(IN)SIGHTS

Grinstein and Afilalo, experts on international law and diplomacy, combine memoir and scholarship in this survey of Israeli–Palestinian tensions.

Few issues are as harrowing on the international stage in 2024 as the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Against the backdrop of the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza in response to Hamas’ attacks on the Gaza–Israeli border, the authors recall past moments of hope represented by the multi-year negotiations initiated by the Clinton administration’s Oslo Accords. As the youngest delegate at the 2000 Camp David Summit, then 30-year-old Grinstein served as secretary for the Israeli delegation and assistant chief negotiator. Blending memoir with geopolitical analysis, Grinstein offers readers a fly-on-the-wall perspective from someone with access to the tense high-level diplomatic conversations. His memories include a moment of panic when he had to give Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak the Heimlich maneuver after he choked on a snack in Camp David’s Dogwood Cabin. Grinstein also offers an insider’s analysis of the competing domestic and international pressures confronting Barak, who, at the time, “needed something to run on” in the upcoming elections. Co-author Afilalo, a professor of international law and trade at Rutgers University, provides important historical analysis and commentary that contextualizes the Oslo Accords, backed by a wealth of scholarly footnotes.

The book is divided thematically into four sections. Sections one and two center on Grinstein’s personal history and experiences as an Israeli delegate tasked with negotiating a Framework Agreement on Permanent Status with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. Section three focuses on the U.S.’s role in the peace process, and on the tenuous nature of peace negotiations. The book’s final section uses the Oslo Accords as the basis for reflections on potential avenues for future peace negotiations between the two sides. This definitive history of the accords contains ample appendix material to assist readers in navigating the complexities of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the myriad interest groups and individual people involved. The book also includes an essay by Grinstein in which he offers “Lessons for Aspiring History Makers”; he encourages aspirants to follow his example by becoming experts and making themselves “indispensable to the greats.” (At times the book feels a bit self-indulgent, with its inclusion of photographs of Grinstein with Bill Clinton, Barak, and other world leaders in the White House and elsewhere.) In addition to its rich, full-color photographs, the book includes an assortment of maps, images, and reproductions of primary source documents. While the authors are diplomatic in their presentations of Palestinian positions, their views are filtered through a distinctly Israeli perspective. The phrase “apartheid state,” for instance, appears only three times in more than 350 pages, and only within quotation marks that question the accuracy of the phrase. The authors take a more nuanced approach toward Israel, treating Barak as a “tragic figure” and criticizing the actions of current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for distancing his administration “from world Jewry” and escalating a situation that “threatens the future of Israel.” Engaging and well written, this work will also double as an effective primer on Israeli–Palestinian relations for those unfamiliar with the region’s complexities.

An impressively crafted, deeply personal history of Middle Eastern diplomacy.