Peace Process

While packaged as a triumph, the rollout of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is in fact more of a relief, given the circuitous path required to arrive at the talks. Convinced of the need for a U.S. role that was at once more activist and yet more dispassionate, President

As Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas prepares to begin peace talks with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington this week, two just-released Palestinian polls offer some promising news, at odds with the tragic echoes of last night's Hamas terrorism in Hebron. Until now, much of the media has

The announcement Friday that Middle East peace talks would be launched Sept. 2 was not exactly met with an outpouring of enthusiasm. Yet progress on security and other issues suggests there is reason to believe peace talks can produce results. There has been a surge in cooperation between Israel and

The foreign policy team of US President Barack Obama is undertaking a reassessment of its policy all over the Middle East, including Israel. No one has made or will make a public declaration about such a change, but a reassessment is nonetheless under way, and we can already detect the

With smiles, compliments, and a strong dose of hospitality, President Obama did his best to provide a dramatically improved backdrop for U.S.-Israeli relations during Binyamin Netanyahu's July 6 visit to the White House, compared to the climate that greeted the Israeli prime minister upon his strained April visit. This included

On July 1, 2010, Stephen Hadley and

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas conducted an unprecedented sequence of three public events during his visit to Washington last week, during which he articulated his positions on a range of issues. The events included an on-the-record dinner hosted by philanthropist Daniel Abraham, a television appearance with PBS host Charlie

The activists aboard the Gaza flotilla that was raided by Israeli security forces Monday may have believed that breaking the Gaza blockade was at its core forcing Israel to address an issue the activists see as moral blindness. Yet the situation is far more complex than they would like people

On Monday morning, May 31, the most recent convoy organized by the "Free Gaza" movement came to a violent end. With scores of dead and wounded after Israeli naval commandos took over the largest ship in the convoy, the repercussions of this deadly event will be felt on several levels