MIDDLE EAST
AP Photo/Eyad Baba)
August 24, 2009
"Talk to Hamas"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Is it important for Israel and the United States to sit down with Hamas and talk business? Yes, it is, according to Rami Khouri, for the same reasons the US is trying to extract itself from its self-inflicted mess in Afghanistan by negotiating with Taliban elements, and from Iraq by partnering with and paying off Sunni insurgents who had spent several years killing Americans.
AP Photo
August 19, 2009
"The Grand Bargain that is the Mideast’s Best Hope"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Shai Feldman, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Gilead Sher
The Obama administration should persuade the Arab states formally to reaffirm and revive the API. Given their domestic fragmentation, the Palestinians are limited in what they can provide Israel in exchange for the concessions it is being asked to make. By contrast, the promise of peace with the Arab world is a more enticing context, justifying Israeli down payments such as in settlement construction.
AP Photo
August 19, 2009
"Riding an Old Path to Nowhere"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Hosni Mubarak has sat in the White House for almost three decades stating that progress is being made towards a negotiated peace, and every time we sit through this spectacle it becomes less convincing, even just a little bit more childish.
AP Photo
August 17, 2009
"Human Rights Watch Gets It"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Equal treatment is the key to a breakthrough in Arab-Israeli peace-making, whether in assessing conduct in war or crafting a permanent peace agreement that acknowledges the historical traumas of both sides.
AP Photo
August 10, 2009
"A Pro-Israel Panic"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Key elements in the pro-Israel lobby in the United States are attacking the internationally respected former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson -- who President Obama will give the Presidential Medal of Honor award for her humanitarian work. That is a pretty strong sign of panic in reaction to the Obama administration.
AP Photo
August 9, 2009
"Reclaiming Islam"
Op-Ed, Sunday Herald
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"In Britain, the radicalisation process has been exacerbated by a gaping lack of mainstream Islamic education for the young, and a dearth of advice on how to apply the rules in a business context. When Islamic companies have needed advice in accordance with mainstream interpretations of Islamic law, there has been no organisation qualified to provide it. This gap has often been filled by scholars who interpret Islamic law in ways that are not appropriate to modern life. In some areas it has been filled by extremist preachers, unqualified in Islamic law and theology, normally from outside Europe, who have replaced traditional pietistic, apolitical Islam with an ignorant, pamphlet-based Islam which emphasises politics. So the best answer to the question of what we can do to break the link between foreign policy and radicalisation is simply to educate our young people in genuine, authentic Islamic teachings. Then, if they encounter radical narratives, dubious theology or ignorant preaching, they will be able to see these for the perversions of the religion that they really are. The fact that the vast majority of extremists have not undergone this process reinforces the point."
August 5, 2009
"Zionist Colonialism, Palestinian 'Trauma'"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
If Israelis really want to coexist with the Arabs, they will have to summon the courage and honesty to admit how Zionism dismembered Arab Palestine in 1947-48, and Jews everywhere must finally break the ugly bond between Zionism and colonialism.
August 3, 2009
"Revitalizing Palestinian Unity"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
The challenge facing the Palestinian people today -- the total revalidation and revitalization of their national political structures and leadership -- is at least five-fold.
AP Photo
July 30, 2009
"Statement of Nicholas Burns Before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs"
Testimony
By R. Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics
R. Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, testified on Iran before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on July 30, 2009.
AP Photo
July 29, 2009
"Obama's Jaha to Israel"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
The Obama jaha of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, National Security Adviser James Jones and White House senior adviser Dennis Ross aims simultaneously to impress, comfort, pressure and woo the Israeli government to accept the terms of engagement in the Arab-Israeli peace-making process that the United States has unilaterally put on the table.
