Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace

 President Barack Obama's first trip abroad in his second term took him to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, where he despondently admitted to those waiting for words of encouragement, "It is a hard slog to work through all of these issues." Contrast this gloomy assessment with Obama's optimism on the second day of his first term, when he appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell as his special envoy for Middle East peace, boldly asserting that his administration would "actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians." How is it that Obama's active and aggressive search for progress has become mired in the status quo?

Writer and political analyst Josh Ruebner charts Obama's journey from optimism to frustration in the first hard-hitting investigation into why the president failed to make any progress on this critical issue, and how his unwillingness to challenge the Israel lobby has shattered hopes for peace.

Written in a clear and accessible style by the advocacy director of a national peace organization and former Middle East analyst for the Congressional Research Service, Shattered Hopes offers an informed history of the Obama administration's policies and maps out a true path forward for the United States to help achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Review: "Josh Ruebner has produced the authoritive autopsy of the US-led peace process. His portrait of America's first African-American president demonstrating passivity in the face of apartheid is absolutely devastating." -Max Blumenthal, author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

"An essential contribution to the subject. Josh has been spearheading efforts for an even-handed U.S. policy for a dozen years, and has an intimate knowledge of how the administration and Congress work as well as unparalleled expertise on US aid to Israel." -Nadia Hijab, author and media commentator

"With the passion of a longtime activist and the rigor of a trained researcher, Josh Ruebner dissects a wide range of sources to provide a tour de force analysis of Obama's failed Middle East policy." -Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

"This marvelous book looks at one of the thorniest aspects of foreign policy today. It's a book for those who are not content to sit on the sidelines and watch the continuous dispossession of the Palestinian people, committed if not in our name, then with our blessing." -Bill Fletcher, Jr.

"This book is much more than a devastating indictment of an immoral U.S. policy; it is a clarion call for US civil society to take action where our government falters." -Anna Baltzer, author of Witness in Palestine

"This book doesn't pull any punches but rather is an honest assessment of Washington's failed peace attempts that anyone who genuinely cares about a just peace should read." -Yousef Munayyer, Executive Director, The Palestine Center

"Anyone who wants to understand what happened on this front during the fateful first five years of Obama's presidency needs to read this book!" -Helena Cobban, former columnist, Christian Science Monitor, founder of Just World Books

"A stinging indictment of the absurdity of the Obama administration's failed peace process." -Tikkun

"A devastating book. Mining deeply into the treasure trove of classified documents released by Wikileaks and the Palestine Papers, Ruebner demonstrates that the role of the Obama administration regarding Israel-Palestine has been even worse than those paying close attention to public, non-leaked material could have imagined." -John V. Whitbeck, Journal of Palestine Studies

"Ruebner is unafraid to tell it like it is. Drawing from a wealth of primary sources obtained from WikiLeaks, the Palestine Papers, and both clandestine and open documents, he presents analysis that is intriguing even to an expert." -Heather Hartlaub, Muftah