King's Counsel: A Memoir of War, Espionage, and Diplomacy in the Middle East

• Author: Charles C. McLeod, Jr.
• Position: Judge Advocate, U.S. Marine Corps. Student, 60th Judge Advocate Officer Graduate Course, The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center & School, U.S. Army, Charlottesville, Virginia
• Pages: 313-324

2011] BOOK REVIEWS 313

KING’S COUNSEL: A MEMOIR OF WAR, ESPIONAGE,

AND DIPLOMACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR CHARLES C. MCLEOD, JR.*

I. Introduction

Passed on November 22, 1967, United Nations Security Council

Resolution (UNSCR) 242 calls for an end to Israeli occupation of

Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian territory and respect for the sovereignty,

territorial integrity, and political independence of every State in the area.2

Amid revolutionary uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa,

President Barack Obama appeared before the Department of State and

delivered his “Arab Spring” speech of May 19, 2011, issuing, among

other things, an explicit call for Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.3 The

president’s desired end state would result in “a viable Palestine and a

secure Israel” including a specified task that “negotiations should result

in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and

Egypt . . . based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”4 The

words were no sooner uttered than State Department officials began to

wring their hands,5 foreign dignitaries gasped,6 and political pundits

clamored for specificity. The point of contention? Seemingly innocuous

* Judge Advocate, U.S. Marine Corps. Student, 60th Judge Advocate Officer Graduate

Course, The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center & School, U.S. Army,

Charlottesville, Virginia.

1 JACK O’CONNELL WITH VERNON LOEB, KING’S COUNSEL: A MEMOIR OF WAR,

ESPIONAGE, AND DIPLOMACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST (2011).

2 S.C. Res. 242, U.N. Doc. S/RES/242 (1967).

3 Obama Announces “New Chapter” in U.S. Mideast Diplomacy, CNN.COM, May 19,

2011, http://articles. cnn.com/2011-05-19/politics/obama.mideast_1_president-barack-

obama-arab-spring-major-policy-speech?_ s=PM:politics.

4 Barack Obama, President, U.S., Keynote Address at the United States Department of

State: A Moment of Opportunity (May 19, 2011) [hereinafter Obama].

5 Jay Solomon, Israeli Leader, Obama Clash, WALL ST. J., May 21, 2011,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000 1424052748704904604576335071093979138.html.

6 Many articles have documented the Israeli reaction to President Obama’s address. See,

e.g., Obama: 1967 Lines With “Swaps” Means Different Israeli Border Than in 1967,

FOXNEWS.COM, May 22, 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/22/ears-

obama-israel-lobby-conference; Dan Murphy, What’s So “Shocking” About Obama

Mentioning 1967 Borders?, CHRISTIAN SCI. MONITOR, May 20, 2011, available at

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0520/What-s-so-shocking-about-

Obama-mentioning-1967-borders; and Uri Friedman, What Obama Meant by “1967

Lines” and Why It Irked Netanyahu, ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 20, 2011, available at

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/05/what-obama-meant-1967-lines-why-

irked-netanyahu/37977.