Policy Analysis

On September 29, Algerians will vote on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's proposed Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a policy that would provide amnesty for most of the one-thousand Islamic terrorists the government believes are still hiding in Algeria and neighboring countries. Between three hundred and five hundred of the terrorists

On September 27, Hosni Mubarak will be sworn in for a fifth consecutive term as president of Egypt. Mubarak was reelected according to new electoral procedures introduced earlier this year that allowed for a competitive election between multiple candidates. The opposition, united in its calls for more democracy, criticized the

On September 25, 2005, Soner Cagaptay and Semih Idiz addressed The Washington Institute’s Weinberg Founders Conference. Mr. Idiz is diplomacy editor for CNN-Turk and a columnist for the Turkish newspapers Milliyet and Turkish Daily News. Dr. Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Institute’s Turkish Research Program, as

On September 25, 2005, William Quandt and Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute’s Weinberg Founders Conference. Dr. Quandt is the Edward R. Stettinius chair in the University of Virginia’s Department of Politics. Previously, he served as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and as a staff member on the

On September 25, 2005, Sallai Meridor, former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. The following is an excerpted transcript of his remarks. ". . . . There is a very direct connection between the . . . interest of the Jewish people

On September 24, 2005, Hala Mustafa, Ibrahim Karawan, and Khairi Abaza addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Dr. Mustafa is editor-in-chief of the Egyptian political quarterly al-Dimuqratiya (Democracy) and a former visiting fellow at the Institute. Dr. Karawan is director of the Middle East Center and a professor of

On September 24, 2005, Robert Malley and Robert Satloff addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Mr. Malley is director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group. Previously, he served in the Clinton administration as special assistant to the president for Arab-Israeli affairs, and

On September 24, 2005, Robert Blackwill and Samuel Berger addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Ambassador Blackwill is president of the international consulting firm Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers. Previously, he served in the Bush administration as deputy national security advisor for strategic planning, presidential envoy to Iraq, and U.S

On September 24, 2005, Matthew Levitt, Robert Leiken, and Jacques Pitteloud addressed The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference. Dr. Levitt is director of the Institute's Terrorism Studies Program and author of the forthcoming book Exposing Hamas: Funding Terror under the Cover of Charity. Dr. Leiken is director of the Immigration

The Arab-Israeli conflict has confused many a U.S. diplomat over the years. But two seemingly unrelated developments have created an especially odd and embarrassing situation for American diplomacy. First, Israel recently withdrew from Gaza but the international community—including the United States—does not formally recognize the end of Israeli occupation there

A look at the details of the September 1, 2005 agreement between Egypt and Israel regarding border security near Rafah.

On September 11, retired Israeli maj. gen. Doron Almog declined to disembark from an arriving Israel El Al airliner at London’s Heathrow airport and flew back to Israel, thereby avoiding British police waiting with a warrant for his arrest. The warrant, instigated in part by pro-Palestinian groups, alleged that Almog

A look at the details of the September 1, 2005 agreement between Egypt and Israel regarding border security near Rafah.

King Abdullah II's latest domestic reform initiative for Jordan -- the National Agenda Committee -- will soon release a series of major political recommendations. These proposals will provide the Jordanian government with a detailed framework to guide the reform process in coming years. Background The National Agenda initiative was launched

Empowering Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas and fellow moderates at this critical time may be in the interest of everyone who favors a return to peace negotiations, but Abbas himself faces immense challenges to his authority that make him unlikely to be able to implement significant changes in the

On September 13, 2005, Israeli deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs Silvan Shalom addressed The Washington Institute's Board of Trustees in New York. Following is the full text of his prepared remarks. Ladies and gentlemen, friends, I would like to thank Rob Satloff and The Washington Institute for

On September 12, the last departing Israeli forces closed the gates of Gaza behind them, followed by a salvo of Palestinian rockets aimed at southern Israel. In the unsettled aftermath of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank, only one camp seems clearly to know

A key issue in the runup to January's Palestinian parliamentary elections is whether the radical Islamist party Hamas will be allowed to participate and under what conditions. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and foreign minister Silvan Shalom have insisted that the group disarm, disavow terror, and end its call for

On September 17, the United Nations (UN) report on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri is due to be handed to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. It may be delayed by a few months, however, to allow the international community to insist that Syrian officials be questioned and

The recent reports of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Iraq Survey Group, and the Presidential WMD Commission regarding intelligence and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq offer many useful insights into Iraq's weapons program and the challenges that the intelligence community faced in assessing them. But the reports offer