Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The current focus on political reform, among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and within the Bush administration, is a product of the Intifada, the collapse of the peace process, and the impasse between Israel and Palestinian leadership.
Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister, has proposed the "unilateral separation" of Israelis and Palestinians by Israel - in effect, a partition of the West Bank. While superficially attractive, this plan is in fact a counsel of despair, and a sign of the decay of the Israeli Left in the face of Prime minister Ariel Sharon's hardline chauvinism.
Traveling through Afghanistan, one is struck by stark contrasts and divisions. With different factions and militias ruling in different regions, the prospects for a prolonged peace seem dim--or at least would require a serious international effort. But the Bush Administration's attention has already passed to its plans for a war in Iraq, and it seems ready to forget Afghanistan once again.
After the September 11 attacks, the global threat of radical Islamist terrorism gave the United States an opportunity to rally much of the world behind it. But by mixing up the struggle against terrorism with a very different effort at preventing nuclear proliferation, and by refusing to take the interests of other states into account, the US risks endangering itself and its closest allies.
Special meeting with Mark Malloch-Brown, United Nations Development Programme Administrator
The current period of intense violence in the region has resulted in a serious unraveling of the Arab-Israeli peace process and suggest the near impossibility of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. Two defining moments have led to this conclusion: first, the Oslo agreement that raised high hopes for peace and then the failure of Camp David II that shattered them.