cover image The Last Option: After Nasser, Arafat, & Saddam Hussein: The Quest for Peace in the Middle East

The Last Option: After Nasser, Arafat, & Saddam Hussein: The Quest for Peace in the Middle East

David Kimche. Gale Cengage, $0 (328pp) ISBN 978-0-684-19422-6

This revelatory political and diplomatic history of Israel's attempts to achieve peace with its neighbors is peppered with an insider's firsthand details. Israeli ambassador-at-large Kimche, a former negotiator in the prime minister's office, presents fresh evidence that Brezhnev manipulated Nasser and Sadat and controlled the timing of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. He faults Carter for nearly blocking Egypt's separate bilateral peace with Israel. He shows how the PLO helped instigate Lebanon's civil war and discloses specifics of Israel's secret aid to Iraqi Kurds between 1965 and 1979. Calling Arafat ``a false prophet of peace,'' Kimche criticizes the European powers for embracing Arafat in order to distance themselves from U.S. policy in the Middle East. He also rips America for providing military and economic aid to Saddam Hussein, who deceived the West by portraying himself as a moderate. (Apr.)