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For Palestinians, the January 9 elections represented a mechanism both for filling the void left by the death of Yassir Arafat and for adopting a path to a different future. Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, won a decisive victory, nearly two-thirds of the vote, despite calls by Hamas

In his campaign speeches, Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly emphasized issues that would have been alien to his predecessor and longtime mentor, Yasser Arafat. He focused, for instance, on restoring rule of law and ending the fouda -- or chaos -- that has engulfed Palestinian life. He opposed corruption and vowed to

This Sunday, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem will cast their votes at more than 3,000 polling places and elect a new president of the Palestinian Authority. The turnout is expected to be high, and Israelis have promised to lift checkpoints that otherwise might impede the voting

The United States has had critical interests in the Middle East for as long as it has been a global power. Securing the flow of the region’s oil to the world economy has always been a central priority. During the Cold War, competition with the Soviet Union for Middle Eastern

The most frequent criticism of President Bush's Middle East policy is that he has been too hands-off. Unless America takes the lead, so the argument goes, the "peace process" will languish. In other words, U.S. activism is the key to progress. This is, by and large, bad analysis and a

For years there has been much speculation about possible worst-case scenarios that could emerge following Yasser Arafat's death, particularly civil war or a similar disruption of nationalist unity. Such developments have yet to materialize, however. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza find themselves at a historic junction, with renewed

A transfer of power within the Palestinian Authority, coupled with the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, presents both challenges and opportunities for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The preconditions of past peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors have demonstrated the necessity for calm on the ground and strong leaders who

With Fidel Castro now sporting double-breasted suits, the uniform-clad Yasser Arafat could rightly claim to be "the world's last revolutionary." In this regard, as in so many others, Arafat has no heir. None of the contenders to "succeed" him -- if the verb is appropriate to the situation -- wears

The convergence of Yasser Arafat's departure from the scene after four decades of domination and the imminent Israeli disengagement from Gaza (which will include the removal of settlements for the first time since 1967) represents a unique opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian relations. Arafat leaves behind a huge leadership void. With such