Peace Process

On Monday, January 7, Patrick Clawson and Robert Satloff addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute and discussed the upcoming visit of President Bush to the Middle East. Dr. Clawson is deputy director of research at The Washington Institute and author, most recently, of Deterring the Ayatollahs: Complications in

To: President George W. Bush From: Dennis Ross Subject: This week's visit with the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority Mr. President, no doubt you have received many briefings on this topic, but having negotiated with everybody you will be seeing this week and having just returned from the area

Despite functioning as a de facto state since its creation in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has long been crippled by "the four Fs": fawda (chaos), fitna (strife), falatan (lawlessness), and fassad (corruption). These conditions -- the hallmarks of state failure -- continue to define life in the PA-controlled West Bank

On December 17, a donor conference will convene in Paris with the goal of bolstering Palestinian governance in the West Bank -- the first such meeting since the 2006 Stockholm conference. Current Middle East envoy Tony Blair has expressed optimism that the international community will support President Mahmoud Abbas and

The Annapolis summit featured an impressive display of international support for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Beyond the headlines and photo-ops, the most significant aspect of the event was that President Bush offered little sign he plans to devote the final months of his administration to a high-stakes personal quest for a

Today, nearly 50 nations and organizations will convene in Annapolis, Md., to talk, in theory, about support for Israeli-Palestinian peace. I say in theory because the Syrian deputy foreign minister, for example, will have a different agenda -- an agenda related to the Syrians' insistence that only a "comprehensive settlement,"

Just days before President George W. Bush hosted a Middle East peace "meeting" in Annapolis intended to provide new impetus for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Washington Institute held a special policy forum with David Makovsky and Dennis Ross to assess the evolution of the Annapolis summit

Former British prime minister Tony Blair, now the Quartet's special Middle East envoy, has announced that he will soon determine the first set of projects meant to improve economic conditions in the West Bank, specifically mentioning projects around the town of Jericho. Although Blair will no doubt ignore calls from

Public remarks by top U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian officials this week indicate that the character of the upcoming Middle East peace conference in Annapolis has changed. First, instead of the expected pre-conference declaration of final status -- principles and conceptual tradeoffs on core issues such as Jerusalem, borders, security, and