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The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist, a 1974 novel by Emile Habiby, tackles the Israel-Palestine conflict with nuance, poignancy, and hilarity all at once. Through the story of a gullible Palestinian everyman who becomes an informant for the Zionist state, Habiby critiques the cruelty of the Israeli occupation and the failures of the Arab […]

Bethlehem is enjoying its busiest Christmas season on record, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism said on Monday, with hotels in the birthplace of Jesus almost fully booked for the holiday. Tourism has recovered following a fall in knife and car-ramming attacks which helped push visitor numbers in the biblical city to a 10-year low in […]

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 [...]
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 [...]

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.