The Middle East: could you mention something more complicated, contentious, and uncertain? And now with Trump...

In this edition of the podcast, I speak to Daniel C. Kurtzer, who from 1997 to 2001 was the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, and then from 2001 to 2005 the Ambassador to Israel. We talk about Jamal Khashoggi's killing and Saudi Arabia more broadly, continue into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the complexity of narratives surrounding it, and the overall importance of studying history. To conclude, we talk about being Jewish and a high level ambassador, a part that I really enjoyed.

Amb. Kurtzer spent almost three decades in the Foreign Service (being a diplomat in the State Department, but at not appointed by the President and as a career), working in back channel negotiations between Syria and Israel, and as a planner and speech writer for Secretaries of States. In 2007, he was commissioner of the Israel Baseball League, an ultimately unsuccessful professional baseball league in Israel. Currently, Amb. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

These are three books recommended if you are interested in learning more: The Peace Puzzle -Amb. Daniel Kurtzer--Co-Author

The Peace to End All Peace -A History of the modern Middle East- by David Fromkin

The Politics of Diplomacy -A Former Secretary of State's Memoir- by James Baker