DEATH TANGO: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat and Three Fateful Days in March

by Yossi Alpher

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Rachel Tarlow Gul, rachel@otrpr.com

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“Anyone seeking to understand how Israelis and Palestinians traded the hopes of Oslo for something approaching hopelessness is well-advised to read this book. With penetrating analysis and elegant prose, Yossi Alpher has told the gripping story of three days nearly two decades ago that continue to haunt would-be peacemakers. Yossi’s faithful readers will not be disappointed with his latest effort.”

— Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, Bard College

“A riveting account of the crucial days in March 2002 when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was profoundly changed for the worse. The peace camp has never recovered from those wrenching days, and we live now without any hope of a just settlement. Alpher is a highly respected expert who has spent decades studying this conflict from both sides.”

— Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project

“A critical assessment of a key period in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never before presented in such detail. The best and most capable players at the executive and political levels proved unable to forge any resolution, final or partial, because both parties continued to maintain an insurmountable gulf between themselves. This is a MUST read for anyone daring to tackle the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of Israel-Arab relations in general.”

— Efraim Halevy, former Head of the Mossad (1998-2002)

In his latest book, DEATH TANGO: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and Three Fateful Days in March, Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad official and one of Israel’s foremost analysts of Israeli strategic issues, traces the current fraught relationship between Israel and Palestine to three dramatic events that occurred in March 2002. First, there was a bloody suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel on March 27th at a Passover celebration. Then, the Arab League met in Beirut on March 28th and approved the Arab Peace Initiative. Finally, on March 29th, Israel reinvaded the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield. Taken together, Alpher argues, these three events were a catalyst for extensive change in the Middle East.

Based on many interviews and the author’s unique experience and inside knowledge, DEATH TANGO is filled with thorough and thoughtful analysis that has never before been published. Rowman & Littlefield will release Alpher’s new book on February 15th (Hardcover, 978-1538162071, $36; Ebook, 978-1538162088, $34).

Why write this book twenty years after the events took place? “It took time for the significance of these events to sink in, and for me to recognize their strategic impact on Israel and the region,” Alpher explains. “The chronological distance was helpful in understanding what went on in late March 2002 among Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab world and the United States. Taken alone, each of the three major events described in the book is not so exceptional. When viewed as a three-day continuum, however, something exceptional is seen to have happened—even in Middle East terms.”

DEATH TANGO is about the interaction among these three critical events, and the key personalities involved. It moves from Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office where Ariel Sharon rants against Yasser Arafat, to Washington, DC where the US fumbles and misunderstands the dynamics at work, to the Jenin refugee camp, the “suicide capital of Palestine,” where Israeli soldiers win a bloody military battle but lose in the war of public opinion. The book also includes:

An exclusive interview with New York Time’s commentator Tom Friedman, in which he explains how he sold the Saudis a peace plan.
Why Sharon invited himself to the Arab League meeting in Beirut and why the Arabs, who saw him as Genghis Khan incarnate, turned him down.
A blow-by-blow account of the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history.
What Sharon and Arafat had in common and what they did not.
Why the Arab Peace Initiative of March 2002 delivered a measure of stability and co-existence, but not peace.
Why there won’t be a two-state solution anytime soon between Israel and the Palestinians – but there won’t be all-out war either.

Alpher concludes that the new Arab-Israel and Palestinian-Israeli realities forged by these three pivotal events are here to stay. The combination of Palestinian overreach, Israeli security concerns and territorial greed, and Arab state indifference ensures that a two-state solution will not happen. In parallel, the Arabs need Israel as a partner against Iran and militant Islam. When pressured on any of these issues, their leaders fall back on the Arab Peace Initiative as the authoritative legitimizer of the status quo. Palestinians and Israelis, like Arafat and Sharon in their day, are dancing “a kind of death tango.”

A must read for anyone interested in history, Middle East politics, Israel, the United States in the Middle East, and international strategic affairs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Yossi (Joseph) Alpher is a consultant and writer on Israel-related strategic issues. He is the author of the prize-winning Periphery: Israel’s Search For Middle East Allies and No End Of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015 and 2016, respectively). His latest book is Winners and Losers in the ‘Arab Spring’: Profiles in Chaos (Routledge, 2020), which won the Chaikin Prize in 2021.

Born in Washington, DC, Alpher served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence officer in the late 1960s, followed by service in the Mossad in the ‘70s. From 1981 to 1995 he was associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, ultimately serving as director of center. From 1995 to 2000 he served as director of the American Jewish Committee’s Israel/Middle East Office in Jerusalem. In July 2000 (during the Camp David talks) he served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel. From 2001 to 2012 he was coeditor, with Ghassan Khatib (until recently vice-president of Bir Zeit University) of the bitterlemons.net family of internet publications.

DEATH TANGO:

Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and Three Fateful Days in March

By Yossi Alpher

Rowman & Littlefield; February 15, 2022

(Hardcover, 978-1538162071, $36, 224 Pages; Ebook, 978-1538162088, $34)

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THE TENDEREST OF STRINGS

by Steven Schwartz

“Schwartz (Madagascar, 2016), whose long career includes both novels and story collections, delivers the rare plot-driven domestic drama. The mystery of who killed Tom bubbles under the surface as the characters deal with heavy emotions and difficult decisions. The smooth writing and quick pace will appeal to readers of Jessica Strawser and Jodi Picoult.” – Booklist

“Steven Schwartz’s tightly written story tells of a family in crisis…Schwartz brings an understanding of ordinary people to this engrossing story of a fractured family that strives to heal itself through love and understanding.” – The Denver Post

https://www.overtheriverpr.com/2021/11/15/3120/

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November-December 2021 Virtual Book Tour for Liu Xinwu’s Award-Winning Novel, THE WEDDING PARTY, Translated by Jeremy Tiang

We hope you will follow our virtual tour on behalf of THE WEDDING PARTY by Liu Xinwu and translated into English by the renowned Jeremy Tiang as we share daily features, book giveaways, excerpts and reviews.

“Covering one 12-hour day in December 1982, Liu’s magnum opus focuses on all aspects of a working-class wedding, from the earliest preparations to the final farewells, while telling intersecting stories about the inhabitants of the Beijing building where the celebration occurs.The novel is stuffed with Chinese history, the specifics of life in 1982 (including architecture, food, and clothing), and philosophical musings on time and what it means to be human. Each character in the Dickensian cast undergoes a private drama: They’re all fully developed people, with complete histories showing the varied and complex impact of Chinese communism, particularly the Cultural Revolution, on individual fortunes….A deep immersion in everyday life in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution.” — Kirkus Reviews, Starred review

November 16: NURSE BOOKIE

November 17: LITERALLY LITERARY CHRIS

November 18: TOTAHLY BOOKED

November 19: NEVER WITHOUT A BOOK

November 22: CHARLEY ROXY

November 23: THE MADDIE HATTER

November 24: READING WITH NICOLE

November 29: WE LOVE BIG BOOKS AND WE CANNOT LIE

November 30: LITERARY QUICKSAND

December 1: SUZY APPROVED BOOK REVIEWS

December 2: JUST ANOTHER CHAPTER AND TEA

December 3: YVO NNE LIU

December 6: TIN A MAY READS

December 7: WHERE THE READER GROWS

December 8: WHAT IS THAT BOOK ABOUT

December 9: SECRET READING LIFE

December 10: BOOXOUL

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TONY HILLERMAN: A LIFE by James McGrath Morris

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | Contact: Jennifer Richards, Jen@otrpr.com

Tony Hillerman’s Groundbreaking Work Explored in First Major Biography of the Mystery Writer

“Skillfully written, Hillerman’s fans will want to give this a look.”—Publishers Weekly

“The biography, like Hillerman’s fiction, is deeply researched, lovingly detailed and eminently readable. —Albuquerque Journal

“This first major biography of iconic Western mystery novelist Tony Hillerman is substantial, engrossing and often surprising.”—Roundup Magazine, Western Writers of America

University of Oklahoma Press; 10/14/2021

TONY HILLERMAN: A Life (University of Oklahoma Press hardcover | Recorded Books audiobook | October 14, 2021) by James McGrath Morris details for the first time how the author of eighteen spellbinding detective novels simultaneously transformed a traditional genre and unlocked the mysteries of the Navajo culture to an audience of millions. His best- selling novels added Navajo Tribal Police detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee to the pantheon of American fictional detectives.

Morris offers a balanced portrait of Hillerman’s personal and professional life and provides a timely appreciation of his work. In intimate detail, Morris captures the author’s early years in Depression-era Oklahoma; his near-death experience in World War II; his sixty-year marriage to Marie; his family life, including six children, five of them adopted; his work in the trenches of journalism; his affliction with PTSD and its connection to his enchantment with Navajo spirituality; and his ascension as one of America’s best-known authors of mysteries. Further, Morris uncovers the almost accidental invention of Hillerman’s iconic detective Joe Leaphorn and the circumstances that led to the addition of Jim Chee as his partner.

Hillerman’s novels were not without controversy. Morris examines the charges of cultural appropriation leveled at the author toward the end of his life. Yet, for many readers, including many Native Americans, Hillerman deserves critical acclaim for his knowledgeable and sensitive portrayal of Diné (Navajo) history, culture, and identity.

At the time of Hillerman’s death, more than 20 million copies of his books were in print. A new television show, Dark Winds, produced by AMC Networks and Dark Winds Productions LLC, is currently in production. The pilot will be directed by Chris Eyre and executive producers include Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin.

In weaving together all the elements of the author’s life, Morris drew on the untapped collection of the author’s papers, extensive archival research, interviews with friends, colleagues, and family, as well as travel in the Navajo Nation. Filled with never-before-told anecdotes and fresh insights, Tony Hillerman will thrill the author’s fans and awaken new interest in his life and literary legacy.

ABOUT THE BIOGRAPHER

James McGrath Morris is an award-winning and New York Times best-selling author. His books include The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Pasos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War; Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press; and Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power. He is the former president of Biographers International Organization, of which he was among the original founders. In 2019, he received the BIO Award, which is given to a writer who has made a major contribution to the advancement of the art and craft of biography. Previous winners, among others, include: Jean Strouse, Robert Caro, Arnold Rampersad, Ron Chernow, Stacy Schiff, Taylor Branch, and Candice Millard. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

For further information and review copy requests, or to schedule an interview with James McGrath Morris, please contact Jennifer Richards at Over the River Public Relations: Jen@otrpr.com, 201-242-9637.

TONY HILLERMAN: A Lifeby James McGrath Morris

E-Pub | 978-0-8061-7865-3

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November 2021 Virtual Tour for Award-Winning Author Shion Miura’s New Novel, THE EASY LIFE IN KAMUSARI, Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

We hope you will follow along for our virtual tour this November as we share reviews, features, and giveaways when we celebrate the release of THE EASY LIFE IN KAMUSARI by Shion Miura and translated into English by the talented Juliet Winters Carpenter. In this warm and lively coming-of-age story, Miura transports us from the trappings of city life to the trials, mysteries, and delights of a mythical mountain forest.