Policy Analysis

February 09, 2018 Background: The EU-Israel Association Agreement The intent of the 2010 EU-Israel Association Agreement was to strengthen economic cooperation between both parties – and it worked. The President of the European Commission, Jose Barroso, praised the idea in June 2014, saying that: “Israel is a strong player in

Hovering far above actual policy, national strategy documents are bound to generate multiple contradictory readings and assessments. The most recent strategy papers, released less than a year into the new U.S. administration―and thus, with a limited track record of actions against which to be judged―has been met with the expected

February 01, 2018 The Palestinian refugee issue is of renewed controversy given the Trump Administration’s stance on both refugees and the Middle East peace process. It has been an ongoing crisis since Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, which followed fighting at the local level, and led to

January 25, 2018 “I have a few words for America and its people: I swear by God Almighty, who has raised the sky without pillars, America and anyone who lives there will never dream of security unless we have it in reality in Palestine, and until all infidel armies leave

January 17, 2018 The Arab-Israeli peace process limps forward at best, but is more appropriately described as being paralyzed to the extent that it calls for immediate intensive care with the United States as its only broker. President Trump surprised all parties by announcing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

December 21, 2017 On the first of December, President Donald Trump announced that the United States was recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and directed the U.S. embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In addition to fulfilling a campaign promise to his base, the move undertaken

December 14, 2017 Before U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in a speech on December 6, the anticipated move was roundly criticized. Both by America’s ‘traditional enemies’ such as Iran and various Islamist groups, but also by U.S. allies in the Middle East and North

December 14, 2017 President Trump’s dramatic declaration to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and his plans to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem have thrown a spotlight on three goals the Palestinian leadership had so far failed to achieve, namely, to affirm the Palestinian national rights in

November 8, 2017 Beginning when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt in the summer of 2012, the Hamas-Egypt relationship deepened significantly. The relationship went beyond the General Intelligence Directorate’s coordination of security matters, to include coordination among political leaders Mohamed Morsi and Ismail Haniyeh. The strong relationship between

September 5, 2017 Mideast pundits often speak in terms of “age-old” ethnic and religious conflicts, or of “deeply entrenched” attitudes or prejudices. A closer look at the evidence, however, reveals that Arab public opinion can sometimes change dramatically, both for better and for worse, in the space of just a

August 24, 2017 In "Why Israel Should Listen to Jordan on the Temple Mount," Abdullah Sawalha asserts that in handling the recent Temple Mount crisis, Israel prioritized domestic political considerations over coordination with Jordan. While I agree that Israel could have handled the crisis better, I believe the piece presents

August 10, 2017 This week King Abdullah of Jordan made a rare visit to Ramallah, his first in five years, to confer with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the wake of a crisis over security at the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This latest outbreak of small-scale violence

One-third of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians want to “escalate the resistance against Israel, even if that makes life harder right now,” according to a late-May survey conducted by the reliable Palestine Center for Public Opinion. The majority, however, prefer other options: a compromise deal with Israel, a focus on

June 15, 2017 Surprising results from a highly credible new survey in the West Bank and Gaza conducted May 16-26, 2017, demonstrate that Palestinians are often more moderate than their leaders on short-term political issues -- such as "pay for slay" bonuses for terrorists, a U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem

In 2014, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned that Israel risked becoming an apartheid state if a two-state solution could not be reached. In March 2017, a UN report titled "Israeli Practices toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid," published by the Economic and Social Commission for

February 14, 2017 The newly established state of Israel captured West Jerusalem in the aftermath of the 1948 War and East Jerusalem in the 1967 War; however, neither military acquisition was recognized internationally. In 1995, though, the US Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act claiming Jerusalem as the eternal capital

If Iranian leaders want to advance a world governed by the relative justice of international law, which however imperfect is better than a world in which "the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must", they will have to cede the same implicit claims of exceptionalism that they loathe the U.S. and Israel for.

An interview with peace activist Professor Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi As a non-violent form of resistance to the Israeli occupation, the anti-normalization movement gained ground in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000. Extremist groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) oppose

Normalization remains controversial in Arab circles but is no longer taboo, as more Arabs come to view Israel as a potential partner against enemies like Iran.

If the Europeans continue to act independently of local actors' wishes, they could further complicate matters in a region already beset by daunting challenges.