Abstract
Recognizing the important role played by the United States, Samuel Jacob Kuruvilla sets out to explain Washington’s ‘involvement in conflict resolution’ between Israel and her neighbors in his U.S. Diplomacy in Israel–Palestine Conflict. By focusing exclusively on the role of the US, the author is able to offer a compelling perspective on various American attempts in resolving the vexed Arab–Israeli conflict. One cannot deny that the history of the Israeli–Arab conflict is deeply entwined with the US playing ‘a peacemaker, albeit a biased one’ (p. xvi).
The author builds a timeline through the nine connected chapters which primarily focuses on the direct involvement of the US in the conflict since the early 1950s until the end of 2013. Each chapter contains both the Israeli as well as the Arab perspectives of the various negotiation tactics adopted by the US. Using various United Nations resolutions and peace agreements, Kuruvilla highlights the biased nature of diplomacy used by the US to compel the Palestinians to make several territorial concessions which were insufficient for the Israeli governments to accept the terms placed by the US. This, in his assessment, has resulted in creating a fatigue for the ‘so-called Peace Process that does not adequately reflect the realities on the ground’ (p. 172).
The author gives a detailed analysis of the bilateral equations of each US President with the Israeli and Palestinian leadership to showcase the lack of trust among the three partners. The dynamic roles played by President Bill Clinton as compared to President George W. Bush as well as President Barack Obama have been highlighted in various chapters. The author points out that the ‘hands-on’ approach adopted by President Clinton rather than ‘behind-the-scenes’ approach by Presidents Bush and Obama has caused great frustration and speculations regarding the biased nature of the US diplomacy (p. 187).
With these underlying strands, the author begins the book on a historical note giving details of the early American involvement and its perspectives on the Mandate Palestine. He points out that since the establishment of a ‘new political creed called Zionism in 1897...’, Palestine emerged as a central issue to the ‘World Jewry and also the State Department of the United States’ (p. 6). This, along with the fear of the Soviet Union seeking to influence the region, coerced the US to recognize Israel within minutes after the ‘latter’s formation...’ (p. 12). Kuruvilla gives a series of factors which resulted in the US establishing this unprecedented relation with Israel, such as the guilt of Holocaust, a humanitarian impulse towards thousands of refugees, Jewish duty in creating the ‘promised land’, idealism, religion, ignorance of the region, and the containment of communism in the region (pp. 13–14). He then tries to analyze these factors in the initial period of the Israeli–Arab conflict (1948–78) and explains the subsequent American support to the Israeli side.
In the second and third chapters, the author provides a detailed picture of the aftermath of the Camp David Accords signed on September 17, 1978, which ‘fundamentally altered the strategic map of the Middle East’ (p. 30). However, adopting a pessimistic view, he argues that the ‘accords only served to undermine the aim of Palestinian self-determination and their hopes of creating an independent state...’ resulting in the partial success (p. 47). Nevertheless, the negotiation process revealed the lack of ‘credible mediator in the search for solution to the Palestinian problem’ (p. 49). Things changed under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Clinton wherein ‘the basic contours of a future Israel–Palestine were set but an actual peace settlement remained elusive’ (p. 50). Several peace proposals such as Reagan Plan, Fahd Plan, Fez Charter, Hussein–Arafat Accord, Shultz Plan, Israeli Peace Initiative, Madrid Peace Conference, Oslo Accords, Cairo Agreement, Oslo II Accord, Hebron Protocol, and Wye River Memorandum were many such attempts during this period.
In further chapters, the author discusses in great detail about the unsuccessful Camp David II Summit and Clinton’s efforts to bring about peace in the region. He examines the arguments put across by both Israelis and the Arabs on the ‘final status issues’ (pp. 78–79). However, the failure of the summit raised questions about Clinton’s role in the mediation process, which according to the author, points out that ‘all Clinton’s acting skills were easily visible at Camp David’ (p. 91).
In the sixth chapter, the author provides a historical perspective of the Palestinian politics which seems to be out of sync with the time sequence followed in the previous chapters. It starts with a detailed analysis of the early Palestinian resistance movement followed by examining the rise of Hamas as an important player in the conflict. The chapter also spells out the reasons behind the popularity of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, it barely touches upon the Hamas–Fatah relations or the various unsuccessful reconciliation efforts.
In the following two chapters, the author continues his perusal of the various attempts made by the US ‘to bring about a negotiated peace between Israel and its neighbors’ (p. 133). The Clinton Parameters, Road Map for Palestinian–Israeli Peace, the Annapolis Conference, and the subsequent initiatives taken by Secretary of State John Kerry are examined in great detail. Kuruvilla concludes that the ‘common problem with all the peace plans attempted by the Palestinians and the Israelis was that, very often the parties concerned failed to carry out, to a sufficient extent the minimum of goodwill measures necessary for the peace process to move forward’ (p. 172). In the last chapter, he looks into the Obama presidency and his efforts towards the peace process, which had also resulted in failure. In Kuruvilla’s words, ‘Obama...ended up losing his commitment to this process in the face of the roadblocks that he has to encounter along the way’. He correctly argues that despite Obama’s frustration with Netanyahu’s maneuverings in the peace talks, the bilateral relations between the US and Israel had improved steadily during this period and concludes with a warning to the US to ‘project itself as an impartial mediator...while taking into consideration the vast differences in both the Palestinian and Israeli view of the conflict...’ (p. 186).
While the thrust of the book is contemporary and engaging, it falls short on providing a balanced understanding of the US diplomacy in the conflict. There is more emphasis on Israel and its influence on the US rather than the various negotiations that took place between Palestinian leaders like Arafat and the US. It misses out on various key factors that pushed the Palestinians to seek the help of the US to act as a mediator when it was commonly known and understood that the US was biased towards Israel. The American bias in favor of Israel is public knowledge and hence it would have been useful if the author raised the question: What made the Palestinians continue to rely on Washington to pursue their political agenda? Alternatively, why other major powers proved to be ineffective in bringing about a settlement to the Arab–Israeli conflict?
More importantly, the book lacks serious academic strictness and while several primary sources were cited, it lacks rigorous analysis of the same. The book has several typographical errors which sometimes change the meaning or present an incorrect depiction of what the author wants to convey. His excessive reliance on a few sources to justify his claims is also a weakness. Furthermore, the book barely discusses various theories of negotiations and lacks a proper theoretical framework, even though the book starts with a discussion on the American perception of the present day negotiation theories (pp. 1–3). The author fails to apply various theories on negotiations. Nevertheless, the book is a welcome addition on the subject and would provide some understanding of the role played by the US in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In this age of cyberspace and online materials, reproduction of original documents that run to over 100 pages appears to be a padding exercise. Samuel Jacob Kuruvilla’s maiden book U.S. Diplomacy in Israel–Palestine Conflict has to be read within these limitations and shortcomings.