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.

©2022 David Friedman (P)2022 HarperAudio

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!

Amazing!

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

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!!!

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.

Great learning moments

Great to know about the inside conversations where common sense prevails. A foreign affairs gem.

A Breakthrough in Middle East Peace.

This is a behind the scenes look at the effort to finally make peace progress. It took Freedman, Trump, and Pompeo to ignore the advice of US State Department Middle East diplomats who had a long history of failure but still had their jobs. Two thumbs up!

Great read

This was a fast moving interesting narrative. I think everyone would enjoy it and find it interesting. I highly recommend it.

Enlightening considering the horrible news coverage during the time

When I first heard about any of this, the only thing I knew is the thing Embassy had been moved to Jerusalem. I had no idea how much had to go on behind the scenes for that to happen, but this book was truly enlightening and encouraging.

Can’t stop listening

Ambassador Friedman shares an exciting turnaround of events who shaped the recent history between the United States, Israel, and its neighbors. As someone who follows the geopolitical events in the region it was fascinating to get a peek behind the scenes into the people and forces who tried to maintain the status-quo, and thankfully failed.