Israel

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 announcement Sunday that Israel would release 170 Palestinian prisoners as a "gesture of goodwill, friendship, and gratitude" to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is the latest in a series of events, statements, and diplomatic activity over the past several weeks that has signaled a warming in Egyptian-Israeli relations. While it

Jordan's ultimate strategic objective is peace in the Middle East. While the Jordan-Israel treaty remains seminal in importance for the Middle East and beyond, the continued bloodshed in the region sobers the anniversary celebration. The Jordan-Israel treaty reflected the courage and vision of King Hussein and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak

Nowhere are the paradoxes of the Middle East more evident than in Gaza. Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister and architect of the settler movement, is now being castigated by Israeli settlers for his decision to withdraw from Gaza. To win Knesset approval of his controversial plan, he had to depend

It's been a year since the bombing of a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Gaza that killed three Americans. Palestinian officials say they know who was responsible but will not arrest them, Washington does little about the case. The convoy the terrorists targeted was bringing State Department officials on a mission

The Palestinian intifada against Israel, this week entering its fifth year, has wreaked havoc on both Israelis and Palestinians. In Palestinian quarters, it has provoked considerable soul-searching about the wisdom of resorting to terrorism as a tool in the confrontation with Israel. Yasser Arafat remains the Palestinians' paramount political leader

David Makovsky, a senior fellow and director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says despite right-wing opposition, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to remove the roughly 7,600 Jewish settlers in Gaza will go ahead. "I think taking down

Despite being rebuffed again by the Likud Party two weeks ago, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has been undeterred in pursuing disengagement. In publicly broadcast remarks, he informed his fractious parliamentary faction that he was planning to accelerate the timing of his plan for withdrawal from Gaza and four West

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's May 20 demarche calling Israeli acts in Rafah "state terrorism" signals that the iceberg awaiting the crash of Turkish-Israeli relations has now surfaced. Jerusalem needs to act immediately to avoid a fallout with Ankara. Turkish-Israeli relations face a potential crisis. On the Turkish side