Newsletter 24
War & Peace in the Middle East.
Welcome back to VerbalNotes, a Digital Meeting Place for Practitioners and Students dealing with Diplomacy, Defense, Development, and Humanitarian Action.
We offer you a curated selection of articles, texts, and book summaries on current international events to help you make sense of where we are, where we are going, and, above all, what we can do about it.
In this Newsletter we are taking a hard look at War and Peace in the Middle East.
We have recently published the summaries of three extremely relevant books that offer historical and analytical perspectives of the multiple conflicts and (mostly unsuccessful) peace efforts in the region:
The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace, by Aaron David Miller. This book is a historical detailed account of US initiatives to solve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. It provides a clear-eyed look at what worked, what did not, and why, written in the first person by someone who was often in the rooms where things happened. One of the main self-criticisms is the US assumption of the role as “Israel’s Advocate”.
For further detail on the Camp David Negotiations between Israel and Egypt you can also check Thirteen Days in September: The Dramatic Story of the Struggle for Peace, by Lawrence Wright.
Escaping the Conflict Trap: Toward Ending Civil War in the Middle East, by Ross Harrison and Paul Salem. This is a thorough review of conflicts in the Region, with an in-depth look at some of them and very interesting chapters on What We Know about Ending Civil Wars and The Diplomacy of Engagement.
Syria Divided: Patterns of Violence in a Complex Civil War, by Ora Szekely looks at the different narratives that justify the war for each actor (and their supporters) and how this defines actual combat, in particular as relates to attacks against civilians. The use of social media is particularly relevant to understand the conflict, and how it can be addressed.
Other recent posts on this topic include Learning from the War on Terror, Governing Gaza After the War, and Exploring the Role of Religious Leadership in Promoting an End to Conflict
Or you can search our webpage by Tag under Arab World, Jihadism, or Peace Making, among others.
The future cannot be predicted, but it can be imagined.
Enjoy your reading, make it count!