Sledgehammer

How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East

By: David Friedman

Narrated by: Jim Seybert

The Trump administration’s peace agreements in the Middle East were the greatest foreign policy accomplishment in decades. Now, for the first time, his ambassador to Israel explains how they pulled it off.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity. For decades, the U.S. State Department called it diplomacy.

David Friedman was an outside candidate when President Trump appointed him U.S. ambassador to Israel. He took office to find U.S.-Israel policy stuck in stalemate. For years, accepted wisdom was that extensive experience and detailed knowledge of Middle Eastern history and culture were necessary to negotiate treaties. In truth, Friedman realized, all parties played on that accepted wisdom to stall—expecting to get a better deal further down the road.

Tossing the State Department playbook aside and incorporating insights from his many years as a negotiator in the American private sector, Friedman and a small team with no prior diplomatic experience revamped American diplomacy to project “peace through strength.” He emphasized the importance of leverage, the key to any good negotiation. After painstaking, behind-the-scenes work, the Abraham Accords were signed: a historic series of peace deals between Israel and the five Muslim nations.

In Sledgehammer, Friedman tells the true story of how the Abraham Accords came about. He takes us from the Oval Office to the highest echelons of power in the Middle East, putting us at the table during the intense negotiations that led to this historic breakthrough. The inside story of arguably the greatest achievement of the Trump Administration, Sledgehammer is an important, inspiring account of the hard, hopeful work necessary to bring long overdue—and lasting—peace to one of the most turbulent and tragic regions of the globe.

Excellent

I enjoyed this book. It gave a clear account of the process in getting countries in the Middle East getting the opportunity to normalize relations with Israel. I still don’t understand the Parliamentary form of government but I got good idea of the difficulties that occur with trying to “make things happen” when there is government instability. This book also points out that “ bureaucratic lifers” can really slow down true progress in any new “outside the box” ideas or processes. It takes quite a bit of self-discipline to keep from just wanting to “fire everyone” and start with a clean slate of open minded, objective workers. I always thought that this kind of stuff was going on, but didn’t realize how entrenched the poor performers were. They only cared about “their” job security and position as opposed to what actually would succeed or get closer to the reality of true peace. It’s also extremely frustrating to find that normal, common sense isn’t applied to minor situations like extending an assignment to accommodate life situations that come up in foreign service assignments. A simple phone call solved a problem instead of the common stupid practice of “submit your request” to bureaucrat “A” and he’ll forward it to Bureacrat “B” which will take at least a year, but then the request would not matter. So dumb!

A most fantastic book!!!!

A most fantastic book!!!

What a terrific insight as to what happened during President Trumps time in office with respect to Israel. A tremendous amount of good things were accomplished against significant road blocks.
May G-d bless David Friedman & president Trump!!!

Amazing!

Great insight into the relationships involved in making peace in the Middle East. Stories are fascinating and well written!

A must read book.Amazing.

I very informativo book.I have now a complete different view of diplomatic work.My gratitud to Mr. Friedman for all the hard work. I agree with all his final analysis. You have all my respect.
Impeccably reading,it was so real that I even teared when they describe the feeli gs I the signing of the Abraham's Accord.

Fantastic behind the scenes look at an incredible diplomatic saga

Great writing, amazing story. Really gets into the interpersonal dynamics behind the diplomatic breakthroughs and the conflicts. Narration is pretty good overall but he could have put effort into pronunciation of Hebrew and Arabic words, which was off. Still a great listen.