All Policy Analysis by David Makovsky

With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks getting underway in Eilat this weekend, the Middle East seems to be switching peace tracks yet again. After President Bill Clinton held separate White House meetings with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Yasir Arafat earlier this month, State Department spokesman James

The withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from southern Lebanon announced by Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak looms large. Set for July 7, this withdrawal is closely linked to the Syrian track of negotiations. It will end the fifteen-year status quo of the security zone, with Israel planning to

Barak, Rabin, and Peace Strategy: Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, like the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, believes that Israel's peace strategy should be based on strategic, "old Middle East" assumptions, rather than those of the idealized "new Middle East" propounded by Shimon Peres. As foreign minister and then prime

Election Background. Over the last thirty years, Israeli elections have primarily focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Although this issue remains important not only vis-a-vis the Palestinians but also Lebanon, this election has so far focused more on Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's leadership. The Wye accords de-ideologized Israeli politics. The

ROBERT SATLOFF Background on the U.S. Role in the Peace Process. The October Wye Plantation conference underscores the shift in the character of U.S. involvement since the September 1996 clashes that followed the opening of the Hasmonean Tunnel in the Old City of Jerusalem. After this incident, the U.S. role

Netanyahu as politician: When asked about himself, Netanyahu replies that he is neither Shimon Peres nor Yitzhak Shamir. Indeed, Netanyahu is not the ideologue some think he is: he has met with Arafat, he never speaks of "Greater Israel" and by agreeing to the Hebron Accord of January 1997, he

The long, tortuous history of the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts has witnessed numerous tragic episodes, but rarely a moment as hopeful as the handshake between the leaders of the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on September 13, 1993. Sadly, however, the conflict lives on and terror still