At Camp David/Taba, the Palestinians left the Israeli bride at the altar, so to speak, by turning down the agreement. Regional actors have responded differently. Some Arab leaders, especially Egyptians, are in denial, arguing that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak's proposals are still valid and that the peace process is still salvageable. Many Arabs blame the failure of Camp David/Taba on the "arrangements" — technical problems, miscommunication, or poor timing of proposals that caused the talks to fizzle. If only these problems were fixed, they argue, an agreement could be worked out.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, and Jordan
Friday, June 15 marks day one hundred for the Sharon administration and Israel's sixth national unity government. The occasion warrants a look back at the five previous Israeli unity governments.
The following report evaluates trends in Israeli-Palestinian violence during the past seven months using fatality statistics. This analysis covers the period from the outbreak of the "Al Aqsa Intifada" on September 28, 2000 through to April 30, 2001. The following statistics are based primarily on information provided by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem. This data has been cross-checked for accuracy with the Israeli government and U.S. and other Western media sources. For information about fatalities in earlier periods and about methodology, see Peacewatch #317: "Israeli-Palestinian Political Fatalities During The Barak Government: A Statistical Overvie" and Research Note #8: "Trends in Israeli-Palestinian Political Fatalities, 1987-1999."
The Bush administration confronts a certain context on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories: Increasing violence. The violence gets worse and worse, and seems to have a logic and momentum of its own. There has been a descent into what may only be described as "communal violence."
As the State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs-designate William Burns seeks to coax Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a sequence of steps to halt the current deterioration of violence that has engulfed the area in recent months, the question is whether there is sufficient political will among the parties to arrive at a mutually satisfactory arrangement.
While the violence in the West Bank and Gaza captures most of the attention, arguably more important developments in the last year have occurred in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel triangle.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, Arabia, Gaza, North Africa, Lebanon, and Syria
This morning, the text of the long-awaited Mitchell Commission Report, an account of the past seven months of Israeli-Palestinian violence written by a five-member committee headed by former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, was made publicly available. Conceived as a "committee of fact finding" at the October 17, 2000 Sharm al Shaykh conference, its stated goal was to answer "What happened," "why it happened," and how the "recurrence of violence [could] be prevented."
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
"We are passing through a very demanding corridor of politics and exchanges, of an emotional crisis of blame and accusations where the voice of peace is minor and occasionally words may be as dangerous as bullets. We have to stop both the incitement and the fire. My real optimism is that I am convinced that sooner or later — and better sooner — all of us will recognize there is no alternative but to return to the table of negotiation, and part from the bloody battlefields that do not produce solutions."
On April 21, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz bin Abdallah Aal al-Shaykh, said that Islam forbids suicide terrorist attacks. This has raised a storm of criticism from supporters of the Palestinian intifada against Israel. However, the mufti may have been thinking more about Osama bin Ladin than recent Palestinian actions.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arab Countries, and Saudi Arabia
On April 30, the Department of State issued its comprehensive annual report Patterns of Global Terrorism, describing incidents and trends in international terrorism in the year 2000. This year's report covers the first three months of accelerated Palestinian-Israeli violence. It is also marks the first time the Bush administration State Department has been compelled to publicly comment on the nature of Lebanese Hizballah attacks against Israel in the post-withdrawal era.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Politics, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Arab Countries