Building a Successful Palestinian State

"If [Palestinian] statehood is realized, the RAND Palestinian State Study Team have given much thought as to how to make it work. Side-stepping the issue of how to get there, 'Building a Successful Palestinian State' assumes it will happen and sets out to answer an alternative question: 'How can an independent Palestinian state be made successful?' The result is a refreshingly upbeat 'how to' manual that identifies four fundamental challenges for success: security, for Palestinians, as well as Israelis and other neighbors; governance, predicated on regime legitimacy; economic development, leading to eventual self-reliance; and the broad well-being of the Palestinian people, measured according to several indices, among them food security, health and education."

- Middle East Journal, Summer 2007

"Palestinians have been yearning for a state of their own for generations. But if that goal is met, what then? A new collection of books and studies by the RAND Corporation attempts to answer just that question. 'Building a Successful Palestinian State' is packed with statistical data on specific policy implementations for a potential Palestinian state… RAND's study focuses not only on what is needed to build and sustain a Palestinian state, but also on the expenditures necessary to see it through… Although weighty in statistical analysis, the meticulous detail in the RAND studies would prove instrumental to any reader with a vested interest in Middle Eastern foreign policy. Besides focusing on the obvious economic and geostrategic problems, the tracts also explore issues of health care, education, and riparian rights. And while they fully acknowledge the scope of the challenges at hand, 'Building a Palestinian State' and 'The Arc' spotlight potential success rather than focusing on setbacks and conflict."

- NationalJournal.com

"The RAND Corporation has done itself proud with these publications on how to set up a Palestinian state. 'Building a Successful Palestinian State', organized into separate chapters on governance, internal security, demographics, economics, water, health, and education, is not, admittedly, an easy read. Bringing together masses of technical data and comprehensive in coverage, it will serve as an invaluable study for those who become directly involved in the state-building process but will serve mainly as a reference work for others."

- Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct 2005

"What is especially elegant about the plan is that it focuses not on some eventual peace agreement on a state's boundaries, but on how life might be lived the day after peace—on 'the patterns of human life as shaped by its setting.' "

- Urban Land, July 2005

"Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above."

- CHOICE, January 2006