All Policy Analysis by Robert Satloff

Israel is reconfiguring its government and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has established a new cabinet this week. The Israeli-Palestinian violence of the last two years is unlikely to be transformed into a peace process as a result of this week's developments. This is due to a variety of factors ranging

During his visit to Washington last week, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was reportedly handed a forty-three-point document titled "Elements of a Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." This document, the product of intensive consultation between the four members of the Middle East peace

Congressional friends of Israel, from both parties, offered hard-to-swallow advice to Israel's leaders this week. If attacked by Iraq, they counseled, sit tight and let America fight your fight. Retaliation would inflame Arabs and other Muslims, they warned, and may even provoke menacing riots against U.S. embassies and interests. Pretty

With high-profile arrests from upstate New York to faraway Karachi, recent days have been good for the good guys in the "war on terrorism." But in one critical arena -- the battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East, known in Beltway-speak as "public diplomacy" -- the United States

On September 9, 2002, Robert Satloff, The Washington Institute's director of policy and strategic planning, addressed the Institute's Special Policy Forum with Martin Kramer and Mouafac Harb. The following is an edited and expanded version of Dr. Satloff's remarks. Read a summary of Dr. Kramer and Mr. Harb's remarks. In

In the most significant Bush administration pronouncement on Arab-Israeli issues since President George W. Bush's landmark June 24 speech, Secretary of State Colin Powell joined with leaders from the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and Russia in issuing a "joint statement" on Middle East policy in New York

As President George W. Bush was offering his vision for a post-Yasir Arafat Palestinian state two weeks ago, the Palestinian leader's cabinet was itself unveiling a "100-day plan" for reforming the Palestinian Authority (PA). This plan was clearly designed to both respond to popular demands to fix the PA's broken

After charting a bold new path for Arab-Israeli peace, President Bush needs to quickly close a loophole through which Yasser Arafat could emerge as the popularly elected leader of the Palestinians. Otherwise, Bush's Monday speech could amount to little more than a brief detour on the way to creating a

President George W. Bush today tore up a generation of conventional wisdom by offering a bold, new approach that conditioned U.S. support for eventual Palestinian statehood on a new political leadership; a "working democracy"; and far-reaching security, judicial, constitutional, and economic reform. At the same time, he seemed to ask

Lying in bed Monday night, I switched the channel from a gloomy CNN documentary on Chechnya -- Christiane Amanpour describing death and destruction in another God-forsaken place -- to watch the even gloomier Palestine Television, the official satellite station of the Palestinian Authority. On an English-language talk show, the hosts

The fracas over Secretary of State Colin Powell's interview with the London Arabic daily al-Hayat yesterday—the contents of which White House spokesman Ari Fleisher has pointedly refused to endorse—reflects a growing pattern of White House–State Department division on key Middle East issues, a damaging dynamic that will only be exorcised

With this week's dispatch to the Middle East of Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns, the Bush administration has put its toe into the water of Palestinian reform. Success in this vital effort will require avoiding the trap of

The US administration should be wary of three "conventional wisdoms" that have stealthily displaced lessons from years of experience promoting Arab-Israeli peace. These ideas pretend to offer the promise of true conflict resolution. They sound logical and reasonable. But they are wrong in conception and would be reckless in practice

Speaking to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in Ramallah yesterday, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat offered a new political agenda to guide the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the aftermath of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield and U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to win his release from Israeli encirclement. The main headings of that agenda

On January 3, in the clouds high above the waters of the Red Sea, Lt. General Shaul Mofaz, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, peered anxiously through a specially designed telescopic lens at an old, rusty, blue freighter several kilometers below. For the previous three months, Israeli intelligence

On April 12, Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute, addressed the Institute's Special Policy Forum with Dennis Ross. The following is an edited version of Dr. Satloff's remarks. Read a summary of Ambassador Ross's remarks. The best way to view the current situation is by recognizing that there

In his Rose Garden speech yesterday, President George W. Bush jumped head-first into the waters of Middle East diplomacy by committing the prestige of his administration to the achievement of an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and, ultimately, to "ending the conflict and beginning an era of peace." Analytically, the most important innovation

A revisionist critique of the Bush administration's Middle East policy holds that blame for the current Palestinian-Israeli violence should be laid at the doorstep of a White House that invested too little, too late in the "peace process." Before this canard takes hold, let's set the record straight. When President

INTRODUCTION It is an understatement to say that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were transformative events, both for how Americans view their own sense of security and for how America engages with the world. Osama bin Laden may have declared war on the United States years ago, but it

The Saudi initiative for Israeli-Palestinian peace—soon to be presented at the upcoming Arab Summit in Beirut—is in part a tool to address tensions in Saudi relations with the United States after the September 11 attacks. A more important motivation for the initiative, however, is that the Saudi ruling family is