Kissinger in the Middle East

The first successful Arab-Israeli peace negotiation, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979, owed much to the process started by U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger five years earlier. Using all the tools in the diplomatic toolkit, Kissinger brokered the Israeli-Egyptian disengagement agreement and the Israeli-Syrian Separation of Forces Agreement, laying the groundwork for the Arab-Israeli peace process for the following four decades.

In his new book, “Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy”, Martin Indyk, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, aims to explain the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East through Kissinger’s experience.

On December 1, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion to launch this important book by Indyk, former Brookings scholar and executive vice president. The panel examined the history of American involvement in brokering Arab-Israeli peace the prospects for brokering such peace in the future.

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