Impossible Peace

Israel/Palestine Since 1989

Mark LeVine

In 1993 luminaries from around the world signed the Oslo accords, a pledge to achieve lasting peace in the Holy Land.  Yet, with over a thousand Israelis and nearly four times that number Palestinians killed since 2000, the oslo process is now considered ‘history’.

Impossible Peace provides one of the first comprehensive analyses of that history.  Mark LeVine argues that Oslo was never going to bring peace or justice to Palestinians or Israelis.  He claims that the accords collapsed not because of a failure to live up to the agreements, but precisely because of the terms and underlying ideologies of those agreements.

This fresh and honest account of the peace process in the Middle East shows how by learning from history it may be possible to avoid the erros that have long doomed peace in the region.

Contents

Introduction: An Impossible Peace
Chapter 1: From Modernity to the Messiah on the Mediterranean
Chapter 2: From Handshake to Security State
Chapter 3: No Land, No Peace
Chapter 4: The Economics of Failure: Neoliberalism and the New Middle East
Chapter 5: Religion, Culture, and Territory in a Globalized Context
Chapter 6: Violence, Chaos, and the History of the Future
Conclusion: Oslo and the Burdens of History

About the Author

Mark Levine is Associate Professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor for Tikkun magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde and Christian Science Monitor. He is the author and editor of half a dozen books, including: Why They Don’t Hate Us (2005), Overthrowing Geography (2005), Religion, Social Practices and Contested Hegemonies (2004) and Twilight of Empire (2003).