Current Analysis Egypt's Summer of Discontent As the long, hot Egyptian summer of 2003 wore on into autumn, gloom-and-doom scenarios filled opposition papers and daily conversations, warning of a terrible quiet before the storm. Elites and the masses are slowly being pushed together by palpable disaffection at rapidly deteriorating economic con Mona El-Ghobashy • 12 min read
Current Analysis Final Status in the Shape of a Wall In Jayyous, a village of 3,000 in the northern West Bank, Najah Shamasneh cradles her granddaughter in her lap and listens to her husband Yusuf tell of the loss of their agricultural land. The Shamasneh family's 25 dunams (about 6.25 acres), their sole source of income, now lies on the western side Catherine Cook • 11 min read
Current Analysis Why There's No Peace in Palestine On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat signed a Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn, heralding the beginning of the Oslo peace process. Ten years later, the process is completely deadlocked. Israel has de Catherine Cook • 2 min read
Current Analysis Holding Syria Accountable, Though Selectively With George W. Bush stubbornly insisting that the US is making “progress” in the “central phase of the war on terror” in Iraq, pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans in Congress figure it is time for phase three. Some think tankers want to train Washington’s gunsights on Iran, but next week Congress w Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Israel's Wall Not Really About Security As President Bush’s diplomacy with Israeli and Palestinian leaders continues, so does Israel’s construction of the so-called separation wall in the West Bank. The Israeli public views the wall as necessary protection from attacks on civilians by Palestinian militant groups. But is this wall really a Catherine Cook • 3 min read
Current Analysis Hi, and a Low at the State Department As America’s standing with the Arab public continues to drop, many Americans ask just what the world’s greatest democracy must do to improve its image. The latest US venture in public diplomacy, a glossy monthly called Hi, is an exercise in American earnestness designed to answer precisely that ques Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Jewish Israeli Left, US Empire and the End of the Two-State Solution Roni Ben-Efrat is editor of Challenge magazine, a critical, left analysis of Israeli and Palestinian politics. She is a veteran activist for Palestinian rights inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories, and a founding member of the Organization for Democratic Action (ODA), a Marxist party with Jewish and Palestinian Rebecca L. Stein • 12 min read
Current Analysis The Iraqi Governing Council's Sectarian Hue Passage by the UN Security Council of a resolution "welcoming" the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) reignited debate over the legitimacy of the body as a representative of the Iraqi people. The resolution, approved on August 14, 2003 by a vote of 14-0, with Syria abstaining, pointedly refrained Raad Alkadiri, Chris Toensing • 9 min read
Current Analysis What Is Wrong with What Went Wrong? It is no exaggeration to say that Bernard Lewis is the most influential writer on Middle Eastern history and politics in the United States today. Not only has he authored more than two dozen books on the Middle East, he trained large numbers of two subsequent generations of historians of the region. Adam Sabra • 15 min read
Current Analysis Dilemmas of the Left-Liberals If liberals and the left are united behind anything in our allegedly post-ideological age, it is that human rights and humanitarian considerations must always trump realpolitik. The left opposed the punishing economic sanctions endured by Iraqi civilians from 1991 to 2003, despite the sanctions’ und Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Declining to Intervene In its annual report issued in July 2003, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) painted a familiar yet surprising picture of Israeli army maltreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. A wide range of army practices—from house-to-house searches in villages to "targeted Jonathan Cook • 11 min read
Current Analysis Behind the Baker Plan for Western Sahara On July 31, 2003, the UN Security Council voted to "support strongly" former Secretary of State James Baker's proposals for resolving the Western Sahara dispute, the last Africa file remaining open at the UN Decolonization Committee. Baker has been the personal envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Ann Toby Shelley • 9 min read
