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Tomorrow Is Yesterday

Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine

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Pub Date Sep 16 2025 | Archive Date Oct 16 2025

Description

Two insiders explain why the IsraeliPalestinian peace process failed, and anticipate what lies ahead.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters killed more than eleven hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages, prompting an Israeli response that has in turn taken tens of thousands of lives and devastated the Gaza Strip. Why did this happen, and can anything be done to grant peace and justice to Israelis and Palestinians alike?

In Tomorrow Is Yesterday, the analyst Hussein Agha and the diplomat Robert Malley offer a personal and bracing perspective on how the hopes of the Oslo Peace Process became the horrors of the present. Drawing on their experience advising the Palestinian leadership (Arafat and Abbas) and US presidents (Clinton, Obama, and Biden) and their participation in secret talks over decades, Agha and Malley offer candid portraits of leading figures and an interpretation of the conflict that exposes the delusions of all sides. They stress that the two-state solution became a global goal only when it was no longer viable; that U.S. officials preferred technical schemes to a frank reckoning with the past; that Hamas’s onslaught and Israel’s war of destruction were not historical exceptions but historical reenactments; and that the gaps separating Israelis and Palestinians have less to do with territorial allocation than with history and emotions.

Two insiders explain why the IsraeliPalestinian peace process failed, and anticipate what lies ahead.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters killed more than eleven hundred Israelis and took more than...


A Note From the Publisher

Hussein Agha has been involved in Palestinian politics and peace negotiations for more than three decades. He was a senior associate member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, for twenty-five years and participated on behalf of the Palestinians in backchannel negotiations that gave rise to the Beilin–Abu Mazen document, which remains the most authoritative basis for an eventual two-state solution, as well as in the Obama Administration's efforts to broker an Israeli–Palestinian peace agreement. He is the coauthor with Ahmad Khalidi of A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine.

Robert Malley has served at senior levels in several US administrations. Under President Obama, he served as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Advisor to the President for the counter-ISIL campaign, and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region. He served as Special Assistant to the President for Arab–Israeli affairs under President Clinton. Most recently, he was Special Envoy for Iran in the Biden Administration. He was also president and CEO of the International Crisis Group and is the author of The Call from Algeria.

Hussein Agha has been involved in Palestinian politics and peace negotiations for more than three decades. He was a senior associate member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, for twenty-five years and...


Advance Praise

Tomorrow Is Yesterday performs the vital service of encompassing competing narratives, cutting through lies, and telling the full story of how and why efforts to achieve a two-state solution repeatedly failed. This is an honest, eloquent, courageous, and deeply personal blend of history and memoir written by two people who have been at the center of the politics of Israel/Palestine for decades and still insist upon a future that must be better than the excruciatingly painful present.” —Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security advisor and author of After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We’ve Made

“The Middle East is the birthplace of the most influential religious traditions, and its inability to find peace constantly reignites the bitter resentments that plague our world. With their powerful narrative and elegant prose, the authors explain very convincingly why neither the local protagonists nor the foreign mediators have been able to put an end to the ordeal—and why tomorrow doesn’t look more promising than yesterday.” —Amin Maalouf, perpetual secretary of the Académie Française and author of Origins and The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

“Fascinating and essential reading for anyone interested in the Israel–Palestine conflict and peace process, this bleak yet bracing, vivid, and acute work, part analysis, part memoir, part history, by two veteran negotiators, one Palestinian, one American, is the one of the best I’ve read on the Middle East peace process and the October 7 wars. I read it in one sitting.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography

“An exceptional book in the genre, Tomorrow Is Yesterday offers a brilliant and uniquely perceptive interpretation of what may be the most resilient, intricate, and multifaceted conflict of modern times. Combining the competencies of the historian and the essayist, even the dramatist, with the perspective of the insider, the authors lead us from the prehistory of the 'peace process' and its presumed highest moments to its deceptions, mis-encounters, and tragic decline into oblivion. An unorthodox interpretation of the Israel–Hamas War, brilliantly woven into the book, makes it even more urgently relevant reading. Though it can be read as an obituary for the two-state solution, this is not a nihilistic treatise. The future scenarios the authors discuss could make the future somewhat brighter than 'yesterday."” —Shlomo Ben-Ami, former foreign minister of Israel and author of Prophets Without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution

“This must-read book is the work of two experienced deep thinkers who are strong believers in peace. True to the character of its authors in its thoughtfulness, creativity, and constructive candor, it brings to life the pain of the Israeli–Palestinian tragedies and offers important insights into the politics and personalities of Middle Eastern peacemaking. It is highly recommended for all believers in the greater good.” —Nabil Fahmy, former foreign minister of Egypt

Tomorrow Is Yesterday performs the vital service of encompassing competing narratives, cutting through lies, and telling the full story of how and why efforts to achieve a two-state solution...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780374617127
PRICE $30.00 (USD)
PAGES 272

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