A REPLY TO AVI RAZ

Extract

I would like to briefly address the contentions that Avi Raz raises in his retort to my review of his book. First, the term “negotiations” that I use refers to Raz's detailed depiction of the elaborate and almost endless stream of contacts between Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians that took place through various venues. Ironically, Raz continues to describe such negotiations in the second paragraph of his reply, while claiming that “there were no negotiations during the period covered by my book.” Perhaps if I had used a more general phrasing such as “talks” or “exchanges,” Raz would not have found this issue so problematic, but since these talks and exchanges were a form of negotiation I think the term is pertinent.