New Details Emerge on Washington's Role in 2013-14 Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is remembered as a doomed, last-ditch effort at reaching a final peace agreement. But in a recent, widely discussed essay in The American Interest, veteran Israeli negotiator and retired IDF brigadier general Michael Herzog took aim at some pervasive conventional wisdom about the talks. He argues that the negotiations were not as disastrous as they appear, while highlighting an underrated reason for their failure—namely, the U.S.’s centrality to the talks, and the arrogant mix of heavy-handedness and obliviousness that characterized Washington’s dealings with both the Israelis and Palestinians.
The negotiations, which began in July of 2013 and ended nine months later, didn’t produce a peace deal or anything close to one. Still, Herzog, who was a key participant in the negotiations, echoes U.S. special envoy Martin Indyk’s conclusion that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the talks seriously and had moved into what Indyk called “the zone of a possible agreement” as they progressed. Herzog also described a productive diplomatic backchannel between confidants of Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas that could serve as a model for future peace efforts.