Policy Analysis

By participating in the Arab summit that ended yesterday, Iraq made a giant step towards ending its political isolation; it had been frozen out of pan-Arab meetings since 1990. Importantly, increasing international cooperation with Baghdad is by no means the product of any Iraqi moderation. To the contrary: Iraqi president

Yesterday, the text of a draft communiqué for the impending Arab summit, principally drafted by host Egypt, was leaked to the Beirut press. In an interview about this document, Egyptian foreign minister Amre Moussa indicated that this draft was accurate but preliminary. If this version emerges from the summit relatively

By Saturday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will determine whether the Middle East inches closer to, or further from, the brink of regional conflict.This time period is critical because it comes between the two major summit meetings hosted in Egypt this week. On Tuesday, President Clinton announced an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire after

For the first time in nearly five years, heads of state and representatives from the 22 members of the Arab League will convene for a summit meeting in Cairo. This will be a critical meeting not only because of the regional tensions steaming from Israeli-Palestinian violence but also because Iraq-and

On October 13, 2000, David Makovsky, senior fellow at The Washington Institute and former editor of the Jerusalem Post, addressed the Institute's Special Policy Forum along with Robert Satloff. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks. Read a summary of Dr. Satloff's remarks. The Grand Deal on peace

President Clinton announced bare-bones understandings today on Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire-plus-disengagement. The test of success of this understanding will be in the swift and full implementation of its objectives on the ground, with today's shooting at a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem boding ill for the success of this process. Even if fully

On October 13, 2000, Robert Satloff addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum along with David Makovsky. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks. Read a summary of Mr. Makovsky's remarks. General Context The last two weeks have been symptomatic of the different sort of Middle East the

If passed, a non-binding resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives calling upon the U.S. government to recognize the "Armenian genocide" as historical fact will sour U.S.-Turkish relations at a time when bilateral ties are more vulnerable than they have been for years and when Turkish support for U.S. policies

The kidnapping of IDF soldiers from the Israel-Lebanon border presents Washington with its first opportunity to test the intentions and capabilities of Syria's new and inexperienced president, Bashar al-Asad.

The Lockerbie trial restarts on Tuesday, October 17, after a three-week recess. This recess was requested by the prosecution, who in a puzzling move, asked for time to investigate new evidence of "considerable sensitivity." Prior to the adjournment, the prosecution had introduced its star witness, a double agent with first-hand

Hizballah's capture of three IDF soldiers in the disputed Lebanese-Israeli eastern Har Dov/Shebaa Farms border area Saturday marked the most serious outbreak of IDF-Hizballah hostilities since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May. The well-planned and executed ambush underscored the continued threat to Israel posed by Hizballah's highly-skilled guerrilla

As rumors swirl regarding a possible Arab League summit meeting in Cairo later this month, preparations are underway for a major event on the Egyptian domestic scene: the holding of parliamentary elections. This vote, set to occur over three stages from October 18 to November 14, will be the first

After eight years of Herculean effort to build Arab-Israeli peace, President Clinton faces the cruel irony that the level of violence in the Middle East may be higher when he leaves office than when he entered it. The region not only faces the prospect of the collapse of the peace

As violence continues to flare in parts of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, attention is increasingly focused on the Palestinian group responsible for much of the rioting and confrontation--the Fatah Tanzim. Just yesterday, the leader of the Tanzim, Marwan Barghouthi, ridiculed the ceasefire reached in Paris as useless. That

The fact that U.S. and Israeli officials--not Yasir Arafat--announced that the Palestinian leader had ordered a halt to violence in the West Bank and Gaza highlights the failure of the U.S.-led summit meeting in Paris. This underscores the prospect that the al-Aqsa Intifada--as Palestinians have termed the week-long spasm of

Uneven press coverage and shocking television footage have skewed analysis of the ongoing "Battle for Jerusalem"--the week-old explosion of violence that has swept from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, to the West Bank, Gaza and Arab population centers in Israel. Seen in political and historical context, current events actually highlight a

"We've made significant progress because of leadership on the part of many in Israel, as well as in the Arab world... I guess the frustration that many of us feel is that we haven't yet been able to, sort of, put final closure to it. But I hope that we'll

"There can be no lasting peace if the Israelis, for whatever reason, feel like they must accept an agreement because it makes us [Americans] happy." --Bush, as reported in the Associated Press, September 6, 2000 "If elected president, I will begin the process of moving the U.S. ambassador to the

The riots and violent demonstrations of Israeli Arab citizens in the last few days have been the most violent in 18 years and can be compared only to the violent protests that occurred in response to the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilah by Christian Phalanges

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Russian superpower presence in the Middle East faded, and since 1991, a vision of Russian national interest in the region has been missing. Pushed by a succession of narrow domestic corporate and bureaucratic interests, as well