Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East

This is a superb book for readers like me who are not that well-informed about the Middle East but want to know and understand more. Indyck gives us just what most of us need: a clear and cool appraisal of what is going on there, and - above all - an EXPLANATION of it all. I thoroughly recommend this book for both beginners and more advanced readers!

This book is terrific. For outsiders to the world of diplomacy, Indyk provides a very personal,knowledgeable, and informative account of how the multiple variables of time, circumstances, personalities, and agendas all interact. Indyk profiles the many players with the insight of a wise clinician and provides an informative post-mortem analysis. Hopefully, this will result in more effective diplomacy or at least an avoidance of previous presumptions. From a clinical perspective, the only certainty is that it is all uncertain and there are no guarantees. Diplomacy is often an experiment where the inputs are not always as desired, the process unpredictable and the outcome never certain and often surprising. There is no science in diplomacy and the outcomes are shaped by forces and trends too often not appreciated, anticipated or understood by the participants. What also comes across is Indyk's humility, earnestness and ability to engage others in perservering to change the Mid-east paradigm.

A real strength of this book is its focus on understanding in a non-ideological way what actually happened and then using the facts to draw some broad conclusions. The writer was a participant in so many of the crucial encounters that he is as well placed as anybody to report these facts. He also made a point of making contemporaneous notes of these encounters which helps to ensure the accuracy of what he writes. Indyk brings to the book a lifetime of analyzing the politics of the Middle East in various capacities in academia and in prestigious think tanks and this combined with his diplomatic experience as an Ambassador to Israel for many years and senior official in the State Department puts him in an ideal position to write this book and adds enormous credibility to what he writes. Indyk also writes well. The prose flows. The book reads like a fascinating political travel adventure. It is apparent how much editing went into this book. The reviewer who accuses Israel of being chronically in violation of international law and of multiple UN resolutions repeats the inaccuracies that many who seek to demonize Israel (and often Jews) frequently propagate. The truth is the opposite. A great book to provide the facts on this and other contentious issues is Mitchell Bard: Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. You can read this online at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. The same reviewer also accuses American foreign policy of being very unbalanced and very pro-Israel. The fact is that Washington's close relationship with Israel is crucial because it assures the Palestinians and other Arabs that the United States has leverage with Israel and it assures Israel that if it makes concessions it can rely on the United States to help protect it should those concessions be exploited by Israel's enemies to threaten Israel. This book is highly recommended.

Anyone who hopes to grasp the complexities of the U.S. presence in Israel and the Middle East, the 2006 war in Lebanon, or the current conflict in Gaza, should read this book. Ambassador Indyk's account of the Clinton administration's attempts to reconcile Israel and Palestine--attempts to bring about a lasting peace that fell short--should be required reading for those on all sides of the political spectrum. Understanding the context and history of previous attempts to forge a meaningful peace couldn't be more timely, and a first-hand history of the Israel-Palestine conflict is what Innocent Abroad delivers. A must read for anyone who wants to transcend the heated, ideological tone that so often weighs down any meaningful discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Peace? Innocence? In the Middle East there is no paper so thin that there are not two sides. This has become a controversial and timely book because of the Gaza War and the Israeli elections of 2009. It appears some judge the author based on events that occurred after the book was published. Some say his approach (not Bushes) is now vindicated, others question his perspective, while others say the events have overtaken everyone's analysis and defy analysis. "Innocent Abroad" has become a barometer for how much one supports: current or former U.S. policies, the concept of negotiation, the use of power and soft power, or any of the participants: Hamas, Palestinians, Syrian's, Israeli's, Iranians, U.S. and others. After reading the book, Tom Friedman wrote "Gaza today is basically ground zero for all three of these struggles (1) Who is going to be the regional superpower Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Iran? (2) Should there be a Jewish state in the Middle East and, if so, on what Palestinian terms? And (3) Who is going to dominate Arab society -- Islamists who are intolerant of other faiths and want to choke off modernity or modernists who want to embrace the future, with an Arab-Muslim face "This tiny little piece of land, Gaza, has the potential to blow all of these issues wide open and present a huge problem for Barack Obama on Day 1.". Obama's great potential for America, noted Indyk, is also a great threat to Islamist radicals -- because his narrative holds tremendous appeal for Arabs. For eight years Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda have been surfing on a wave of anti-U.S. anger generated by George W. Bush. And that wave has greatly expanded their base." --------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic Magazine: The Four Questions: Martin Indyk on the Failure of Peacemaking 27 Jan 2009 Martin Indyk's new book, Innocent Abroad, about the failures of American peacemaking in the Middle East, is an incisive, honest (sometimes caustically so), and -- I know this might sound strange when talking about a 528-page book about a peace process that ultimately went nowhere -- compulsively readable tour of the recent, and tragic, past. I asked Martin four questions (actually six, but I like calling this feature the Four Questions) about his book, and his work. Here is our exchange: Jeffrey Goldberg: When I was listening to Barack Obama talk about the events of the past month, particularly when he spoke of Hamas, it almost sounded as if he were giving us George Bush's understanding of the Middle East. Do you see significant change coming down the road? Martin Indyk: I too was struck by how close Obama stuck to requirements enunciated by Bush: the need for a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem; Israel's need for security and its right to defend itself; Hamas's need to recognize Israel, forswear violence, and accept previous agreements; and the need to support the Palestinian Authority (particul