Policy Analysis

Washington should not allow its differences with Israel to define the bilateral relationship, much less highlight them in the vain hope of winning the esteem of Israel's foes.

Election laws that ensure a broadly representative parliament are vital to the legitimacy of Egypt's transition, but the newly announced system falls far short of this goal.

Given Egypt's fluid post-revolutionary environment, Washington must be judicious as to when and how it attempts to exert influence on the domestic political scene.

On September 26, 2011, Mehdi Khalaji and Michael Eisenstadt addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute spotlighting their new Policy Focus Nuclear Fatwa: Religion and Politics in Iran's Proliferation Strategy . Mr. Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Institute, is the author of The New Order of the Clerical

A new royal decree giving women the right to vote can't hide the decay in the House of Saud.

Recent arrests indicate that Hamas may be extending its operational reach outside its Gaza base.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders should look to 1947 for a lesson on the importance of political pragmatism rather than focusing on an all-or-nothing approach.

Although the Arab Spring is unlikely to fulfill the dearest hopes or darkest fears of U.S. policymakers, it is certain to change the Middle East forever, in ways we are only beginning to apprehend.

In Bahrain, the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites -- and their respective patrons, Saudi Arabia and Iran -- enters a new phase with this weekend's parliamentary by-elections.

Testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. The alarming state of human rights and freedom in Iran and Syria is a matter not only of moral urgency, but of vital importance to U.S. national security. I drafted this testimony sitting in a crowded coffee shop

The United States must be more proactive in countering Iran's propaganda machine and breathing new life into the suppressed Green Movement.

On the emotive issue of the Palestinian request for UN admission as a state, Obama delivered one of the most impassioned statements in support of Israel ever made by an American president in the well of the General Assembly.

The PA's demand for a UN declaration that names east Jerusalem as the capital of a new Palestinian state actually goes against the wishes of much of the city's Palestinian population.

Testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to be among the foremost countries in the world that systematically abuse human rights. The mechanisms of suppression in Iran have become so sophisticated that many of them are invisible. For instance

On September 19, 2011, Andrew J. Tabler, Robert Satloff, and Margaret Scobey addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Tabler is the Next Generation fellow at the Institute and author of the new book In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria ( Lawrence

Former FBI agent Ali Soufan, who wrote a definitive history of the early years of the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda, addressed a Washington Institute Policy Forum.

Amos Yadlin and Robert Satloff counter the ten arguments posited in favor of Palestinian statehood by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari and former EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana in a recent New York Times op-ed.

As the UN prepares for consideration of the Palestinian bid for statehood, both Israel and the PA are bracing for demonstrations and other disturbances in the West Bank.

The Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN could bring yet another tsunami to a region already swept by a maelstrom.

On September 12, 2011, Ghaith al-Omari, Amos Yadlin, and David Makovsky addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. al-Omari, executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine, previously served as director of international relations in the Office of the Palestinian President and as advisor to then prime