Customer Reviews

The Lost Years: Radical Islam, Intifada, and Wars in the Middle East, 2001-2006

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This book is a really great overview of the years of the second intifada and the leadership of Sharon in Israel and Bush in the U.S. The book actually surprised me because it was quite the departure from the author's previous book which covered negotiations of the Clinton years Shattered Dreams. Whereas Shattered Dreams is a micro look into the negotiations with behind the scenes recreations of the various talks drawn from hours of interviews with the participants, this book is much more of a macro look at the years from 2001 and the end of the Taba negotiations through 2006 and the death of Ariel Sharon.

This book is a great primer for anyone interested in these years. The author doesn't really embark on any deep probes of what was going on, but instead provides the time line and events then gives descriptions of what each of the leaders were doing and saying at the time. This makes for a fascinating read, and I think the author does a good job with not taking sides and turning this terrible time into a zero sum game. Instead the author lays out the bare facts as he sees them. Writing a book on this time can lead an author into temptation to write a book that is clearly biased for or against one side or the other. The author could have written deep descriptions of Palestinian casualties while offering numbers of Israeli casualties or vice versa, but this the author does not do. Instead he details the horrors inflicted on and perpetrated by both sides.

One of the techniques the author uses that I think is compelling and illustrative of the senselessness and callousness of this conflict is how the author gives the casualty or death statistics for each month as an aside at the end of sections detailing that month. The author will give a couple of paragraphs description of a given month then at the end he will throw in a sentence with the number of dead at the end. This flippant style of throwing in the number of dead as an aside really drove home to me how little human life is valued in this conflict.

One of the most important aspects this book sheds light on is the absolute failure of the Israeli military and intelligence agencies to conceptualize a coherent strategy. In this period the Israelis decided to simply dismantle the PA and minimize Arafat. The problem is this strategy had no foresight. It didn't take into account the possibility that if you destroy the credibility of Arafat and Fatah a possible successor in the power vacuum thus created would be Hamas and Islamic Jihad, so instead of actually stabilizing the situation they were ensuring instability for decades to come.

It also shows just how bad things can get when there is a disinterested president in the White House. Foreign policy was largely left to flounder under George Bush when it came to Israel/Palestine at a time when this area needed strong guidance from an impartial (or at least as impartial as a U.S. president can be) and engaged U.S. president. Instead Israel was allowed to follow a flawed strategy that ended up delegitimizing moderates on both sides and allowed Hamas to fill the power vacuum in Gaza. The situation is so bad now that I don't feel the author's title is even appropriate because these years were not simply lost but were instead a massive regression for any possible peace.

All sides in this conflict have failed their people and ensured that death and destruction will reign for many more years to come. What this book does is help bring to light some of these failings and how they came about. This is a good book that will help any reader gain a greater understanding of the events that transpired and reasons behind them. I recommend this book.

THE LOST YEARS: RADICAL ISLAM, INTIFADA, AND WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 2001-2006 chronicles the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts and the loss of hope for peaceful resolution, and comes from an author who has met all Israeli and Palestinian leaders and secret negotiators on both sides. It follows the political calculations on both sides and exposes both political and military changes which had disastrous consequences for both sides, giving readers a clear picture of the problems involved in negotiating peace. General-interest libraries as well as those specializing in Middle East issues at the college level will find this an astute, probing analysis drawing together many facts and influences.