egypt and its negotiations with PLO proxies (before direct talks), Rabinovich is most enlightening when discussing the very difficult negotiations with Syria and when demonstrating how the intricacies of domestic Isreali politics figure in the calculations of its negotiating counterparts. He is also very adept at explaining how, despite paying lip service to pan-Arab solidarity, Egypts Hosni Mubarak, Syrias Hafez al-Asad, Jordans King Hussein and PLO chairman Yasir Arafat were also competing against one another for advantage (and, frequently, for American favor). A firm advocate of the peace process, Rabinovich is cautiously optimistic. While celebrating the fact that a web of vested interests, relations and expectations condusive to peace has been established, he envisions peace arriving, if it arrives at all, haltingly, over many years and with many setbacks. (May)