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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2026, p. 94
Middle East Books Review
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man and Sarah Leah Whitson, University of California Press, 2025, paperback, 272 pp. MEB $26.95
Report by Dale Sprusansky
AMID UNRELENTING despair and frustration at the seeming intractability of Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide, two scholars and human rights veterans are offering a plan for peace meant to reinvigorate solution-based discussions. This plan, proffered by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), and Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN, is outlined in their new book, From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine. The two authors discussed their audacious effort to re-start and re-think peace with the Quincy Institute on Nov. 12.
“It’s hard to feel anything but cynicism and hopelessness,” Whitson acknowledged at the opening of the discussion. This prevailing sentiment is precisely why she believes the blueprint for peace is so vital at this moment. “Part of the problem is that no one can envision a way out,” she opined, adding that those in the policy community have a responsibility to come up with solutions and not just remain in despair.
The plan outlined in the book entails nine steps, all of which are predicated on the cessation of violence and apartheid between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River: Establishing a caretaker government led by Israelis and Palestinians under international supervision, ending military rule and revoking emergency laws, restoring freedom of movement, reforming and integrating the courts, revoking discriminatory laws, establishing citizenship and rights to all people, reforming and integrating security forces, releasing political prisoners and permitting refugees to return, and within three years holding elections and a possible referendum on governance. The goal of these steps is to first grant equality to all citizens and then let them decide peacefully and democratically how and if the land ought to be partitioned.
The authors acknowledge in the book that getting both parties—particularly Israel—to agree to such a blueprint is hard to imagine and “requires a level of earnest political will” that does not exist today. However, they note that both targeted global pressure campaigns and unexpected events can suddenly move the needle in a dramatic fashion. “An event, series of events, or major shifts in the international system must first create the conditions in which the Israeli government and Jewish Israelis are forced to reevaluate their core values and interests,” they write. “That can only occur if Israelis believe that their country’s security, prosperity or political survival is no longer tenable or that the current situation poses an existential threat to their lives and livelihood.” They identify “sanctions, diplomatic isolation and economic pressure” as the preferable mechanisms to force Israel’s hand. However, they note that “painful, intractable violence from which neither side can see a path to lasting victory” also forces change.
Omer-Man said he and Whitson took inspiration from the example of Northern Ireland while developing their blueprint for peace. The peace process there “did not resolve the entire national issue between the Irish and English,” he noted. But, importantly, “they managed to end the armed struggle, the occupation, the political imprisonments, the acts of terrorism and other violence targeting civilians, and they managed to do so in a way that actually laid a path forward, where we’ve seen a lot of progress in the past few years.” There’s no reason, he believes, that a similar imperfect but transformational advance toward much greater peace and unity can’t happen among Palestinians and Israelis.
Whitson echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the current violence is man-made and “can be solved with sufficient political will.” Ultimately, she hopes the book will propel her peers to put Oslo behind them, acknowledge the current one-state apartheid reality and remember that horror in the Holy Land is not a law of nature, but a reversable reality worth relentlessly working to undo. “The main thing we want to leave people with is to…take responsibility for coming up with a plan, don’t leave that out of our advocacy and policymaking and thinking,” she said.
There is good basis for questioning the vitality of the blueprint laid out in From Apartheid to Democracy, but it is refreshing and warranted for the authors to passionately remind their colleagues and world leaders not to be bystanders of history. Forward-thinking, detailed plans that dare to bypass the ingrained myopia and seek to manifest a better reality are probably the best hope for Palestinians and Israelis.
Dale Sprusansky is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
