Creativity and realism required for success in Middle East talks - Colin Rubenstein
Admittedly, it is hard to envisage a deal on all the elements of what a final peace would require - especially Jerusalem, refugees, and recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. On the other hand, some sort of incremental agreement on West Bank borders and security arrangements looks plausible, according to most experts. Thus the key to a more optimistic outlook on the renewed talks is for the parties and Washington to take advantage of the positives. The talks cannot be an all-or-nothing effort to reach a final deal - they must break the problem up into "bite-size pieces". For instance, there are certainly synergies between Netanyahu's ideas about building peace "from the bottom up", Fayyad's efforts at state-building and the call in the 2003 roadmap for peace for a transitional stage involving a "Palestinian state with provisional borders". ...read more
Recent Updates
Today's Israeli-Palestinian Summit in Washington
As readers are doubtless aware, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu is meeting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today in Washington in a summit designed to formally re-launch direct Israeli Palestinian peace talks. This Update offers background on the s...read more
The Prospects of the Sept. 2 Israeli-Palestinian Summit
As readers will be aware, following a statement by the Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) , the Israelis and Palestinian leaders have agreed to a Sept. 2 Summit in Washington to launch much-delayed direct talks. This Update analyses the prospects of the Summi...read more
"The Point of No Return" on Iran?/Bushehr
Today's Update leads with a lengthy and controversial article that is generating much comment in the US. Top journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic has written an extended feature piece dealing with the possibility that Israel may launch an air...read more
Hezbollah and last week's Lebanon border incident
This Update contains some selections from the large quantity of analysis that has been written about the situation in Lebanon in the wake of the fatal border clash between Israeli and Lebanese army forces last week. In particular, there is speculation that Hez...read more
Media Release
AIJAC welcomes further Australian sanctions on Iran
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) today welcomed the Australian Government’s announcement that further sanctions are to be placed on Iran. AIJAC National Chairman Mark Leibler AC said, “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is a destabili...read more
Opinion
Broken dreams in the promised land - Bren Carlill
EHUD Barak and Yasser Arafat, smiling broadly, jostled before the world's cameras to see who could enter the door last. It was Camp David, the US presidential retreat in Maryland... This weekend marks 10 years since those talks ended in failure, and when measured against the...read more
How to Support (and Improve) Israel - Colin Rubenstein
Julie Szego’s column entitled “The Need for a Critical Diaspora" (July 2) placed entirely too much uncritical faith in the arguments of American author and journalist Peter Beinart. She fails to take adequate account of the outcome of the intense and interest...read more
Of blockades and blockheads - Allon Lee
Why are supposed human rights activists so quick to attack Israel but never make a squeak against the anti-peace Hamas regime that persecutes women, Christians and homosexuals? Why does the Gaza flotilla bloodshed automatically cancel out the moral and legal imperative of ma...read more
Background
Fall of the Teflon Terrorist? - Zachary Abuza
While the government had previously alleged that Bashir was a financier of the cell and training camp, the arrest and his role in terrorist operations took many by surprise. The ongoing counter-terrorist operations, including Bashir’s arrest, says much about the state an...read more
Israel's Endangered Deterrence - Bren Carlill
While Ben Yishai is critical – like most Israelis – of the way Israeli military planners handled the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, he is emphatic about the results. “The end result of the Second Lebanon War is that Israel enjoys deterrence,” Ben Yishai rep...read more
The State of the Iranian Revolution - David Menashri
The Iranian people have been struggling over 100 years to achieve two main aims: greater liberties and a better socio-economic situation for the underprivileged people of Iran. Thirty one years after the revolution, there are no greater liberties than what there used to be un...read more
Essay: Decade of Disappointment - Amotz Asa-El
It’s been a decade since Israeli and Palestinian leaders met as peacemakers only to part at loggerheads. Now, with most of the Camp David summit’s protagonists long gone from the scene, that ill-fated conclave’s military, diplomatic and political repercussion...read more
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