Prophets without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution

by Shlomo Ben-Ami

Overview

A high-level insider's history of the efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from 2000 Camp David Talks to the present, that explains why successive attempts have all failed. The clash between Israel and Palestine has been one of the most emotionally engaging causes of modern times. Prophets without Honor tells the story of the grueling attempts to solve the conflict and examines the reasons for its resilience. Shlomo Ben-Ami, who participated at a high level in the July 2000 Camp David peace talks that almost led to a historic deal, uses his insider experience to illuminate the specific factors that impede a solution to the conflict. He finds that the occupation's traits of permanence, Israel's insatiable quest for Lebensraum, and a hopelessly fragmented and disoriented Palestinian national movement are to blame. Ben-Ami challenges the funereal historiography that emerged in the wake of the Camp David process, when--for the first time ever--Israelis and Palestinians engaged in the Sisyphean task of breaking the taboos surrounding the conflict. The Clinton Peace Parameters that emerged out of this process eventually became the litmus test of every serious peace proposal in the future. But ill-conceived perceptions of the other party, all-or-nothing theological fanaticism, and a lack of bold and enlightened leadership have made these attempts at peace-making a defining failure of the two-state concept. Ben-Ami scrutinizes the ominous alternatives to the two-state solution, such as the binational state, a unilateral pullout from much of the West Bank, and Donald Trump's Deal of the Century. He also examines the merits of a Jordanian-Palestinian solution. In discussing Palestine from a comparative perspective, he underlines its singularity while also shedding light on the dilemmas that stand at the center of any peace enterprise. Ultimately, his account is the most non-partisan, comprehensive, and balanced written by an insider representing one of the parties.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190060497
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Shlomo Ben-Ami is an Oxford-trained historian with a long academic career who later served as Israel's ambassador in Madrid and then as foreign minister in Ehud Barak's government. He participated in the July 2000 Camp David peace summit with President Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He subsequently led the Israeli negotiating team in all the phases of the peace process down to the last ditch attempt to save the peace at Taba in January 2001. Never before had Israelis and Palestinians been so close to reaching a peace accord. After leaving politics, Ben-Ami founded the Toledo Peace Centre in Spain. He is also the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace (Oxford).

Table of Contents

Introduction Part I - The Camp David Process Chapter 1. First Steps, Harsh Truths Chapter 2. "A Secluded Northern Castle" Chapter 3. Back to Square One Chapter 4. The Jordan Valley on the Agenda Chapter 5. Pre-Summit at Andrews Chapter 6. A Conceivable Endgame? Chapter 7. The (Unfulfilled) Promise of an American Steamroller Chapter 8. Misguided Beginnings Chapter 9. Clinton: "We Have Exhausted the Beauty of this Place" Chapter 10. A Gamechanger (or so It Looked..) Chapter 11. O Jerusalem (and Its Lies) Chapter 12. "Arafat is Interested in a Crisis" Chapter 13. Albright's Intermezzo: Clinton's Last Push Chapter 14. Our Faintest Hour Chapter 15. Arafat: "Barak Has Gone Beyond my Partner Rabin" Chapter 16. Making Most of Success Chapter 17. Moments of Grace at Precipice Edge Chapter 18. "With Our Blood and Soul We'll Redeem Palestine" Chapter 19. A Savage War for Peace? Chapter 20. Trapped in No-Win Conditions Chapter 21. Unable to Either Inspire or Intimidate Chapter 22. Arafat: "We Have to Work Quickly and Seriously" Chapter 23. The Clinton Peace Parameters Chapter 24. "A Crime Against the Palestinian People" Chapter 25. Barak in a Cage of Doves Chapter 26. Taba: "The Boss Doesn't want an Agreement" Chapter 27. Post Mortem Part II - Defying the Logic of Conflict Resolution Chapter 28. A Story of Promise and Deceit ( 2001- 2020 ) Chapter 29. The Occupation's Traits of Permanence Chapter 30. The Insoluble Paradox of the Two-State Solution Chapter 31. Ominous Denouements Chapter 32. Exit Oslo, Enter Madrid: The Jordanian - Palestinian Option Chapter 33. A Comparative Perspective Epilogue Bibliography Maps: Last Peace Offer at Camp David, July 2000 The Clinton Peace Parameters, December 2000 The Israeli Territorial Offer at Taba, 2001 The Palestinian Territorial Offer at Taba The Israeli Territorial Proposal, Annapolis 2008 West Bank Jewish and Palestinian Localities The Geneva Initiative Peace Plan, 2003 Sahul Arieli's Optimal Peace Map Ehud Olmert's Unilateral Convergence Plan, 2006 The Allon Plan

Editorial Reviews

"Ben-Ami provides a clear-eyed and balanced view of all the options and provides a necessary clearing out of all the worn-out cliches, myths, and shibboleths that have enveloped this long conflict." — Martin Green, Jewish Books Council

"I am one of those prophets who lost his honor by ending a war of more than half a century in my country. I did it with the invaluable advice of my good friend Shlomo Ben-Ami, whose profound knowledge and experience in the difficult art of peacemaking is demonstrated in this fascinating book. Anyone who wants to understand the nature and immense complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and why it is so different from any other conflict, must read Prophets without Honor. I certainly learned a lot." — Juan Manuel Santos, 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Former President of Colombia

"Ben-Ami combines the skills of a professional historian with first-hand experience of the policymaker to produce a highly readable, illuminating, and riveting account of the Israeli-Palestinian quest for peace. His account is enhanced by vivid pen-portraits of the principal players, perceptive analysis of the obstacles on the road to peace, genuine soul-searching, and a most thoughtful distillation of the lessons of history. The book is a must read for would-be peacemakers and for anyone interested in this bitter, protracted, and intractable conflict." — Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford, and author of The Iron Wall

"Prophets without Honor is a masterpiece—sad, tragic, and true. Part V, "Defying the Logic of Conflict Resolution," left me breathless, with its transcendent analysis of the Israel-Palestine conundrum within the context of global conflicts." — Daniel Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University and former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel

"In this fascinating, deeply insightful, and painfully honest account of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and their consequences, Ben-Ami brings the perspective of both an insider negotiator and outsider scholar to understanding the world's best-known intractable conflict. While analyzing the enormous obstacles to progress, he offers nuanced historical lessons that illuminate the long and hard path forward to a possible peace. Highly recommended for all those interested in conflict resolution and Middle Eastern history and politics." — William Ury, coauthor of Getting to Yes and co-founder of Harvard's Program on Negotiation

"A keen acolyte of the human condition, Ben-Ami conveys sparkle to a dark, mean and cruel conflict, affords depth to shallow, tragic and devious alley cats, trails a tortuous road to nowhere and delivers lush scholarship to an arid landscape exuding a unique generosity of spirit. A cavernous sense of melancholy casts a deep shadow as if echoing: 'He that increaseth wisdom, increaseth sorrow.' The ghost of Schopenhauer hovers over a scintillating thriller of political psychology." — Hussein Agha, Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, University of Oxford, and coauthor of A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine

"A detailed, provocative, brilliant and somber analysis of attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." —Jerusalem Post

"Ben-Ami is a dove through and through on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as dovish as anyone could be within the Zionist paradigm. In the wake of 7 October 2023, his book is the swan song of that political standing." — Yoav Peled, Israel Studies Review

From the Publisher

2021-12-24
An exhaustive account of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks from the 2000 Camp David Summit to the present.

In his latest book, Ben-Ami, an Israeli historian and former diplomat, provides a nearly minute-by-minute chronicle of the failed 2000 summit and the many halting attempts at peace that sprang up in its wake. “This book should be read as an obituary to the two-state solution,” he writes, arguing that “it is about time that all stakeholders shift their attention to other possible scenarios.” Oscillating between the broad sweep of history and the fine-grained details of international negotiation, the book assumes a great deal of historical and political knowledge as well as a keen interest in the particulars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author digs deep into the varying definitions of sovereignty, territorial swaps in the West Bank, and the often conflicting interpretations of the Palestinian right of return. Aside from his depiction of Yasser Arafat—“an alley cat, proficient in the art of political survival, a man with a tactical cunning that frequently defeated his grand national vision”—Ben-Ami is almost always diplomatic in his assessment of his Palestinian counterparts, and he is often critical of right-wing Israeli politicians and policies. He calls Israeli discourse on Jerusalem “a pile of accepted lies” and argues that “the real existential threat facing Israel is not nuclear Iran; rather, it is to be found in the morally corrosive effects of the oppressive occupation of the Palestinian people.” Even so, the author is unable to escape the score-settling and mythologizing that doomed the Camp David Summit itself. In the final sections—which detail the two-state solution’s collapse as well as possible futures and corollaries—Ben-Ami arrives at the erudite and expansive synthesis readers are seeking. However, these pages feel rushed in comparison to the painstaking detail of the first half.

A meticulously detailed examination of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks that doesn’t fully live up to its potential.

Kirkus Reviews