Missed opportunities for peace

Ronald Young's central thesis is that from 1981-86 Israeli and Arab leaders signaled on several occasions their willingness to move toward Israeli-Arab peace, but the Reagan administration did not respond to their appeals. The Bush administration would do well to read and learn from this illuminating document. Young and his wife, Carol Jensen, served as Middle East representatives of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) from 1982- 85. AFSC's presence in the region began in 1949. Young notes several key opportunities that were missed, including Washington's failure to oppose unequivocally Israel's invasion of Lebanon; the failure of the Reagan administration to capitalize on the president's landslide victory and the resulting reduced domestic political pressure by implementing new initiatives; and the US propensity to act unilaterally when multilateral proposals, including working more effectively through the United Nations, could have been more productive. -- From http://www.jstor.org (Sep. 23, 2016).