March 2, 2015
In this exhaustively researched work, O’Malley (Shades of Difference), a negotiator of key peace milestones in Northern Ireland, declares that the time for a two-state settlement between Israelis and Palestinians is gone. He explores the relevant history in mind-numbing detail before throwing up his hands and concluding that deeply-rooted “one-sided worldviews and mutual fears” have made the conflict all but intractable. “Each side is attached to its addiction” to recurring bouts of violence that provide cover for their mutual lack of commitment to securing peace. Israel drifts steadily to the right, hardening its stance toward its Arab population and the Palestinians disenfranchised in the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of 1948. Meanwhile, the factional split between Hamas fighters and Fatah, the Palestinian Authority’s nominal voice, has left the West Bank and Gaza’s Palestinian residents without functioning government. The result is a Palestinian militancy that can always win by losing—by carrying out doomed military campaigns that place Israel in the position of an oppressive occupying power. There are no heroes in O’Malley’s account, and no clear villains either. The situation is exasperating and tragic, but, as O’Malley poignantly asks at the end of his bleak assessment, “Why should I be so presumptuous as to dare provide a vision for people who refuse to provide one for themselves?”
Starred review from February 1, 2015
A thoughtful autopsy of the failed two-state paradigm.Having worked to promote peace within conflicts in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Iraq, O'Malley (Peace and Reconciliation/Univ. of Mass., Boston; Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa, 2007, etc.) carefully sifts through the intractable coexistence between the Palestinians and Israelis and finds both sides so traumatized by the "narrative" of their respective struggle that they are unable to view the other with respect or humanity-the beginning of true reconciliation. Both claiming to be legitimate owners of the same land, both smarting from historical injustice and both stoking their feelings of victimization, the two sides are "irreconcilable," as they have proved through numerous failed discussions from the two Oslo Accords through recent talks held by Secretary of State John Kerry. In a work of impeccable research, featuring extensive footnotes and employing interviews of both Palestinians and Israelis, O'Malley addresses the sticking points on both sides that form the "addiction" by each to an "ethos of conflict": the omission of the Islamist, Gaza-based Hamas from the peacemaking process, thus ignoring the "elephant in the room"; Israel's refusal to allow Palestinian refugees or their descendants a "right to return" after the wars of 1947-1949; continued Israeli settlements by a ultraorthodox minority bent on "messianic zealotry"; a highly problematic economic sustainability in Palestine due to the "asymmetry of power" with Israel; and the "silently creeping, inexorably irreversible changes in Israel's demographic profiles"-namely, fewer Jews and more Palestinians. O'Malley is not hopeful but rather disgusted that the two sides seem to be entrenched in their mutual hatred and absolutely unwilling to budge. To do so, he writes, requires establishing a "parity of esteem for each other's narratives" and then perhaps a long cease-fire that would allow a new generation of leaders to step up. Evenhanded, diplomatic, mutually respectful and enormously useful.
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March 15, 2015
O'Malley is but one voice among many weighing in on the intractable issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations, but his background as an effective peace negotiator in Northern Ireland and South Africa gives heft and a freshness of perspective to the situation. First, he sets up the powerful and authentic narrative that each side brings to the tabledispossession for Palestinians, the Holocaust for Israelis. He then addresses the region's many hot-button issuesamong them, Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees and their right of return, Hamas governance of Gaza, the inexorable growth of non-Jewish populations in Israelwithin those self-definitions. His recommendation: abandon the two-state solution, a solution he says has led to decades-long stalemate. If O'Malley's out-of-the-box advice lacks a comprehensive one-state solution, it could galvanize readers to engage in the discussion in new and more creative ways.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
November 1, 2014
Moakley Chair for Peace and Reconciliation at the McCormack Graduate School of Global and Policy Studies, University of Massachusetts, O'Malley has dedicated himself to conflict resolution in places ranging from Northern Ireland to South Africa. So it's pretty sobering to hear him say that the two-state solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine is no longer viable. Reasons: shifting demographics, soaring cost, Palestinian political disunity, Israel's hardening rightist stance, and more.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 15, 2015
O'Malley (John Joseph Moakley Professor of Peace and Reconciliation, John W. McCormack Graduate Sch. of Policy and Global Studies, Univ. of Massachusetts Boston; Shades of Difference; The Uncivil Wars) brings his experience with divided societies in South Africa and Northern Ireland to the Israel-Palestine conflict. With a bibliography that includes hundreds of books, reports, working papers, articles, unpublished materials, documents, and online media in addition to scores of interviews conducted with Israelis and Palestinians involved in negotiations, he supports his thesis that "the two-state solution" to the conflict will never occur. O'Malley reasons that the principals in all negotiations in the past 25 years are addicted to their own narratives and unable to respect the point of view of those with whom they purport to negotiate. Less convincing than that well-supported contention is O'Malley's proposal that one state "between the river and the sea," integrating Palestinians and Israelis, might work. There is nothing in this area's history indicating that even his suggested first step of revising negative depictions of "the other" in Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks would ever be taken. VERDICT The extensive bibliography and citations make this a valuable resource for anyone wanting to be better informed about the conflict. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]--Joel Neuberg, Santa Rosa Junior Coll. Lib., CA
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.