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Shattered Hopes:Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace
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Hard-hitting critique of Obama administration’s failure to broker Israeli–Palestinian peace, by a leading DC-based advocate
President Barack Obama’s first trip abroad in his second term took him to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, where he despondently admitted to those waiting for words of encouragement, “It is a hard slog to work through all of these issues.” Contrast this gloomy assessment with Obama’s optimism on the second day of his first term, when he appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell as his special envoy for Middle East peace, boldly asserting that his administration would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.” How is it that Obama’s active and aggressive search for progress has become mired in the status quo?
Writer and political analyst Josh Ruebner charts Obama’s journey from optimism to frustration in the first hard-hitting investigation into why the president failed to make any progress on this critical issue, and how his unwillingness to challenge the Israel lobby has shattered hopes for peace.
Written in a clear and accessible style by the advocacy director of a national peace organization and former Middle East analyst for the Congressional Research Service, Shattered Hopes offers an informed history of the Obama administration’s policies and maps out a true path forward for the United States to help achieve Israeli–Palestinian peace.
Reviews
“Taking advantage of treasure troves of new sources, this book provides a welcome clarity that cuts through years of stale disinformation. With the passion of a longtime activist and the rigor of a trained researcher, Josh Ruebner dissects a wide range of sources, including WikiLeaks and the parallel Palestine Papers, to provide a tour de force analysis of Obama’s failed Middle East policy.”
Josh Ruebner has produced the authoritive autopsy of the US-led peace process. His portrait of America’s first African-American president demonstrating passivity in the face of apartheid is absolutely devastating.
This is an essential contribution to the subject. Josh has been spearheading efforts for an even-handed U.S. policy for a dozen years, and has an intimate knowledge of how the administration and Congress work as well as unparalleled expertise on U.S. aid to Israel.
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This marvelous book looks at one of the thorniest aspects of foreign policy today. It’s a book for those who are not content to sit on the sidelines and watch the continuous dispossession of the Palestinian people, committed if not in our name, then with our blessing. Josh Ruebner has offered a badly needed contribution to a discussion that is all too often suppressed in the mainstream media.
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Ruebner’s timely contribution traces the Obama administration’s efforts, or lack thereof, at securing a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This book doesn’t pull any punches but rather is an honest assessment of Washington’s failed peace attempts that anyone who genuinely cares about a just peace should read.
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Josh Ruebner gives us both a detailed description of Obama’s failure to bring the aimed-for Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and an insightful analysis of many of his blunders. Anyone who wants to understand what happened on this front during the fateful first five years of Obama’s presidency needs to read this book! Ruebner’s conclusion that US citizens cannot rely on political leaders to do the right thing by the Palestinians but must rely on continuing to build the civil-society movement to attain this is right on the mark.