All Policy Analysis by Ehud Yaari

The current Palestinian-Israeli truce—certified by the meeting between Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Yasir Arafat at Rafah Airport on November 26—has a greater chance of taking hold than any of the five previous ceasefire agreements announced since the outbreak of the intifada exactly one year

A New Intifada? The events of the past five weeks are not a repeat of the Palestinian Intifada of 1987–1990, a spontaneous uprising that caught both Chairman Yasir Arafat and Israel equally by surprise. Rather, the current uprising is a confrontation imposed by Arafat on the Palestinian street. Three major

For more than a year, Palestinian leaders have advanced the original partition resolution -- United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947 -- as the cornerstone of their diplomatic effort to gain international support for independent statehood. Whereas this was originally a tactic adopted to confront the policies of

Since the beginning of the Oslo process, Israel and the United States have consistently underestimated Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasser Arafat. Arafat is a historic figure who deserves respect. In his many years as leader of the Palestinians he has learned to employ a wide range of personas and emotions

The still-imminent agreement on Israeli redeployment in Hebron, though just technically a protocol detailing the implementation of one article of the Oslo II accord, has begun to assume the magnitude of "Oslo III." Not only does it represent the first-ever agreement between a Likud-led government and the Palestinians, but by

The Cairo agreement initialed yesterday by Chairman Arafat and Foreign Minister Peres is an important step toward the implementation of the Oslo accords, though hard negotiations remain ahead before any Israeli troop withdrawal can begin. This agreement, however, will not put to rest the wonderment, impatience, anger, and especially exasperation

With the UN Security Council debating a resolution on the Palestinian issue and Saddam Hussein demanding that the Gulf crisis be linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Middle East peace process is again floating to the top of the international community's agenda. Despite the rhetoric in New York and Baghdad

Executive Summary Israel's proposal for Palestinian elections stems from a realization that the status quo is not tenable and a fear that the intifada could escalate to a more violent pattern of confrontation. Despite continued controversy over its details, the elections proposal indicates several new elements in Israel's position: recognition