All Policy Analysis by David Makovsky

Felicitous change in Palestinian leadership at a time of bold new Israeli policies has thrown open the proverbial window of opportunity. The coming year promises renewed prospects for movement toward peace, and the United States, more than any other third party, has a vital diplomatic role to play during this

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to disengage from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank beginning this summer has earned him the ire of the 8,000 people living in the twenty-five settlements scheduled for evacuation. It has also generated opposition among the quarter-million settlers living in the remainder

The United States needs to do more to consolidate the cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians and help coordinate a pullout from Gaza or else the current narrow window of opportunity, characterized by the leadership potential of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli plan for disengagement from Gaza, may

This Foreign Affairs article is based on David Makovsky's Engagement through Disengagement: Gaza and the Potential for Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking (The Washington Institute, 2005). View a detailed map of the Gaza Strip, including Israeli settlements, Palestinian communities, IDF security zones, Egypt-Israel border buffer zone, checkpoints, and roads. After four and

One way to judge the success of the upcoming Bush-Sharon summit in Crawford is by examining whether it leads to a meeting of the minds and greater clarity on four pivotal Israeli-Palestinian issues: the terms of the current ceasefire; West Bank settlement activity; the timing of, and eligibility rules for

After years of terror and violence, the recent changes in the Palestinian leadership and a new Israeli policy supported by a broad parliamentary coalition suggest a window of opportunity to make progress between Israelis and Palestinians in 2005. Diplomatic engagement on a defined agenda could in the short term restore

Last week, the Israeli cabinet approved modified routing of the security fence, the first officially sanctioned changes since the cabinet approved construction in October 2003. The modifications, prompted by an Israeli supreme court decision last summer made to avert Palestinian hardship, are characterized by four major adjustments: (1) revised routing