The Arab Center
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
The Promise of Moderation
Marwan Muasher
An Arab diplomat’s inside perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict and what must be done to resolve the continuing crisis in the Middle East.
Marwan Muasher, a prominent Jordanian diplomat, has been instrumental in shaping Middle East peace efforts for nearly twenty years. He served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel and was also ambassador to the United States, spokesperson at peace talks in Madrid and Washington, minister of foreign affairs, and deputy prime minister in charge of reform. Here he recounts the behind-the-scenes details of diplomatic ventures over the past two decades, including such recent undertakings as the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East Road Map.
Muasher’s insights into internal Arab politics and the successes and failures of the Arab Center are uniquely informed and deeply felt. He assesses how the middle road approach to reform is faring and explains why current tactics used by the West to deal with Islamic groups are doomed to failure. He examines why the Arab Center has made so little progress and which Arab, Israeli, and American policies need rethinking. Part memoir and part analysis, this book reveals the human side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is essential reading for all who share the hope that moderate, pragmatic Arab voices will be heard in today’s vitriolic debates over how to achieve an enduring peace in the Middle East.
Marwan Muasher is scheduled to make the following appearances (please note that Radio and TV broadcasts are subject to change):
Wednesday, May 28, 11AM-12PM ET, NPR Diane Rehm Show; Wednesday, June 11, 12-1PM ET, WILL Radio (Illinois Public Radio); Wednesday, June 11, 8PM ET, ABC broadcasting (Australia); Friday, June 13, 12:30PM, Washington DC, Brookings Institution with Tom Friedman, http://www.brookings.edu/; Tuesday, June 17, 8AM, New York, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs breakfast, http://www.cceia.org/index.html; Tuesday, June 17, WNYC Leonard Lopate Show; Tuesday, July 8, 6PM, Commonwealth Club San Francisco Featured Event, http://tickets.commonwealthclub.org/; Tuesday, July 8, 10-11AM, KQED Forum; Thursday, July 31, 7PM, Washington DC, Politics and Prose, http://www.politics-prose.com/directio.htm; Wednesday, September 10, 5:30PM, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/; Tuesday, September 30, Affairs Council, Hampton Roads VA.
contribution.”—Charles Hill, Diplomat-in-Residence, Yale University
"A fascinating inside look by a 50-year-old Arab statesman, the first to write a book in English, who was privy to all the secret machinations since the age of 30."—Arnaud de Borchgrave, UPI Editor-at-Large
"Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian deputy prime minister and foreign minister, has just published The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation. It's one of the most important books on the Middle East, and is required reading for everyone interested in finding solutions to the many problems the region faces today. . . . Arab leaders, and America's next president, would do well to heed the experiences and advice of an Arab statesman."—Scott MacLeod,Time's Middle East Blog by Cairo Bureau Chief
"Watching the news from Lebanon, it's poignant to read the title of a new memoir by Jordan's former foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, The Arab Center: ThePromise of Moderation. The daily headlines tell us that centrist Arabs such as Muasher are becoming an endangered species. . . . Muasher's book raises what may be the most damning criticism of the Bush administration's Middle East policy -- that it has unwittingly undercut the very people the United States wanted most to help. In Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and even Jordan, the moderate voices in the center are weaker now than they were when President Bush took office in 2001. The United States has exposed its allies to danger and has not had the diplomatic skills to create a stable new order."—David Ignatius, Washington Post
Publication Date: June 30, 2009
21 b/w illus. + 4 maps