The Process: 1,100 Days That Changed the Middle East

Savir, Israel's chief negotiator with the PLO from 1993 to 1996, resigned as director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry when Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition took power. His dramatic chronicle detailing three years of secret and semi-secret talks between Israel and the Palestinians--mostly in Oslo, but also in Rome, Geneva, Cairo, Tunis--is a remarkable piece of living history. As re-created here, the Oslo rounds, which led to the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat in 1993, were far more productive than the official talks in Washington. Savir accuses the Clinton administration of erring in placing little faith in the Oslo process, because it hoped, in vain as it turned out, for a breakthrough with Syria. Savir, who currently heads the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv, credits Rabin, Shimon Peres and Arafat with taking bold, unpopular decisions in their determination to break a seemingly endless cycle of violence. He portrays the complex negotiations as a marathon chess game fraught with feints, brutal confrontations and mutual suspicion, yet at their infrequent best, the participants formed a problem-solving partnership pointing the way to future Arab-Israeli cooperation. (May)