Policy Analysis

In the West Bank, there is definite excitement in the air. Campaign posters are festooned everywhere in Ramallah in advance of tomorrow's Palestinian parliamentary elections. Hamas is contesting these elections for the first time, and all polls point to the organization running very strongly. On a recent visit to Ramallah

Ahead of January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Western officials are underestimating the risks of a Hamas victory and violence.

On January 23, 2006, Washington Institute distinguished military fellow Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon (IDF) addressed the 2006 Herzliya Conference on the outlines of a defensible border for Israel. These are his remarks.

On January 23, 2006, Washington Institute visiting military fellow Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog (IDF) addressed the 2006 Herzliya Conference on the options for continuing Arab-Israeli peace processes. These are his remarks.

When Shiite ministers recently "suspended" their participation in the Lebanese cabinet, though without resigning, it highlighted an increasingly apparent reality in post-Syria Lebanon: Two powerful camps coexist today. One, led by Hizballah, in alliance with the Amal movement, sits atop a Shiite community generally, though not unanimously, supporting their positions

After years of quiet diplomatic frustration, the oil-rich Persian Gulf federated state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has publicly reopened a dispute with neighboring Saudi Arabia over two parts of their common border. A map in the 2006 edition of the official UAE Yearbook shows the UAE extending westward

"The king is dead. God save the king!" is not quite how they say it in Saudi Arabia. But the Arabic and Islamic equivalent is going to be heard more often in the next few years. King Fahd was 84 when he died last summer. King Abdullah, who replaced him

Once when I was sitting with Ariel Sharon, he bemoaned Israel's current generation of political figures as "thinking only of today, while our enemies think about tomorrow." Sharon saw a world in which political expediency was a threat to Israel, and he felt that his generation--a generation that had fought

This week Senator Hillary Clinton, citing a secret Pentagon report that suggested some marines killed in Iraq might have survived had they been wearing more body armor, became the latest in a long line of politicians to castigate the Pentagon for a supposed failure to adequately protect our fighting men

Iran's move yesterday to restart work at the controversial Natanz uranium enrichment plant is extremely rash. Even the normally urbane Mohammed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said "the world was running out of patience" with Iran. Tehran, under the leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, appears

The Bush administration this week faced a decision that could help determine whether Ariel Sharon's centrist party survives the end of his political career. Fortunately, Washington appears to have chosen wisely -- by choosing not to act at all. Here's the background: On January 25, the Palestinian Authority is scheduled

Polling and political dynamics point to Fatah losing control of the Palestinian legislature after January 25 elections.

By Peter Edidin One constant, in calls to the Middle East on Thursday and Friday, was the background noise of a television, set to a program that was reporting on the condition of Ariel Sharon. Whether the person being called was a Palestinian or an Israeli, to the left or

Before al-Qaeda's fanatics were blowing themselves up in Iraq, members of Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were terrorizing Turkey in the 1990s. According to Yoram Schweitzer from the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, between 1996 and 1999, the PKK carried out sixteen suicide bomb attacks (plus five failed

Abdul Halim Khaddam, who was vice-president of Syria from 1984 to June 2005, gave an explosive interview to the Dubai-based al-Arabia TV on December 30 implicating the Syrian leadership, including President Bashar al-Asad, in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Khaddam's action widened irrevocably the crack in

In Israel yesterday, Ariel Sharon's allies and his adversaries were praying for his life. But even if the man who has fought or led Israel in every war since its independence does not survive this battle against a massive stroke, his five years as prime minister have already left a

After suffering a stroke yesterday, Ariel Sharon is fighting for his life in a Jerusalem hospital. Even if he survives, he is unlikely to lead Israel again. But while his tenure as prime minister is probably over, Sharon has already accomplished more than enough to earn a place among Israel's

Turkish Edition Now Available Conventional wisdom holds that in the interwar period, Kemalist secularism eliminated religion from the public sphere in Turkey, leaving Turkish national identity devoid of religious content. Yet in his new book, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey, Institute senior fellow Soner Cagaptay reaches an altogether

When the European Union (EU) initiated accession talks with Turkey in October, some Western commentators suggested that a major underlying issue is the relationship between the West and the Muslim world. How is this issue viewed in the Arab press, and what significance is seen for the relationship between Europe

Read Institute military fellow Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog's (IDF) discussion of the historical and ethical aspects of director Steven Spielberg's film Munich. On December 15, 2005, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Avi Dichter, and Ambassador Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. General Yaalon, a distinguished military fellow