Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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The Gaza Strip faces a confluence of poor conditions allowing for rapid coronavirus spread. The United States must help prevent a worsened humanitarian catastrophe.
While the conditions necessary for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement do not exist today and further negotiations between the two parties are unlikely to change the situation, a regional settlement is both possible and desirable for both sides.
Negotiations over a two-state solution have reached a dead end. International efforts should focus on a short-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that can pave the way for a sustainable armistice.
Barack Obama's election was celebrated throughout the Middle East. But enthusiasm could quickly turn to hostility if the new administration does not back up its rhetoric with concrete changes to U.S. Middle East policy on three key issues: Palestine, Iraq, and political reform.
The Bush administration is using its final months to try to gain agreement on a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict—but much of the framework supporting such an agreeement has collapsed. The next president will face a series of bleak choices, of which a two-state solution remains the most attractive.
The Middle East peace process will fail unless Palestinian political institutions are rebuilt. The international efforts to rebuild Palestine are in reality counterproductive. Instead, a long-term international strategy based on restoring Palestinian institutions, encouraging a Fatah–Hamas agreement, and emphasizing regional diplomacy are needed.
Mass demonstrations in Lebanon, joint protest rallies of Egyptian Islamists and liberals against the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and municipal elections in Saudi Arabia are just as much features of the current situation as are cease-fire declarations by Palestinian resistance movements and multiparty negotiations for forming a coalition government in Iraq.