Product Description

Yossi Beilin provides a riveting inside account of the secret talks that broke all the official rules and led, sixteen months later, to the famous handshake in September 1993 between Rabin and Arafat on the White House lawn. He describes the subsequent Stockholm dialogue, which came to a promising conclusion just five days before Rabin's assassination, and reveals details of the unofficial - and yet to be implemented - understanding reached with PLO Deputy Abu Mazen on the content of a final peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The concluding part of this book addresses the all-important, and for Israelis unfamiliar, question of how to live in peace: Israeli nationalism and foreign policy, Israel as part of the Jewish world, electoral reform, religion and the state, the Arabs of Israel, and other topics. A senior figure in Israel's Labour Party, an intellectual as well as a man of action, Yossi Beilin reveals in this book his own creative and passionate commitment to a settlement in the Middle East. This is the story of risks taken and opportunities grasped, in pursuit of the holy grail of Middle Eastern politics of the late twentieth century: a lasting peace between Jews and Arabs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #877796 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 292 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Yossi Beilin achieved fame as the initiator and leading figure in bringing about the interim agreement between Israel and the PLO in 1993. He brings to bear his unique distinction as an intellectual and an effective politician in telling the inside story of this example of informal or second track diplomacy. It is an account of ideas and political process that in its own way is dramatic despite the low-key description of personalities. Perhaps even more interesting is the account of the subsequent informal diplomacy to secure a final peace settlement. In particular the book is notable for laying out in imaginative yet achievable ways how the key thorny issues including boundaries, refugees, Jerusalem, etc., can be settled. Indeed Beilin convincingly argues that despite recent missed opportunities the ideas that he and his colleagues (including Palestinian academics) have developed will before too long form the core of a final agreement. To his credit, Beilin appreciates that the coming of peace will present many challenges to Israel and he has much that to say about the need for radical re-thinking and change. This is that rare phenomenon that offers both a realistic and an optimistic view of the prospects for the Middle East. --Michael Yahuda

About the Author
Born in 1948 in Tel Aviv, Yossi Beilin worked as a journalist and lecturer in political science before his political career began in 1984 as Cabinet Secretary. After serving as Director-General of the Foreign Ministry, Deputy Finance and Deputy Foreign Minister, he became Minister of Economy and Planning and then Minister in the Prime Minister's office. A Labour member of the Knesset for ten years, he has spearheaded peace process initiatives as a member of both the Rabin and Peres governments - his greatest achievement so far was initiating the Oslo agreement. The author of several books, Yossi Beilin lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and two children.