Building a Successful Palestinian State [Paperback]

Kenneth I. Shine (Author), Steven N. Simon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0833035320 | ISBN-13: 978-0833035325 | Publication Date: May 30, 2007

A critical mass of Palestinians and Israelis, as well as the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, remain committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The authors, examine in objective fasion the requirements for creating and maintaining successful statehood during the first decade of Palestine's independence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

If [Palestinian] statehood is realized, the RAND Palestinian State Study Team have given much thought as to how to make it work. Side-stepping the issue of how to get there, 'Building a Successful Palestinian State' assumes it will happen and sets out to answer an alternative question: 'How can an independent Palestinian state be made successful?' The result is a refreshingly upbeat 'how to' manual that identifies four fundamental challenges for success: security, for Palestinians, as well as Israelis and other neighbors; governance, predicated on regime legitimacy; economic development, leading to eventual self-reliance; and the broad well-being of the Palestinian people, measured according to several indices, among them food security, health and education.
Middle East Journal, Summer 2007


Palestinians have been yearning for a state of their own for generations. But if that goal is met, what then? A new collection of books and studies by the RAND Corporation attempts to answer just that question. 'Building a Successful Palestinian State' is packed with statistical data on specific policy implementations for a potential Palestinian state... RAND's study focuses not only on what is needed to build and sustain a Palestinian state, but also on the expenditures necessary to see it through... Although weighty in statistical analysis, the meticulous detail in the RAND studies would prove instrumental to any reader with a vested interest in Middle Eastern foreign policy. Besides focusing on the obvious economic and geostrategic problems, the tracts also explore issues of health care, education, and riparian rights. And while they fully acknowledge the scope of the challenges at hand, 'Building a Palestinian State' and 'The Arc' spotlight potential success rather than focusing on setbacks and conflict.
NationalJournal.com


The RAND Corporation has done itself proud with these publications on how to set up a Palestinian state. 'Building a Successful Palestinian State', organized into separate chapters on governance, internal security, demographics, economics, water, health, and education, is not, admittedly, an easy read. Bringing together masses of technical data and comprehensive in coverage, it will serve as an invaluable study for those who become directly involved in the state-building process but will serve mainly as a reference work for others.
Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct 2005


What is especially elegant about the plan is that it focuses not on some eventual peace agreement on a state's boundaries, but on how life might be lived the day after peace--on 'the patterns of human life as shaped by its setting.'.
Urban Land, July 2005


Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
CHOICE, January 2006

From the Inside Flap

An examination of options for strengthening the institutions of a potential future independent Palestinian state.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: Rand Publishing (May 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0833035320
• ISBN-13: 978-0833035325
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,724,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Technocratic top-downism that ignores the wishes of people and sociocultural context..., January 17, 2006

By 

Jazz It Up Baby - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Building a Successful Palestinian State (Paperback)

Planners and development experts suffer from a deserved reputation for technocratic top-downism that ignores the wishes of people and sociocultural context; they are also known for utopian visions disconnected from practical reality. Seldom has that stereotype been more fully fulfilled than in the three complementary RAND studies about a Palestinian state.
Most striking is how the study treats Palestinians as subjects to be studied rather than as actors to participate in the creation of their own state. Blissfully divorced from any discussion about Palestinian social history or the kinds of communities its people have created, the authors happily catalogue advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to developing Palestinian cities. The education chapter, to be fair, does provide a decent account of the existing system, how it evolved, and what Palestinians want, but it is the exception that proves the rule.
The analysis also has a head-in-the-clouds character. Chapter after chapter run through the authors' thoughts to create their model society for Palestinians without betraying the slightest hint of awareness that fifty years' experience with international aid has shown the disastrous effect of such an approach. The report makes only a slight passing references to the extraordinary amounts of aid pumped into the Palestinian territories after the 1993 Oslo accords-aid that led to corruption and social distortions which undermined the Palestinian Authority's ability to function effectively. The RAND authors would exacerbate the central problem of Palestinian society-a refusal to take responsibility for itself but instead blaming outsiders for all problems and expecting foreigners to rescue them. Also, a-Cadillac-rather-than-Chevy-approach pervades the study. The authors' point of reference seems to be the infrastructure and facilities characteristic of Europe and North America, not those of low-income, developing countries.
Finally, the three volumes (Building a Successful Palestinian State, The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State, Helping a Palestinian State Succeed: Key Findings)share the central organizing image of an "arc" formed by a high-speed railroad linking the major population areas of Gaza and the West Bank. There is the minor problem, as the authors note in passing, that roads rather than rail would be used for most freight shipments, for emergency services, and for those who can afford cars (including tourists, dignitaries, and the growing middle class the study envisages). A good road would connect the Palestinian urban areas at a much more modest cost than the billions the authors propose to pour into a railroad, which could quickly turn into a money-losing inefficient public enterprise of the kind which plagues many developing countries.

Patrick Clawson

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The refusal to face reality, October 16, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Building a Successful Palestinian State (Paperback)

It is wonderful to be idealists as the Rand people are. But their prescriptions for a viable Palestinian state fail to take into account the character of the Palestinian polity, the fundamental ideology which moves the society as a whole. That ideology whether it is advocated by Hamas or by Fatah( And its El Aksa Brigades) is an ideology of hatred and denial. The Palestinians have historically refused five major offers for a state of their own.
They have responded time and time again to offers of peace by Israel, and concrete steps of concession by violence.
As I write this it is close to two months after Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza. The Palestinian Authority has still not made any real effort to impose the rule of law on Gaza. The Palestinian media are filled with violent propaganda against Israel.
What the people of the Rand Commission do not understand is that the Palestinians are interested in a state not alongside Israel but only in place of it. Whatever withdrawals Israel makes from territory this will not be enough for the Palestinians. And any Palestinian Arab state will not only be a tremendous danger to Israel but a source for increased Terror throughout the Middle East.