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Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East Kindle Edition
Winner of the 2014 Lionel Trilling Book Award
An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments
For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. In this book,acclaimed historian Rashid Khalidi zeroes in on the United States’s role as the purported impartial broker in this failed peace process.
Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States’ involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine. The first moment he investigates is the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, when Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin refused to accept the Reagan administration’s proposal to reframe the Camp David Accords more impartially. The second moment covers the period after the Madrid Peace Conference, from 1991 to 1993, during which negotiations between Israel and Palestine were brokered by the United States until the signing of the secretly negotiated Oslo accords. Finally, Khalidi takes on President Barack Obama’s retreat from plans to insist on halting the settlements in the West Bank.
Through in-depth research into and keen analysis of these three moments, as well as his own firsthand experience as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 pre–Oslo negotiations in Washington, DC, Khalidi reveals how the United States and Israel have actively colluded to prevent a Palestinian state and resolve the situation in Israel’s favor. Brokers of Deceit bares the truth about why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, US policymakers have masqueraded as unbiased agents working to bring the two sides together, when, in fact, they have been the agents of continuing injustice, effectively preventing the difficult but essential steps needed to achieve peace in the region.
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209
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- PublisherBeacon Press
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2013
March 12
- File size2.8 MB
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Editorial Reviews
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish
thoughts. . . . If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt
thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among
people who should and do know better.
—George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
In politics and in diplomacy, as in much else, language matters greatly.
However debased political discourse may become, however disingenuous
diplomacy often is, the words employed by politicians and diplomats
defi ne situations and determine outcomes. In recent history, few
semantic battles over terminology have been as intensely fought out as
those concerning Palestine/Israel.
The importance of the precise use of language can be illustrated by
the powerful valence in the Middle East context of terms such as “terrorism,”
“security,” “self-determination,” “autonomy,” “honest broker,”
and “peace process.” Each of these terms has set conditions not only for
perceptions, but also for possibilities. Moreover, these terms have come
to take on a specifi c meaning, frequently one that is heavily loaded in
favor of one side, and is far removed from what logic or balance would
seem to dictate. Thus in the American/Israeli offi cial lexicon, “terrorism”
in the Middle East context has come to apply exclusively to the
actions of Arab militants, whether those of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), Hamas, Hizballah, or others. Under these peculiar
terminological rules, the actions of the militaries of Israel and the
United States cannot be described as “terrorism,” irrespective of how
many Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqi, or Afghan civilians may have died
at their hands.
Similarly, in this lexicon, “security” is an absolute priority of Israel’s,
the need for which is invariably described as rooted in genuine, deepseated
existential fears. “Israeli security” therefore takes precedence
over virtually everything else, including international law and the human
rights of others. It is an endlessly expansive concept that includes
a remarkable multitude of things, such as whether pasta or generator
parts can be brought into the Gaza Strip, or whether miserably poor
Palestinian villagers can be allowed water cisterns.1 By contrast, in spite
of the precarious nature of their situation, Palestinians are presumed
not to have any signifi cant concerns about their security. This is the case
even though nearly half the Palestinian population have lived for more
than two generations under a grinding military occupation without the
most basic human, civil, or political rights, and the rest have for many
decades been dispersed from their ancestral homeland, many of them
living under harsh, authoritarian Arab governments.
This book is concerned primarily, however, not with the misuse of
language, important though that is, but with an American-brokered political
process that for more than thirty-fi ve years has reinforced the subjugation
of the Palestinian people, provided Israel and the United States
with a variety of advantages, and made considerably more unlikely the
prospects of a just and lasting settlement of the confl ict between Israel
and the Arabs. This is the true nature of this process. Were this glaring
reality apparent to all, there might have been pressure for change. But
the distortion of language has made a crucially important contribution
to these outcomes, by “corrupting thought,” and thereby cloaking their
real nature. As we shall see in the pages that follow, language employed
in the Middle East political context—terms like “terrorism” and “security”
and the others mentioned above—has often been distorted and
then successfully employed to conceal what was actually happening.
Where the Palestinians are concerned, time and again during their
modern history, corrupted phraseology has profoundly obscured reality.
The Zionist movement decisively established a discursive hegemony
early on in the confl ict with the Palestinians, thereby signifi cantly reinforcing
the existing power balance in its favor, and later in favor of the
state of Israel. This has placed the Palestinians at a lasting disadvantage,
as they have consistently been forced to compete within a fi eld whose
terms are largely defi ned by their opponents. Consider such potent canards
as “making the desert bloom”—implying that the six hundred
thousand industrious Palestinian peasants and townspeople who inhabited
their homeland in the centuries before the relatively recent arrival
of modern political Zionism were desert nomads and wastrels—and “a
land without a people for a people without a land,” which presumes the
nonexistence of an entire people.2 As the Palestinian literary and cultural
critic Edward Said aptly put it in 1988: “It is by no means an exaggeration
to say that the establishment of Israel as a state in 1948 occurred
partly because the Zionists acquired control of most of the territory of
Palestine, and partly because they had already won the political battle
for Palestine in the international world in which ideas, representation,
rhetoric and images were at issue.”3 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Review
"What has happened to the Palestinian people since 1948 is one of the great crimes of modern history. Of course, Israel bears primary responsibility for this tragedy. However, as Rashid Khalidi shows in his smart new book, American presidents from Truman to Obama have sided with Israel at almost every turn and helped it inflict immense pain and humiliation on the Palestinians. At the same time, they have employed high-sounding but dishonest rhetoric to cover up Israel's brutal behavior. As Brokers of Deceit makes clear, the United States richly deserves to be called "Israel's lawyer."
—John J. Mearsheimer, coauthor of The Israel Lobby
“Drawing on his own experience as a Palestinian negotiator and recently released documents, Rashid Khalidi mounts a frontal attack on the myths and misconceptions that have come to surround America’s role in the so-called “peace process” which is all process and no peace. The title is not too strong: the book demonstrates conclusively that far from serving as an honest broker, the US continues to act as Israel’s lawyer – with dire consequences for its own interests, for the Palestinians, and for the entire region. Professor Khalidi deserves much credit for his superb exposition of the fatal gap between the rhetoric and reality of American diplomacy on this critically important issue.”
—Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford and author ofThe Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.
"Khalidi has combined history, common sense and his first-hand understanding of arab-israeli peace talks, as brokered by Washington, to make the case that American national security interests would be best served by a just peace in the Middle East. Instead, he writes with great sadness, Washington's efforts to be an honest broker fall "somewhere between high irony and farce" —and puts democratic America, with its avowed commitment to freedom for all, in the position of enabling the continued subjugation of the Palestine people. This is an important book."
—Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker
“For those of us who believe that a two-state solution is the path to justice and peace for Israel and Palestine, Rashid Khalidi’s trenchant analysis is powerful and disturbing. The United States has failed repeatedly to be an honest broker, accepting the status quo of Israeli occupation and settlements when a true peace agreement would be deeply in the interest of all parties, Israel, Palestine, and the US itself. Khalidi emphasizes that the deceptions of language and deed have serious long-term costs and that the United States might soon impose and incur still greater costs through ill-conceived policies vis-à-vis Syria, Iran, and other countries in the Middle East.”
—Jeffrey D. Sachs, author of The End of Poverty
Praise for Rashid Khalidi
“Rashid Khalidi is arguably the foremost U.S. historian of the modern Middle East.”—Warren I. Cohen, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“In a refreshing contrast to the yammering bazaar of complaint and allegation that has dominated American public discussion of the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001, "The Iron Cage" is a patient and eloquent work, ranging over the whole of modern Palestinian history from World War I to the death of Yasser Arafat. Reorienting the Palestinian narrative around the attitudes and tactics of the Palestinians themselves, Khalidi lends a remarkable illumination to a story so wearily familiar it is often hard to believe anything new can be found within.”—Jonathan Shainin, Salon
“Unlike most so-called Middle East experts, Khalidi actually knows a great deal about that region”—Professor John J. Mearsheimer, author of The Israel Lobby
“With a deep knowledge of the Middle East and a felicitous literary style, Khalidi . . . examines the history of U.S. involvement in the area against the backdrop of European colonialism.”—Ronald Steel, The Nation
“Rashid Khalidi’s extraordinary book [Resurrecting Empire] is enormously relevant for our times, especially in light of America’s growing involvement in the Middle East.”—Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize
“Khalidi’s role is as a historian, working to show how historical forces, largely ignored in the U.S., have shaped the modern Middle East. He takes particular delight in demolishing the various clichés used to describe the Middle East, bred out of what he terms ‘America’s historical amnesia.’”—Chris Hedges, New York Times --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B008ED6BAI
- Publisher : Beacon Press (March 12, 2013)
- Publication date : March 12, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 2843 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 209 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #228,158 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #104 in 21st Century History of the U.S.
- #120 in International Relations (Kindle Store)
- #184 in History of Israel & Palestine
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Rashid Khalidi is the author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (Beacon Press, 2013) and six other books about the Middle East--Sowing Crisis, The Iron Cage, Resurrecting Empire, Origins of Arab Nationalism, Under Siege, and the award-winning Palestinian Identity. He is the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. He has written more than eighty articles on Middle Eastern history and politics, including pieces in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and many journals. Professor Khalidi has received fellowships and grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Rockefeller Foundation; he was also the recipient of a Fulbright research award. Professor Khalidi has been a regular guest on numerous radio and TV shows, including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Nightline.
Photo Credit: Alex Levac, 2011.
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Top reviews from the United States
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The US has always favoured Israel for its strategic position in the region and this is clearly evidenced by USA's continued unconditional support of Israel and the US use of its veto power in the UN to curb or frustrate any limitations placed on Israel . In many ways the USA has been instrumental in exasperating the Palestinian/ Israel conflict.
If there is one book that succintly explains and exposes US' deceitful position, it is this book !
It is at heart a work of history, so do not the expect simplified sound-byte-filled prose that we are accustomed to getting from fake pop "scholar/journalists" like Thomas Friedman and others. Khalidi lays out the abuse of language that has created the Orwellian status quo in the Middle East. He shows that while the U.S. supports Israel with billions of dollars and diplomatic cover for continued occupation and territorial expansion, they have simultaneously posed as the "honest broker", all the while preventing real negotiations based on international and human rights law and UN resolutions to take place.
The author goes into three historical moments to analyze and expose the charade of "even-handed" American mediation. Probably the most interesting chapters are on the peace negotiations of the 1990s, the chapter on President Obama, and the Conclusion. What makes the chapter on the negotiations of the 90's so interesting is that Khalidi participated in them as an advisor so he cites original, never-before-seen primary documents showing the American and Israeli positions.
As AN American I can only hope that President Obama in his second term does something to change the destructive and blind support of Israel, and that the U.S. actually acts as an honest broker to make a just and equitable peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This would not only be good for the people of the region but would greatly enhance U.S. standing and security in the world.
I also saw that Khalidi had an op-ed in the NYT, March 13, 2013
Top reviews from other countries
Khalidi takes three moments in Israel-Palestine negotiations as pivotal episodes for his narrative of American duplicity. The first moment he investigates is the "Reagan Plan" of 1982, at a time when Cold War priorities shaped US thinking. The second moment covers the period from 1991 to 1993 after the Madrid Peace Conference, culminating in the signing of the secretly negotiated Oslo accords. The events of these two episodes are well documented elsewhere, including in Hanan Ashrawi's autobiographical account, but the third, that of Barack Obama's back-pedalling over demands to end settlement-building in the West Bank is new and nicely rounds off Khalidi's account. He is well placed to enlighten us on the frustration of Obama's hopes, as he was a colleague of Obama's at Chicago University, and a family friend. Indeed, as Khalidi is of Palestinian descent, this friendship was dragged up by the gutter press in its attacks on Obama as he ran for President.
Khalidi's original contribution in all these episodes lies in the detailing of how the language of American brokership was duplicitous and entirely a construct of Israeli propaganda. He points out that even the term "peace process" had become a construct that was an "impermeable barrier to Palestinian emancipation."
So why does the American political machine, in this case centred on the State Department (the equivalent to Britain's Foreign Office), need to adopt Israeli propaganda in presenting its policies to the American public? As Khalidi points out State Department officials from the time of President Truman were convinced that US interests did not lie with Israel at all. My own research has convinced me that Israel has always been a total strategic and financial liability to the US. But presidents as politicians are conscious of voting constituencies that are mostly unversed in the realities of the Middle East, and could not afford to take the advice of their experts. Truman was quite clear: he had to satisfy those voters concerned with the success of Zionism. Those voters were not the Jews however, they were too few. It was the Christian Zionists who were and remain the huge constituency who need to be satisfied. They are effectively a vote factory manipulated by the Israel lobby, though their preoccupations remain inoffensive to the mainstream because they mostly do not impinge on domestic policy. By speaking the language of the Israel apologists and propagandists, successive Presidents gained their majorities. Speak that language with the smallest hesitation and the presidency can be lost - as George Bush senior found to his cost. Carter too was forced to backpedal on his mispronunciation, as has Obama more recently.
Khalidi's book is important, then, for exposing this strange mechanism in American internal politics. It can be read alongside works that detail the power of the Israel lobby (AIPAC), and works that spell out the power of the Christian Zionists, in order to gain a full picture of an American political culture that is in this one respect quite deadly to the rights of the people of a small foreign land, the Palestinians. I would like to see a work that brings all this together, along with the insight that there is in fact a slumbering American constituency that could become the opposing cultural force to Zionism: the atheists, secularists, agnostics and unchurched. There, bizarrely, lies the hope for Palestinian rights. This group, if fully aware of the situation, could demand the end to a foreign policy based on Old Testament belief. Galvanising this group remains the real challenge. My novel, [...] is one such attempt.





