Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump

by Khaled Elgindy

A critical examination of the history of US-Palestinian relations

The United States has invested billions of dollars and countless diplomatic hours in the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution. Yet American attempts to broker an end to the conflict have repeatedly come up short. At the center of these failures lay two critical factors: Israeli power and Palestinian politics.

While both Israelis and Palestinians undoubtedly share much of the blame, one also cannot escape the role of the United States, as the sole mediator in the process, in these repeated failures. American peacemaking efforts ultimately ran aground as a result of Washington’s unwillingness to confront Israel’s ever-deepening occupation or to come to grips with the realities of internal Palestinian politics. In particular, the book looks at the interplay between the U.S.-led peace process and internal Palestinian politics—namely, how a badly flawed peace process helped to weaken Palestinian leaders and institutions and how an increasingly dysfunctional Palestinian leadership, in turn, hindered prospects for a diplomatic resolution. Thus, while the peace process was not necessarily doomed to fail, Washington’s management of the process, with its built-in blind spot to Israeli power and Palestinian politics, made failure far more likely than a negotiated breakthrough.

Shaped by the pressures of American domestic politics and the special relationship with Israel, Washington’s distinctive “blind spot” to Israeli power and Palestinian politics has deep historical roots, dating back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate. The size of the blind spot has varied over the years and from one administration to another, but it is always present.

Genres: History, Politics, Middle East, Nonfiction, American History, Israel

333 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 2019

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and incredibly detailed account of the USA's involvement in the conflict between Israel and Palestine as a so-called mediator. Similar topic as covered in Khalidi's Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, but I thought that this book was a little stronger. It's longer, but felt less dense and would be a better starting point for those interested in the role the USA has played over the past ~100 years or so. Important and enlightening in general, but particularly for those in the USA who want to learn more about the role our country has played in destabilizing the region and the peace process.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elgindy chronicles how Washington has failed to be and honest an fair mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Elgindy's view is of course influenced by his experience as an advisor to the Palestinian Authority, however his voice is much needed as so much of the debate in the U.S. is dominated by pro-Israeli groups. I wish the book touched more upon the U.S. public's bias in favor of Israel and how it constrains U.S. presidential administrations and their ability to approach the conflict honestly. Overall I would recommend this to anyone who wishes to understand the U.S.'s many failures in their efforts to broker peace and how this has harmed Palestinian lives.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5. Hopefully a real review coming soon once work cools down. This is a good one to understand how the US has affected (read: directed? betrayed?) the peace process. It's wild to see how purely domestic political considerations (read: Israel lobby) led presidents to reverse course on unrelated foreign policy, even against the advice of all the educated technocrats in our intelligence communities and State Dept that knew that giving in to the lobby was against our national interest.

As always, for the best book specifically dedicated to the Israel Lobby, I recommend The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. But if you want to fold that in to a broader perspective of how it has affected the peace process, then I recommend this book.

[Gordon Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just outright tragic. Through a great deal of research Elgindi takes us from the very beginnings of the Palestine Israel conflict, the inability of the British and UN to resolve the issue and ultimate handover to the US following the Second World War. Where successive presidents each found themselves trapped in a bid to square the circle between a professed defense of human rights, democracy, self determination and an increasingly empowered and immovable Zionist constituency. Highly recommend to understand just to what extent, for all it’s rhetoric, the US’s toothless approach to mediating the peace process ultimately led to its demise over the course of 70 long and painful years.

[Rani Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

highly recommend for someone wanting to understand the us governments position regarding israel and palestine from the time of the british mandate to the beginning of trump 1.0. I would definitely catagorize this with works by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said, and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod






but fr tho i hope henry kissinger is burning in hell <3

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cogent and convincing argument that has sadly been proven prescient since October 7.

[Iman · Rating 5 out of 5]

so good, read it.