Israel

Chart of Hamas IDQB organization from Policy Focus #97, "Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement," by Yoram Cohen and Jeffrey White. Copyright 2009 Th eWashington Institute

Chart of Hamas military and security apparatus structure from Policy Focus #97, "Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement," by Yoram Cohen and Jeffrey White. Copyright 2009 The Washington Institute

Timeline of the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict from Policy Focus #97, "Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement," by Yoram Cohen and Jeffrey White. Copyright 2009 The Washington Institute

Battalion command-and-control structure of Hamas IDQB from Policy Focus #97, "Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement," by Yoram Cohen and Jeffrey White. Copyright 2009 The Washington Institute

Deployment of Hamas forces in the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict from Policy Focus #97, "Hamas in Combat: The Military Performance of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement," by Yoram Cohen and Jeffrey White. Copyright 2009 The Washington Institute

Download the complete proceedings. On October 18, 2009, Israeli deputy prime minister Dan Meridor delivered a keynote address to The Washington Institute's annual Weinberg Founders Conference in Leesburg, Virginia. Dan Meridor is Israel's deputy prime minister and minister of intelligence and atomic energy. During three decades in government, he has

Download the complete proceedings. On October 16, 2009, Jackson Diehl, Mortimer Zuckerman, and Michael Mandelbaum participated in a keynote debate at The Washington Institute's annual Weinberg Founders Conference. Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post. Mortimer Zuckerman, a member of The Washington Institute's Board of Advisors

Hamas has historically waged terror-based campaigns targeting both Israel and its Palestinian rivals, playing a spoiling role in peace negotiations between the two sides. However, much of the strength projected by Hamas is based on the military promise of the movement -- its capacity to employ force against its enemies

With apologies to Winston Churchill, President Obama may not have presided over the beginning of the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last week in New York, but he seems finally to have marked the end of an embarrassing beginning to his Middle East diplomacy. The president and his senior advisors