Category: The Arab-Israeli Conflict

In this republished article by journalists William Booth and Hazem Balousha, educated and unemployed Palestinians in their 20s discuss lives bereft of opportunity and hope. Nearly 60 percent of young Gazans are unemployed and most would leave if it were possible. With few stable job prospects and no escape, many have resorted to occasional odd […]

The following is an edited transcript of remarks by Henry Siegman to the Middle East Policy Council’s 72nd conference on Capitol Hill about expanding the debate on U.S. policy towards Israel and Palestine.  Mr. Siegman is the president of the U.S. Middle East Project. I am a Zionist. I am not only not opposed to a Jewish [...]

The Middle East Research and Information Project provides a detailed chronicle of the unrest between the Arabs and the Israelis, tracing this conflict over land and recognition to its origins in the late nineteenth century. This primer looks at the core developments and issues that have led to the current impasse, equipping the reader with context and [...]

In a New York Times article, “Palestinian Pleasures”, James Estrin looks at how one woman is trying to change the image of Palestinians. He writes: Since the mid-1980s, the visual narrative of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has been predictable: photographs of stone-throwing teenagers confronting Israeli soldiers, refugee camps, mothers mourning children killed [...]

William Quandt, former member of the National Security Council, speaks about the on U.S. Foreign Policy on the Arab-Israeli Issue The following is an edited transcript of remarks by William Quandt to the Middle East Policy Council’s 71st conference on Capitol Hill about U.S. policy towards Israel and Palestine.  Dr. Quandt is a professor at [...]

In Israeli Choir, Arab and Jewish Women Put Aside Politics to Sing with One Voice Published online at Israeli media outlet, Haaretz, this moving story of an all-female choir in Jaffa known as Rana (“song” in Arabic). This rare example of a successful coexistence project, sings in Arabic, English and Hebrew, as well as in […]

From Haaretz.com comes a story on Haifa’s hottest new preservation project which focuses on near-forgotten Levantine Arab culinary traditions. Haaretz.com, is the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, and offers analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, […]

Graphic artist Joe Sacco conveys the everyday experiences of Palestinians in Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza Joe Sacco, a cartoonist, “grew up thinking of Palestinians as terrorists” (Khalifa). He eventually did his own research to fill in the gaps and decided he wanted to share his new awareness with others through his art. Sacco launched [...]

The Middle East Policy Council has tackled numerous subjects from defense cooperation and foreign policy in the Middle East to humanitarian crises and hot topic issues like the Iranian nuclear negotiations at its quarterly Capitol Hill Briefings series and in the Middle East Policy Journal. One frequently addressed interest is the Arab-Israeli conflict, which continues to fester without much prospect of a resolution, though not for lack of trying. Here are some transcripts of talks given at MEPC Capitol Hill forums on the Arab-Israeli conflict to show how the climate and conversation differs among specialists and continues to evolve over time.

A soccer team in Chile's top league ignited controversy in January, 2014, with its uniforms depicting the entire map of Israel as Palestine. Palestinian issues are not unfamiliar in Chile; the country has an estimated 300,000 Palestinian refugees, possibly the largest number of refugees outside of the Middle East. Despite protests and pushback from Chile’s Jewish community, Deportivo [...]