Book Review // Interview | Serge Schmemann Ari Shavit: An Insider’s Guide to Zionism Ari Shavit’s book, My Promised Land, will not be of much practical help for peacemakers or policy makers. He does not resolve who has the greater right to Jerusalem, what should happen to refugees, what plots of land should change hands or who will patrol the Jordan Valley. Yet I believe that this book is the one peacemakers and policy makers have to read—precisely because the book is not about politics or diplomacy, but about the memories and narratives that have to be sorted out for any peace settlement to make sense. “Israel was a narrative before it became a state,” Shavit tells me. “But as it became stronger as a state it lost the narrative.” The book, he said, is his personal version...

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OPINION | Eetta Prince-Gibson Give Peace—And Women—A Chance Studies show that including women in peace negotiations improves chances of success. As the non-negotiations sputter, it becomes clear that we are stuck once again in an opaque process where each side attempts to apportion geography based on narrowly defined concepts of security and sovereignty. Maybe it’s time to try something different. More than a decade ago, Israel was the first United Nations member to pass legislation adopting UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for including women in all levels of policy-making and peace-building. Sadly, Israel has consistently refused to uphold its-own law by not including women in peace process negotiations. Of course, Israel’s current negotiating team is headed by a woman—Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. Although the government has been tight-lipped about the composition of the negotiating teams, we do know...

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