Track-Two Diplomacy toward an Israeli-Palestinian Solution, 19782014 is an important insider account of a crucial set of negotiations aimed at settling a seemingly endless conflict. It brings out many new details of negotiating sessions and internal policy and strategy debates and is especially insightful on the thirteen-year process that led to the September 1993 Oslo Accords. Signed on the White House lawn in the presence of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, the treaty was a landmark occasion followed shortly thereafter by the unraveling of the Israeli-Palestinian permanent status negotiations. The historical narrative focuses on the series of negotiations and ongoing efforts under particular Israeli governments. Each chapter concludes with discussions of successes, failures, and lessons learned.""With a tremendous amount of detail and perspective to the story of peacemaking during the past thirty years, the book fixes the historical record in substantial ways. Excellent work.""Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer, Princeton University""This is an extremely rich and valuable volume. The overall narrative is remarkably complete. There are also copious and detailed notes throughout, mostly pertaining to the events in which Hirschfeld participated, or at least observed, and also often bringing in relevant scholarly literature.""Mark Tessler, University of Michigan
Tables and Figures Preface Acknowledgments 1. The Camp David Accords Lay the Foundations for a Two-State Solution, 197879 2. The First Multitrack Diplomacy Efforts and the Unsuccessful ""Jordanian Option,"" 197988 3. A Multitrack Approach to Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, 198991 4. Back-Channel Negotiations in Norway: The Challenges, the Planning, and the Track-Two Efforts of the Oslo Accords, 199193 5. Preparing for Permanent Status: The First Attempt, 199396 6. Keeping the Oslo Process on Track: Multitrack Diplomacy during the First Netanyahu Government, May 1996May 1999 7. The March of Folly: Ehud Barak's Attempt to Conclude a Permanent Status Agreement, May 1999February 2001 8. Life after Failure: The ECF in Search of a Strategy,February 2001February 2003 9. Trial and Error in Testing Three Paradigms,January 2003February 2009 10. The Kerry Initiative and Beyond Notes Bibliography Index
""Painstaking and often very personal account of over thirty years of track-two diplomatic efforts of peacemaking between Israeli and Palestinian interlocutors... Relying on countless personal papers and interviews as well as the unpublished policy documents... he [Yair Hirshfeld] reflects upon the trial and error back-channel negotiations that continued even in times of official stalemate, undeterred by violence and war.""
