U.S. Policy

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Yasir Arafat meets President Bill Clinton today strengthened by the death of Syria’s Hafiz al-Asad, whose funeral Arafat attended Tuesday. An Arafat buoyed and more confident by the death of his longtime nemesis adds a new wrinkle to an already complex game of brinkmanship that constitutes

Without U.S. diplomatic intervention, the most likely outcome of last week's Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon is that some radical group — acting under Syrian and Iranian pressure — will launch cross-border attacks on Israel. This could lead Israel to respond with intense artillery fire and air strikes, possibly against Syrian

On May 19, 2000, Leon Fuerth, national security adviser to Vice President Al Gore, and Robert Zoellick, a foreign policy adviser to Texas governor George W. Bush, jointly addressed The Washington Institute's annual Soref Symposium. The following is an edited transcript of their discussion. Read the full, unedited transcript or

Keynote discussion between Dan Meridor and Ziyad Abu Zayyad; and roundtable discussions with Patrick Seale, Uri Lubrani, Raghida Dergham, and Daniel Pipes; and between Leon Fuerth and Robert Zoellick.

With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks getting underway in Eilat this weekend, the Middle East seems to be switching peace tracks yet again. After President Bill Clinton held separate White House meetings with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Yasir Arafat earlier this month, State Department spokesman James

On April 5, 2000, The Washington Institute released a new report, The Last Arab-Israeli Battlefield? Implications of an Israeli Withdrawal from Lebanon, and hosted its seven contributing authors at a Special Policy Forum. The contributors include Nicole Brackman, Patrick Clawson, Michael Eisenstadt, Steven Hecker, John Hillen, Frederic Hof, and Gal

The U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq, now more than nine years old, continue to elicit strong objections from those who view them as unjust. Only two weeks ago, Hans von Sponeck, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, resigned. The sanctions, he said, create a "true human tragedy that needs to

Syria-Israel negotiations are on hold, but Israelis and Syrians have found a way to negotiate through third parties--the media. Two weeks ago, Israel leaked the U.S. draft text of a proposed peace treaty, complete with a timeline for implementation, in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. Over the last ten days, a

With Syrian-Israeli peace talks underway in Shepherdstown, W.Va., media attention has focused on the shape of a possible peace agreement and the potential for U.S. financial assistance to the parties. Virtually no attention, however, has been paid to the principal legal obstacle in the way of U.S. aid to one