A Fire in Zion: The Israeli-Palestinian Search for Peace

Based on interviews with PLO chief Yassir Arafat, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and other key participants in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, Perry's study is a major entry in the literature of modern diplomacy, tracking the slow process of reconciliation from the beginning of the Palestinian intifada in 1987 to the signing of the ``Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements'' last year. His report on the back-channel Oslo meetings between PLO economist Abu Alaa and Israeli representative Yair Hirschfeld, a Haifa University history professor, is skillfully counterpointed by an account of Rabin's wrangles with Jewish-American lobbying groups who objected to any compromise on the Palestinian question and an inside look at the 1993 internal challenge to Arafat's leadership of the PLO. A talented historian with a narrative gift, Perry ( Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA ) describes the confluence of events over a six-year period that climaxed in the compromise agreement sealed with Rabin and Arafat's widely publicized handshake on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. Photos. (June)