Negotiating Outside the Law : Why Camp David Failed

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Summary: The Long View, Narrated by a Veteran Peace Activist
Review: Helmick's Why Camp David Failed: Negotiating Outside the Law is a timely and powerful addition to the recent spate of articles and books on the subject. The U.S-brokered negotiations for a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians that took place at Camp David in 2000 and at Taba in January of 2001 can serve as an object lesson for what must be done differently when a new attempt at resolving the conflict is undertaken.

While the events leading up to Camp David and its immediate aftermath are the focus of the book, Helmick sets the negotiations within a masterly and evenhanded narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict since 1985, when diplomacy focused on the conditions that were put forth by the U.S. and Israel for negotiating directly with the PLO.

Helmick's presentation of the events on the ground during this period is vivid. He is sympathetic to both Israelis and Palestinians and his narrative allows the reader to share both the hope and the despair that is the backdrop to the period's diplomatic activity.

Why Camp David Failed reads briskly and is often hard to put down. At the same time, the book's thorough index and documentation of sources give it the added virtue of being a highly accessible handbook to this period for serious students of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The author, a professor of Conflict Resolution teaching in the theology department at Boston College, draws on insights from thirty years of his work in unofficial diplomacy in the Middle East as well as in other conflict areas around the globe. He adds to his narrative at appropriate points the letters he exchanged with some of the principal personalities involved in U.S.-Israel-Palestine diplomacy, including Barak, Sharon, Clinton and Arafat.

With many trenchant insights into the challenges that faced these personalities at the time, Helmick's letters impress the reader with their boldness as well as with their grace and clarity. As we read these letters we follow the conflict through the eyes of a courageous individual insistent on speaking truth to power in order to further the goal of peace.

But Helmick does not feel that the flaws in Camp David that ultimately led to its failure lay in the personalities involved or in their lack of good faith. In his analysis, the flaws were structural. He points to the imbalance of power between the two sides, a factor that forced the weaker party to believe it could only protect its core interests by resisting continued pressure from the stronger party to make concessions. The needed counterweight to this power imbalance, tragically missing in his view at Camp David, is a legal framework for the negotiations. Helmick's thesis is that an affirmation by both sides of their willingness to abide by international law - in this case the UN resolutions on the return of occupied territory and amelioration of the situation of refugees - is the necessary framework for successful Israeli-Palestinian talks.

His moving narrative provides support for this argument.

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Summary: The Real Deal
Review: This book is a positive, one might say spiritual view of one of the longest running conflicts of recent times. The author has first hand information about the players on all sides, Israel and Palestine as well as the US and he can see their warts, sunbeams and their best human qualities. I found that hearing (reading) the actual words of the participants is a rare opportunity to see that they are special people but they also put their pants on one leg at a time. If you want the real deal about the Camp David talks, the supposed generous offer and the reaction to it read this book first and then read the others.