In-Depth Coverage

Original Commentaries

08/07/08: How to Deal with Jerusalem —Lt. Col. (Res.) Ron Shatzberg, Project Director, Economic Cooperation Foundation. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.
08/07/08: How to Deal with Jerusalem —
08/05/08: Why Did Maliki Call for a Timeline? —by Christopher Kojm who teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and is a former senior advisor to the Iraq Study Group. Original Commentary for Middle East Bulletin.

Setting the Record Straight

Already Divided

“Even the Arab minority in the city has shown its preference for living under Israeli rule, as many have moved to the Israeli side of the security barrier being built around Jerusalem. Their choice is reasonable, as Jerusalem offers the quality of life of a modern western city while only a few kilometers away the norm is a third world standard of living, chaos and religious intolerance. An undivided Jerusalem is the best guarantee of a better life for all Jerusalemites.”
—Nathan Diament, Director of Public Policy, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, July 23, 2008

“Those who believe that Jerusalem should not be divided, and mean by that that the Arab neighborhoods should not be separated from the city, should be the first to insist that an active policy be adopted by the government and the municipality to improve the lot of local Arab residents. Barring that, Jerusalem will continue to remain a divided city.”
—Moshe Arens, former Israeli defense and foreign minister (Likud), “A Story of Neglect,” Haaretz, July 28, 2008

Middle East Analysis

Israel Releases 199 Palestinian Prisoners —
Significant Lebanese-Syrian Meeting Overshadowed by Bombing —
The Challenge of Jerusalem —Prof. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, head, Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies; professor of international relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.

Middle East Engagement: Driven by Good Strategy Not Ideology

July 11, 2007

“For the time being, Turkey is still a U.S. ally, known to fulfill its international obligations—from NATO participation to Afghanistan, the War on Terror, and Iraq. Yet these immediate issues notwithstanding, the AKP is moving Turkey in a direction where growing anti-Western public opinion increasingly checks Turkey’s commitment to the West.”
--Soner Cagaptay, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 2007

"There are people who try to explain the more active Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East as a result of the "Islamization" of Turkish foreign policy. I argue just the opposite -- that Turkey's more active involvement in the Middle East has nothing to do with Islamization of Turkish foreign policy, that Turkey is not about to leave the West. [A]ny government whether it had Islamic roots, as the AK Party does, or a secular party would have had to pursue ... more or less the same policy and conduct a more active policy towards the Middle East."
--F. Stephen Larrabee, the RAND Corporation, June 26, 2007