Baseless Comparisons: UN Security Council Resolutions on Iraq and Israel
Since Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War that followed, Arab diplomats at the United Nations have charged the international community with a policy of "double standards" regarding UN actions against Iraq for failing to comply with UN Security Council resolutions.
Starting Over After Oslo
The optimistic assumptions and mechanisms that guided Palestinian-Israeli negotiations under the "Oslo" process proved unrealistic and fatally flawed. This failure is reflected in two years of Palestinian terrorism and the catastrophic leadership of the Palestinian Authority. The realization that the core of the conflict remains the rejection of Israel as a Jewish state has fundamentally changed the framework for negotiations.
Durban’s Troubling Legacy One Year Later: Twisting the Cause of International Human Rights Against the Jewish People
The World Conference Against Racism in Durban was originally planned as a platform to focus on the world’s underrepresented human rights causes. Yet what was supposed to be a conference against racism turned into a conference of racism against Israel and the Jewish people.
Missile Proliferation in the Middle East
The present Iraqi capability is relatively limited. According to recent U.S. estimates, Iraq may have a dozen or two Scud missiles that were not caught by UN inspectors. They are working to attain nuclear capability but do not have it at the moment. However, both the Iraqis and the Iranians have chemical warheads, and both probably have biological weapons as well.
Iran, Syria, and Hizballah – Threatening Israel’s North
Many television viewers were surprised when U.S. Senator Bob Graham declared on "Meet the Press" on July 7 that there are "more urgent" priorities facing the United States than dealing with Saddam Hussein.
The Israeli-Palestinian Confrontation: Toward a Divorce
Arafat exercised a willing suspension of control at the start of the intifada, allowing irregular forces to attack while formal security forces remained on the sidelines. One of the major concepts of Oslo was that in the end there would be a strong, centralized Palestinian authority/ government. This concept is gone.
Why Arafat Went to War: The Wrong Lessons from Lebanon and Kosovo
When Yasser Arafat unleashed terrorist violence against Israel in September 2000, he was applying mistaken lessons from the conflicts in Lebanon and Kosovo, according to Brig. Gen. Eival Gilady, speaking at the inaugural lecture of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on May 27, 2002.
What Really Happened in Jenin?
The Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank was the scene of some of the harshest fighting during Israel’s “Defensive Shield” operation. It contained an extensive military infrastructure for terrorist operations against Israel that involved all of the main Palestinian terrorist groups: Islamic Jihad, Fatah, and Hamas. Since October 2000, Jenin-based terrorist networks were responsible for 28 attempted suicide attacks against Israel, of which 23 were actually executed. It is no wonder that in a captured Fatah document (https://www.idf.il/english/news/jenin.stm) the Palestinians themselves call Jenin “the martyrs’ (meaning suicide bombers) capital” — as-simat al-istashidin.
A Primer for the Arab Summit in Beirut
Vol. 1, No. 21 March 26, 2002 The Arab summit must not alter the only agreed terms of reference for the Arab-Israeli peace process — UN Security Council Resolution 242. The whole debate over whether Israel allows PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to travel to the Arab summit meeting in Beirut presupposes that this gathering […]
Saudi Arabia’s Op-Ed Diplomacy: A Public Relations Ploy or a Serious Initiative?
Vol. 1, No. 20 A revealing Washington Post news story on February 26, 2002, reported a striking American public opinion poll claiming that Americans rated Saudi Arabia above North Korea and Syria as a state-supporter of international terrorism. While 64 percent of Americans viewed Iran as a state supporting terrorism, a full 54 percent shared the same perception […]
Was There a Missed Opportunity for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
A number of observers of Middle East diplomacy still believe that a full political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is within reach. Advocates of this school of thought point to the purported breakthroughs reached during the Taba talks in January 2001. If they had a few more weeks, so they argue, an Israeli-Palestinian final-status deal could have been struck. For this reason, they assert that if Israel and the Palestinians were to re-engage diplomatically, they could reach an agreement based on the December 1999 Clinton parameters that were presented to Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams at the White House.
Arafat’s Iraqi Connection
Vol. 1, No. 18 February 6, 2002 Both Iraq and Iran would have a difficult time projecting their influence in the Arab-Israeli sector of the Middle East, if Yasser Arafat was not seeking to draw them into his conflict with Israel and, thereby, jeopardize regional stability. Speaking to his Knesset faction on February 4, […]
Elie Hobeika’s Assassination: Covering Up the Secrets of Sabra and Shatilla
Vol. 1, No. 17 Elie Hobeika knew the truth of Israel’s innocence in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, and for that reason many interested parties wanted him silenced. Elie Hobeika, the former Lebanese Christian militia leader, was killed by a car bomb outside his home in a Beirut suburb on January 24, 2002. Lebanese […]
Marwan Barghouti, Fatah-Tanzim, and the Escalation of the Intifada
The twin attacks by Fatah gunmen on a Hadera bat mitzvah celebration last week and on Israeli civilian pedestrians in Jerusalem this week have brought back into focus the military wings of the Fatah organization and the responsibility of its leadership, particularly Yasser Arafat and Marwan Barghouti, for these operations. Ironically
The PLO Weapons Ship from Iran
Vol. 1, No. 15 January 7, 2002 Last week’s seizure by Israeli naval commandos in the Red Sea of the Palestinian ship, Karine-A, with its cargo of over 50 tons of Iranian weapons and explosives, reveals an entirely new network of cooperation in Middle Eastern terrorism. The PLO-Iranian link will require a complete re-examination […]
