Excellent Audible version

I enjoyed this book a lot - the writing balanced information with a driving narrative and the Audible narrator did a great job.

The 13 days of the Camp David talks are used as the basis for a series of flashbacks that explain the background to the Arab-Israeli conflict: early Israeli immigration, activism in the 1940s, the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, the conflicts of 1967 and 1973. This was neatly done so that each flashback illuminated some motivation or relation among the key players: Anwar Sadat (Egypt), Menachem Begin (Israel), Moshe Dayan (Israel), and Jimmy Carter (America). Wright managed the pacing really well and it gave the book an un-put-downable quality.

The author is fairly even-handed - though like Carter his desire for peace does tend to see local traditions and experiences more as obstacles than things to be respected. Carter's view of human nature was optimistic: dialogue would erase difference and create a sense of togetherness. But talking can easily exacerbate differences and create quarrels (as the Internet has demonstrated). Wright recounts Carter's success in transcending some examples of overt racial divisions in Sourthern Georgia as a way of explaining (and justifying) his optimism. Wright came across as Carter-like in his wish to jump over the problems and get to peace. He admires the way tricky problems were avoided with verbal ingenuity and shoving the tricky bits into an appendix.

But the middle east was particularly intractable. The conclusion notes Sadat was more flexible about what Egypt needed as he had a troubled relation to his country (and his delegation at Camp David - he kept them in the dark about his negotiations). Sadat wanted to take Egypt in a new direction, rather than clinging to old Egyptian values. Sadat played to Carter's desire for a quick win in the hope of becoming America's preferred partner in the Middle East. It would be possible to present this as cynical but Wright admires diplomacy and warms to Sadat's evident charm.

Menachem Begin is presented as a peace-blocker because of his absolute assertion of Israel's particularity. This seemed to annoy everyone, even his own delegation, who saw benefits in political compromise. Begin's lawyer-trained pedantry is also presented as awkward - a tactic for refusal to engage. Prefering the problem to the solution Begin is not presented as a great diplomat and thus gets rougher treatment.

Begin does come across as ambivalent about peace - to say the least! - but from his perspective the attempt to cobble together a peace to secure political advantage for Carter and Sadat might not have seemed the best way to respect the issues involved or the situation of a country that had repeatedly been threatened with annihilation.

Wright is frustrated that the achievements that were gained at the talks were so readily seen as a sell-out. But the particularities count and a genuine peace has to be have real buy-in rather then feeling like a sell-out. I have held back the 5th star because I think there might have been some discussion of the nature of peace talks and the role of the outside umpire - it seems a particularly important point here. Still, I thoroughly recommend it.

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