Palestinians

As the American envoy to the peace process during the Clinton administration, I worked closely with Mahmoud Abbas, often sitting across a table from him around the clock, seven days a week. Of course, I knew him by his patronymic, Abu Mazen -- "father of Mazen." Abu Mazen is a

The Intifada, better termed a Palestinian war, will not continue on as it has. In recent months we've witnessed the recognition of a political, economic, psychological and military Palestinian defeat. Leaders now recognize the gross miscalculation of the violence launched in September 2000. Indeed, Israel's reprisals and sanctions have crippled

After a week of violence that followed the Aqaba summit, most Middle East observers are pessimistic about breaking the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate. Yet after a week of extensive discussions with both sides, I believe it's possible to create a period of calm. Among Palestinians, I found a profound desire to see

Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon announced on Sunday that Lebanese authorities will not enter a Palestinian refugee camp where al Qaeda operatives are known to be, even at the height of the war on terror. Asbat al-Ansar (League of Partisans) was tied to a foiled assassination plot against the

In the last week the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians appeared to be improving. The Palestinians approved Mahmoud Abbas as their first-ever prime minister, and he declared that terrorism threatened to destroy the Palestinian cause -- language one never heard from Yasir Arafat. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of

Within hours of Mahmoud Abbas's (Abu Mazen) confirmation as the new Palestinian prime minister and the presentation of the Quartet's roadmap to peace, two suicide bombers struck a seaside bar next to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, killing three civilians and wounding sixty more. As is frequently the case

Addressing the Palestinian Legislative Council Tuesday, new Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister Mahmoud Abbas outlined a bold program of domestic reform and commitment to diplomacy that balanced loyalty to Yasir Arafat with an evident desire for fundamental political change. The speech's most positive aspects were Abbas's affirmation of negotiations as

It has become de rigueur in Europe and the Arab world to proclaim that the problem in the Middle East is that the Bush administration is not "engaged" in restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Yet the United States has been engaged in important ways, and hopeful signs are now coming

The international press lavished attention on the Fatah-Hamas summit held in Cairo in mid-November 2002. According to reports, Fatah (the leading faction backing Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority) and Hamas (the leading Islamist opposition) were going to hammer out their differences over many sensitive issues. In particular, Fatah sought to persuade