Israel

The capture yesterday of two Israeli soldiers (eight more were killed) in a crossborder raid by the Lebanese group Hizballah, as Israeli forces in Gaza continued to search for an Israeli soldier kidnapped last week by Hamas and to clear Qassam rocket launch sites, marked the opening of a second

The raid into Israel conducted early on June 25 by Hamas’s military command demonstrated without a doubt that the responsibilities of governance have not moderated the terrorist group. Although Hamas now has a nationally elected political leadership, its government clearly does not call the shots, or rockets, when it comes

In the July/August issue of Foreign Policy, Institute counselor Dennis Ross joined a roundtable of Middle East experts to discuss the controversy over John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby. Read the full text of Ambassador Ross’s article in PDF format. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are troubled by

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's pursuit of a referendum on the Palestinian National Accord has been widely interpreted by commentators and reporters as a power play designed to circumvent the Hamas-led government and force it to implicitly accept Israel's existence. But while the process of conducting a referendum -- the legality

David Makovsky reviewed Schlomo Ben-Ami’s new book, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy (Oxford University Press, 2006), for the June 4, 2006, Washington Post Book World. The following is the text of his review. Shlomo Ben-Ami was there when it all went sour -- serving as Israel's

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas’s surprise May 25 announcement that he would call for a national referendum should Palestinian factions fail to reach agreement during their national dialogue was wrongly interpreted as a peace plan by many in the press. The document Abbas threatened to put to a popular

On May 16, 2006, David Makovsky and Dennis Ross discussed Ehud Olmert’s “consolidation plan” and his agenda for his first visit to Washington, D.C., as prime minister of Israel. David Makovsky is director of the Institute’s Project on the Middle East Peace Process. Dennis Ross, the Institute’s counselor and Ziegler

During the early morning hours of May 7, militants from Hamas and Fatah engaged in a bloody clash near Khan Yunis in Gaza that left three fighters dead. Reporting on this incident -- one of the deadliest intra-Palestinian confrontations in recent history -- indicates that Hamas activists responded to the

On May 12, 2006, Dan Meridor, former Israeli minister of finance, justice, and strategic affairs, addressed The Washington Institute’s Soref Symposium. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of his remarks. The last several years have witnessed two parallel movements in Israeli and Palestinian societies. From the Israeli side, there was