The unconscionable attack against the United States Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four officials, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, must be condemned in the strongest terms possible and the official response should be (...)
NEW YORK: Since the fall of the Mubarak regime, the conventional wisdom in Israel has suggested that the emergence of an Islamist government in Egypt would necessarily be hostile to the Jewish state. Egypt's parliamentary elections, in which the (...)
American, Israeli and Palestinian officials today are frantically grappling with the various pros and cons concerning the Palestinian Authority's (PA) plans to seek recognition from the United Nations this week. Regardless of the merit or wisdom (...)
I recently spoke at the NY United Nations Association following a screening of the documentary “Budrus,” named after a Palestinian village in the West Bank (WB). Although I carefully followed the events in that small village as they occurred in (...)
On the surface, the current stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems illogical. After all, each side knows, with the exception of the Netanyahu government, that the basic framework of a negotiated settlement: a two-state solution (...)
The supposed controversy over President Obama's speech on the Middle East, manufactured by Prime Minster Netanyahu and enabled by the media, is disgraceful and insincere. President Obama said nothing new about borders, just the facts: no border will (...)
Although President Obama stated nothing new during his speech last Thursday about the 1967 borders with "mutually agreed land swaps" as a basis for a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian agreement, he put it in a manner that should give the Palestinians (...)
Will Assad have the courage and the vision to rise to the historic occasion and change the geopolitical dynamics throughout the Middle East?
The time and circumstances have presented Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad with a clear choice: Continue (...)
President Obama has already developed a reputation for tough talk and little action. Worse yet, the United States' cautiousness in the wake of the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan-while understandable-threaten to paint a picture of the Obama White (...)
On Saturday, Feb. 12 the Egyptian army issued a communiqué reassuring the Egyptian people and the international community of its intention to usher in a civilian government and honor all of Egypt's international commitments, including the peace (...)
While much is unknown about the ultimate implications of the Egyptian uprising for Israel, one lesson can already be drawn: The missed opportunities to achieve peace with the Arab states could have disastrous impacts. Of course, many Israelis see (...)
While much is unknown about the ultimate implications of the Egyptian uprising for Israel, one lesson can already be drawn: The missed opportunities to achieve peace with the Arab states could have disastrous impacts. Of course, many Israelis see (...)
Egypt's day of glory can be sustained only if the revolutionaries, the opposition figures and the establishment work together while realizing that they are shaping Egypt's
destiny.
I want to begin this column by first applauding the Egyptian (...)
NEW YORK: It is hard to describe the state of affairs of the Arab-Israeli conflict at this particular juncture without using adjectives such as "sad," "unfortunate" or even "tragic," which I think is the most appropriate description. The collapse of (...)
NEW YORK: The Israeli government must still approve the proposed United States-Israeli agreement to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank in exchange for a US offer of $3 billion worth of military hardware, including stealth fighter jets. (...)
It is time for the White House to bring on a new Mideast peace team. At various points in the past several months Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell has responded to reporters' questions about the stalled peace process by recalling (...)
Despite efforts to internationally isolate Syria, especially during the Bush era, Syria has reasserted itself as a central player in the Middle East.
Following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, the United States (...)
Now is the time for Turkey to play a meaningful role in curbing Iran's ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. As sanctions intensify — and before Israel or the United States seriously consider taking more coercive (including military) action against (...)
As direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are launched this week, it will be critical that the talks address the religious dimension of the conflict. This has been given only scant attention thus far, despite the fact that it has, (...)
The Obama administration's success in moving the Israeli-Palestinian talks from proximity to direct negotiations is an important achievement for making real progress. However, direct talks will not produce substantive results unless the United (...)
Israel's chief reservation regarding the Arab Peace Initiative is the way in which the text addresses the issue of Palestinian refugees. Specifically, the Initiative calls upon Israel to affirm: "achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian (...)
Earlier this summer I was in Jerusalem meeting with various officials and catching up with old friends. Minutes after meeting a friend, a former high-up official in Israel's Foreign Ministry, he ran back to see me. "Alon, come quick, you have to (...)
The Arab foreign ministers meeting on July 29th in Cairo to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations must keep in mind that endorsing direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is not necessarily a favor to the Israelis. In fact, (...)
The now infamous Flotilla incident which resulted in the death of nine Turks has sparked a whirlwind of accusations and provocations between Israel and Turkey that has put the relationship at an all time low. The timing could not have been worse, as (...)
The last few weeks have looked like a crash course in Middle East diplomacy, replete with the grandeur of talks and lofty speechmaking, and the lows that shamed even those most committed to the peace process. As the media frenzy played out, the (...)