ZACHARY LOCKMAN

Zachary Lockman is professor of modern Middle East history and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He is a contributing editor of Middle East Report. His most recent book is Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism (2004).

GLENN E. ROBINSON

Glenn E. Robinson is associate professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Robinson is the author of Building a Palestinian State: The Incomplete Revolution (1997) and co-author of two RAND Corporation books, Building a Successful Palestinian State and The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State (2005). He commented today on the new political agreement between rival Palestinian factions: "By agreeing with President Abbas to accept a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, Hamas is cutting off its diaspora, just as the PLO did when it signed the Oslo accords with Israel in 1993 -- essentially giving up its original goal of reclaiming what Palestinians lost in 1948. It is less clear whether such a move will end the partial blockade of the Palestinian Authority by Israel, the US and Europe."