Publisher's Synopsis
In May 1996 Binyamin Netanyahu became Israel's first directly elected prime minister amid widespread international concern about the future of the Middle East peace process given his publicly stated opposition to the Oslo Accords.;In this book Neill Lochery analyses and chronicles the development of the various tracks of the peace process under Netanyahu, and examines whether any useful lessons, either positive or negative, can be drawn from the Middle East peace process and applied to other regions of conflict.;The author gives a detailed account of the rise of Netanyahu, his background and an assessment of his beliefs. Little has hitherto been written in English on what Israel's youngest prime minister stands for or on the profound changes in the Israeli political system, of which his election is a direct product. He further examines the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from Oslo towards a final status agreement and argues that there appears little chance of a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement in the foreseeable future.;Central to Dr Lochery's discussion is the contention that the argument widely employed by academics and the Arab side that Netanyahu is responsible for derailing the peace process is simplistic and not entirely accurate. The complexity of the Middle East peace process is such that it was inevitable that the period of euphoria following Rabin's handshake with Yasser Arafat in 1993 would be replaced by a more sombre assessment of the difficult road to peace.;For primary source material Dr Lochery makes use of personal interviews, many of which he conducted strictly off the record so that serving officials could express themselves more freely. He also utilizes secondary sources from both Israeli and Arab sides. As such this book presents as complete a picture as is possible of the developments in the peace process under Netanyahu and chronicles the ongoing changes challenging Israel.
