Tomorrow Is Yesterday - by Hussein Agha & Robert Malley (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A Best Book of 2025
The New Yorker - Foreign Affairs - NPR - Foreign Policy - Responsible Statecraft

Two insiders explain why the Israeli-Palestinian peace process failed, and anticipate what lies ahead.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters killed more than eleven hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages, prompting an Israeli response that has in turn taken tens of thousands of lives and devastated the Gaza Strip. Why did this happen, and can anything be done to grant peace and justice to Israelis and Palestinians alike?

In Tomorrow Is Yesterday, veteran negotiators Hussein Agha and Robert Malley offer a personal and bracing perspective on how the hopes of the Oslo Peace Process became the horrors of the present. Drawing on their experience advising the Palestinian leadership (Arafat and Abbas) and US presidents (Clinton, Obama, and Biden) and their participation in secret talks over decades, Agha and Malley offer candid portraits of leading figures and an interpretation of the conflict that exposes the delusions of all sides. They stress that the two-state solution became a global goal only when it was no longer viable; that US officials preferred technical schemes to a frank reckoning with the past; that Hamas's onslaught and Israel's war of destruction were not historical exceptions but historical reenactments; and that the gaps separating Israelis and Palestinians have less to do with territorial allocation than with history and emotions.

Review Quotes

"Late last year, I spent probably three or four months just reading books about Israel/Palestine . . . One [standout] is called Tomorrow Is Yesterday . . . One of the incredible things about [Tomorrow Is Yesterday] is just how well written it is . . . I never expected a book written by two people together, but also two policy people, to be so beautiful." --M. Gessen, The Ezra Klein Show

"Compelling, provocative, deeply unsettling, and, sometimes, flawed. It is the most original book I have read that has emerged from Hamas's October 7 massacres and the Gaza war . . . The value of this brave, bracing book is its challenge to the cherished beliefs of Palestinians, Israelis, and any "bystanders" who are committed to the flourishing of a democratic Jewish state and to ending the subjugation of the Palestinian people." --Susie Linfield, Dissent

"A coruscating book . . . that surveys the folly and missed chances of Israeli-Palestinian relations." --David Remnick, The New Yorker

"In Tomorrow Is Yesterday [Agha and Malley] argue the peace process was doomed from the start--not by tactical missteps or bad faith, though these existed in abundance, but because it fundamentally misunderstood the conflict itself . . . Malley and Agha's account is clear-eyed and unsparing, rejecting the very conventions that upheld the imbalance at the heart of the process. It reads like the work of people who have burned their bridges--and it fits the gravity of the moment." --Noam Sheizaf, The Guardian

"[A] probing book on the failure of [the peace process] . . . Grim and unflinching." --Adam Shatz, London Review of Books

"One of the single best books I've read on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Camp David negotiator [Rob Malley's] Tomorrow Is Yesterday, coauthored with Hussein Agha. If you're looking for a primer on how we got to where we are today, this really is a must-read." --Shadi Hamid, Washington Post columnist

"A fantastic new book . . . A very up-close and personal history of how . . . negotiations played out and why they have failed over and over." --Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show

"Timely and elegantly written . . . Agha and Malley's argument is straightforward and persuasive . . . [The authors] demonstrate an admirable grasp of and sensitivity to the political mindsets, historical narratives, and existential fears of all sides--a remarkable feat for individuals so closely tied to the negotiating parties . . . Although it is not the first major work to challenge the Oslo orthodoxy or the church of two states, Tomorrow Is Yesterday is certainly one of the most compelling." --Khaled Elgindy, Foreign Policy

"[Agha and Malley] present a coruscating account of three decades of attempts by the international community to persuade Israel and Palestinians to reach a territorial accommodation . . . The two men are well placed to offer a forensic dissection of the diplomacy since the 1993 Oslo accords put a two-state settlement front and centre of peacemaking . . . They do not pull their punches . . . The authors are unsparing in their criticism of the failure of successive US administrations to match a rhetorical commitment to a two-state solution with a willingness to apply the necessary pressure on Israel . . . This case is made in crisp prose and with the insight and illuminating anecdotes of insiders." --Philip Stephens, Financial Times

"A blistering, magisterial work of political and psychological insight that questions the viability of a two-state solution. Its most important message zeroes directly in on what most people avoid at all costs when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at heart a narrative clash." --Nora Berman, Forward

"Elegiac and confessional . . . Agha, a longtime adviser to Palestinian leaders, and Malley, an adviser to several U.S. presidents on Middle Eastern issues, write ruefully about what they now see as years of misguided policy . . . They argue in painful detail that the peacemakers may be behind where they started and are now paying the steep costs of this delusional policy in the accumulation of ruined lives and dashed dreams." --Lisa Anderson, Foreign Affairs

"Beautifully written . . . [Agha and Malley are] two people who have genuinely distinct perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and who have been in the room . . . A great book." --Chris Hayes, on The Ezra Klein Show

"Hussein Agha and Robert Malley have written a challenging book on the failure to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict . . . [Tomorrow Is Yesterday] is a telling exploration of the importance of psychology in politics, how what is felt subjectively can trump more practical and material considerations . . . What does one take away from this honest, incisive, powerfully written book? . . . One can acknowledge that Agha and Malley are right in their claim that the two-state solution always stood on tenuous ground because it dealt with the consequences of 1967 and not those of 1948." --Scott McConnell, The American Conservative

"[Agha and Malley] put their finger on the essence of the problem . . . Tomorrow Is Yesterday deserves widespread attention and praise. That includes appreciation for the writing itself, which sometimes sings." --David B. Green, The American Prospect

"Tomorrow Is Yesterday performs the vital service of encompassing competing narratives, cutting through lies, and telling the full story of how and why efforts to achieve a two-state solution repeatedly failed. This is an honest, eloquent, courageous, and deeply personal blend of history and memoir written by two people who have been at the center of the politics of Israel/Palestine for decades and still insist upon a future that must be better than the excruciatingly painful present." --Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security advisor and author of After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We've Made

"The Middle East is the birthplace of the most influential religious traditions, and its inability to find peace constantly reignites the bitter resentments that plague our world. With their powerful narrative and elegant prose, the authors explain very convincingly why neither the local protagonists nor the foreign mediators have been able to put an end to the ordeal--and why tomorrow doesn't look more promising than yesterday." --Amin Maalouf, perpetual secretary of the Académie Française and author of Origins and The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

"Fascinating and essential reading for anyone interested in the Israel/Palestine conflict and peace process, this bleak yet bracing, vivid, and acute work, part analysis, part memoir, part history, by two veteran negotiators, one Palestinian, one American, is one of the best I've read on the Middle East peace process and the October 7 wars. I read it in one sitting." --Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography

"An exceptional book in the genre, Tomorrow Is Yesterday offers a brilliant and uniquely perceptive interpretation of what may be the most resilient, intricate, and multifaceted conflict of modern times. Combining the competencies of the historian and the essayist, even the dramatist, with the perspective of the insider, the authors lead us from the prehistory of the 'peace process' and its presumed highest moments to its deceptions, mis-encounters, and tragic decline into oblivion. An unorthodox interpretation of the Israel-Hamas War, brilliantly woven into the book, makes it even more urgently relevant reading. Though it can be read as an obituary for the two-state solution, this is not a nihilistic treatise. The future scenarios the authors discuss could make the future somewhat brighter than 'yesterday.'" --Shlomo Ben-Ami, former foreign minister of Israel and author of Prophets Without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution

"This must-read book is the work of two experienced deep thinkers who are strong believers in peace. True to the characters of its authors in its thoughtfulness, creativity, and constructive candor, it brings to life the pain of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedies and offers important insights into the politics and personalities of Middle Eastern peacemaking. It is highly recommended for all believers in the greater good." --Nabil Fahmy, former foreign minister of Egypt

About the Author

Hussein Agha has been involved in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and negotiations for more than half a century. He was a senior associate fellow at Chatham House and, until 2023, was a senior associate member of St. Antony's College, Oxford, for over twenty-five years. He has coauthored books on Syria, Iran, Palestinian national security, and Track II diplomacy with A. S. Khalidi. He is the editor of Mideast Mirror.

Robert Malley served in senior Middle East positions in the administrations of Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden. He was president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He is the author of The Call from Algeria and currently is Senior Fellow and Lecturer at Yale University's Jackson School.

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley's joint writings have appeared in several major publications.