Israel

After years of foreign policy setbacks, Ankara is trying to mend fences with Israel, Egypt, Iran, and Russia, and the potential implications for the United States are mostly beneficial -- assuming the Turks can actually pull it off.

The recent flurry of international and regional activism may ultimately result in parameters and UN resolutions that dictate the agenda for the next U.S. administration, so Washington and other actors should weigh each initiative carefully.

The heated criticism of his government's rightward shift is obscuring the fact that Arab officials continue to work with Israel on various important initiatives, creating room for potential diplomatic developments that could render outside peacemaking forays moot.

In the early morning hours of May 8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima party chief Shaul Mofaz dropped a bombshell on the Israeli political system by announcing the formation of a national unity government. Kadima's shocking entry into the Netanyahu government -- only weeks earlier, Mofaz had stated

The Obama administration is hardly the first to distance itself from Israel based on false assumptions about Arab priorities.

Although improved Egyptian-Israeli cooperation and enhanced remote-monitoring technologies will ease the pain of the planned drawdown in Sinai peacekeepers, the situation will only worsen unless Cairo adopts a more appropriate counterinsurgency strategy.

The principal gain yielded by the exchange of ideas between two adversaries is mutual understanding. Admittedly, at the conclusion of a dialogue it could turn out that the pair really do have irreconcilable views – but at least the discussion has allowed both participants to map out the other’s position

Watch a pathbreaking public dialogue between senior national security leaders from two old adversaries - His Royal Highness Prince Turki bin Faisal, Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief and one-time ambassador to Washington, and retired IDF Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, former national security advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The divisive discourse on many American campuses threatens to doom Jewish and Muslim student leaders to the mistakes of the past, but bringing them together for mock negotiations is a proven way of helping them understand each other's arguments, grievances, and hopes.