Hussein agha and robert malley biography

Looking at history, who can blame them? Mubarak was toppled in part because he was viewed as excessively subservient to the West, yet the Islamists who succeed him might offer the West a sweeter because more sustainable deal. They think they can get away with what he could not. Stripped of his nationalist mantle, Mubarak had little to fall back on; he was a naked autocrat.

The Muslim Brothers by comparison have a much broader program—moral, social, cultural. Islamists feel they can still follow their convictions, even if they are not faithfully anti-Western. They can moderate, dilute, defer. Agha and Malley lament the rise of the Islamists and the bizarre Gulf-financed taste for Western interventionism that creates opportunities for Islamists, and the retrograde views most Islamists advocate under the petrol-fueled influence of the Salafi international.

There is a potential key to making things go differently: the collapse of Saudi Arabia as it currently is politically organized. Which probably means, for a while at least, the collapse of order in that country in the way we see in Syria today. Lacking a clear and distinct vision of where they were heading, both sides treated the interim period not as a time to prepare for an ultimate agreement but as a mere warm-up to the final negotiations; not as a chance to build trust, but as an opportunity to optimize their bargaining positions.

As a result, each side was determined to hold on to its assets until the endgame. Palestinians were loath to confiscate weapons or clamp down on radical groups; Israelis were reluctant to return territory or halt settlement construction. Grudging behavior by one side fueled grudging behavior by the other, leading to a vicious cycle of skirted obligations, clear-cut violations, and mutual recriminations.

By multiplying the number of obligations each side agreed to, the successive interim accords increased the potential for missteps and missed deadlines. Behind almost all of Barak's moves, Arafat believed he could discern the objective of either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal, or mobilising the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians.

Those who claim that Arafat lacked interest in a permanent deal miss the point. Like Barak, the Palestinian leader felt that permanent status negotiations were long overdue; unlike Barak, he did not think that this justified doing away with the interim obligations. In many ways, Barak's actions led to a classic case of misaddressed messages. When Barak reneged on his commitment to transfer the three Jerusalem villages - a commitment he had specifically authorised Clinton to convey to Arafat - Clinton was furious.

In the end, though, and on almost all these questionable tactical judgments, the US either gave up or gave in, reluctantly acquiescing out of respect for the things Barak was trying to do. If there is one issue that Israelis agree on, it is that Barak broke every conceivable taboo and went as far as any Israeli prime minister had gone or could go.

Even so, it is hard to state with confidence how far Barak was actually prepared to go. Strictly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer. Determined to preserve Israel's position in the event of failure, the Israelis always stopped one, if not several, steps short of a proposal. The ideas put forward at Camp David were never stated in writing, but orally conveyed.

In the Palestinians' eyes, they were the ones who made the principal concessions. Arafat was persuaded that the Israelis were setting a trap. Palestinian refugees would carry out the right of return. Although they would not return to their original homes, the refugees would get to live in a more hospitable environment - and one that would ultimately be ruled not by Israelis, but by their own people.

For Israelis, meanwhile, it would improve the demographic balance, since the number of Arab Israelis would diminish as a result of the land transfer. Some Palestinians might argue that such a plan represents a sleight of hand, disguising resettlement in Palestine as a return to their pre lands. But do the refugees actually want to live in Jewish areas that have become part of an alien country?

Would they rather live under Israeli rule? And short of calling into question Israel's Jewish identity, is there any other way of implementing the Palestinian right of return? Lurking behind every dispute over an Israeli-Palestinian deal is the problem of its implementation. Achieving a lasting final-status agreement now will require some means to persuade both parties that this time commitments will actually be upheld.

An international force would help provide such assurances. The paradox is that, although the outlines of a solution have been understood for some time, the way to get there has eluded all sides.

Hussein agha and robert malley biography

Achieving such a deal will require the intervention of outside actors. Led by the US and sanctioned by a UN security council resolution, the effort should involve a broad coalition of European, Arab and other countries capable of providing security, as well as economic and political support, to Israelis and Palestinians. Some will argue that anything coming from the outside will be viewed as a foreign imposition and therefore be rejected.