Once hailed by Western pundits as the technocrat-magician who would conjure a Palestinian state into being through irrepressible institutional competence, Salam Fayyad has been unceremoniously sidelined from his job as Palestinian Prime Minister according to a deal announced Tuesday — a sign of the collapse of the illusions …
Hamas
Why Israel’s Netanyahu May Prefer a Waltz With Hamas to a Tango With Abbas
Tuesday’s milestone prisoner exchange does not, repeat does not portend a new peace process between Israel and Hamas. Neither side is even seeking that goal: If the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unable to agree peace terms with the moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, it’s hardly about to seek a “grand bargain” to end …
Who Gains, Who Loses in Israel-Hamas Prisoner Swap to Free Gilad Shalit?
Win-win outcomes are all too rare in the Middle East, but the agreement that will see Hamas free captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for a reported 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will allow each of its stakeholders to claim victory.
Details of the deal concluded in Cairo under Egyptian mediation remain sketchy, but it is …
Does Qatar Share the West’s Agenda in Libya?
When Qatar took a lead in the military campaign to oust Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, Western officials gushed with praise for the tiny Gulf State punching way above its weight. The nation of just 2 million sent six Mirage fighter jets to lend an all-important Arab presence in the air campaign; it cajoled the Arab League into supporting …
Hamas and Fatah Can’t Even Agree What Time It Is
Not to generalize, but in Gaza it’s said to be possible to estimate the political sympathies of the person approaching on the sidewalk without actually asking. A woman in a snug cloak, hair covered in a scarf of fuscia or some colorful print is likely aligned with Fatah, the secular Palestinian party. While a woman who understands …
De-escalation Easier Said than Done in Gaza, As Each Side Picks Its Spots
It’s a peculiar cease-fire that sees 20 missiles and mortars launched in a single night, but that’s the kind of cease-fire in effect in the Gaza Strip, despite the professed efforts of the two major players, Israel and Hamas, to draw down hostilities. Neither side may want to see the conflict spiral into full-on battle, with Israeli …
Abbas Postpones Palestinian Local Elections Yet Again
Not for the first time, the Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is postponing local elections in the West Bank. He made the announcement on Monday by decree — the form that laws have taken on the West Bank since the 2007 split with Hamas left the Palestinian legislature unable to meet, many its members marooned …
A Mideast Game of Thrones Threatens to Provoke a New Israel-Gaza War
Any reader of the George R.R. Martin Songs of Ice and Fire series (whose opening book, Game of Thrones, was turned into riveting television on HBO) might see a familiar pattern in the events that threaten to plunge the Israel-Gaza border into a new escalation of violence.
In Martin’s fantasy geopolitics, as in the real world, …
What Comes After the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process?
An Italian philosopher once remarked that moments when “the old is dying and the new cannot be born” are marked by a “great variety of morbid symptoms”. Watching the machinations of the Obama Administration and its allies, the Palestinian leadership and its rivals, and the Israeli government ahead of a planned U.N. vote on …
Israel’s Best Hope to Thwart Palestinian U.N. Plan May Be Palestinians’ Own Strategic Doubts
Israel’s government currently lacks a credible plan for getting it out of a diplomatic tight spot if the Palestinians go ahead with a plan to seek U.N. recognition of a state in September. But don’t bet against the Palestinian leadership letting the Israelis off the hook as a result of their own divisions over whether to go the U.N. …
Egypt Pulls the Plug on a Failed U.S.-Israeli Gaza Strategy
It might have been easy, amid the raucous cheering at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Capitol Hill pep rally on Tuesday, for Israelis to ignore President Obama’s earlier warning of a gathering storm on Israel’s horizon. But Wednesday’s announcement that Egypt plans, on Saturday, to effectively end the siege of Gaza by permanently …
Netanyahu Sets Out His Peace Terms but Is Unlikely to Find a Palestinian Taker
President Barack Obama, currently in Europe trying to muster opposition to the Palestinians who are seeking recognition of statehood by the U.N. General Assembly in September, had hoped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would help him out — by using his address to a joint meeting of the Congress on Tuesday to offer peace terms …
Expect Neither Sparks, Nor Warmth When Obama Meets Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to be feeling lucky even before President Barack Obama gave him much of what he wanted in Thursday’s Middle East policy speech. There’s little love lost between the two men, of course, but political circumstance forces them to cooperate. And even if Netanyahu was annoyed by Obama’s …