Arab-Israeli Relations

The process has become less about peace and more about political survival for those spearheading Sudan’s catastrophic war.

Washington Institute experts and former officials lay out the urgent need for clarity on vital questions related to U.S. oversight, the stalled International Stabilization Force, Israel’s red lines, Hamas opposition to multilateral proposals, the contours of the PA’s role, and more.

Washington and its allies are waiting for Beirut to acknowledge the difficult but unavoidable truth: that war will resume unless serious action is taken to target all the pillars of Hezbollah’s power, bolster Shia political alternatives, and otherwise satisfy the ceasefire’s most important requirement: disarming the group.

Gaza stabilization must include precise disarmament rules, independent monitoring, and pressure from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey to counter Hamas’s blend of flexibility and intransigence.

Damascus has registered clear gains on arresting and deporting Palestinian militants and cooperating against the Islamic State, though its progress on addressing foreign fighters is mixed, and it has stalled on the more politically complex tracks of normalizing with Israel and controlling IS detention facilities.

After a failed attempt to rescue a soldier kidnapped by Hamas, the prime minister refused to deflect blame onto other soldiers or their commanders.

With Hamas already regrouping, U.S. officials must help craft targeted language that empowers the Board of Peace to oversee a technocratic administration and stabilization force, with the goal of quickly filling the territory’s governance and security vacuum.

There will be no peace, sovereignty, or reconstruction for postwar Lebanon until more of the group’s weapons are confiscated, but Beirut appears increasingly unwilling to tackle that task outside the southern frontier zone.

A compilation of Washington Institute insights on the profoundly complex tasks ahead—from preventing a Hamas resurgence to promoting Palestinian political reform—and the states and mechanisms likely to carry them out.