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Looking Ahead: Turkey’s Growing Regional Role
Heard on the Street | Dec 9, 2008
National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” November 2008:

“Turkey’s recent economic track record of increased growth, the vitality of Turkey’s emerging middle class and its geostrategic locale raise the prospect of a growing regional role in the Middle East. Economic weaknesses such as its heavy dependence on external energy sources may help to spur it toward a greater international role as Turkish authorities seek to develop their ties with energy suppliers—including close neighbors Russia and Iran—and

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The Neglected Alliance
Analysis | Dec 9, 2008
Straddling Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean, Turkey’s central position makes it a crucial actor in each of these regions. Whether working with our European allies through NATO in Afghanistan and the Balkans, hosting peace talks between Israel and Syria, or serving as the critical transit point for oil and natural gas flowing from Central Asia to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, Turkey is a pivotal power whose future will directly impact the United States. … This

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Convergent Interests, Essential Partnership
Setting the Record Straight | Dec 9, 2008
"In a Middle East valedictory speech today, summing up the nearly eight years of his two administrations, George W. Bush declared that 'the Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful, and more promising place than it was in 2001.' I disagree. Count some of the important ways things are now worse ... Turkey has gone from being a stalwart ally to the most anti- American country in the world."
—Daniel Pipes, blog, "Is the Middle East 'Freer, More Hopeful, and More Promising'?" December 5, 2008
"Ankara's foreign policy objectives ... remain largely convergent with our own. The Turks know our actions can have enormous impact on their interests and therefore want neither to get on the wrong side of Washington nor to be surprised by us ... [T]he essential convergence of U.S. and Turkish interests in the region provides ample scope for fruitful, genuinely strategic cooperation that will inevitably be more than in the past a partnership of equals. Our interest lies in embracing that partnership."
—Mark R. Parris, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey (1997-2001), "Memorandum to the President-Elect Re: Turkey," Private View, Autumn 2008

Fringe Settlers Responsible for Increasing Violence
Analysis | Dec 4, 2008
The vast majority of the approximately 300,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements are law-abiding citizens. An extremist fringe element within the settler movement, however, has been responsible for a substantial increase in violent incidents. … This violence appears to be part of a deliberate campaign … to prevent the dismantlement of settlements and outposts. They are using a strategy called the “price tag,” which is a retaliation for government efforts challenging the settlement enterprise in the West Bank. …

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A Piece of The Peace
Analysis | Dec 4, 2008
[S]ettlement construction has surged nearly twice as fast this year as it did last year. … Even as Bush administration officials have demanded a settlement freeze—furiously trying to cobble together a peace deal by the end of the year—Yitzhar settlers have erected 10 new caravans in a dusty lot on the hilltop’s fringe. …

The uncomfortable truth is that those peace talks are probably fueling the building boom. Violence may be spiking, but it’s still far quieter than during the

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Settlers Who Long to Leave the West Bank
Analysis | Dec 4, 2008
Surrounded by hostility, living on land most of the world wants turned over to Palestinians for a state, they meet quietly in Jewish settlements like this one, plotting the future. But these besieged West Bank settlers, widely viewed as an obstacle to peace, want only one surprising thing: to get out.

While the vast majority of settlers vow never to abandon the heart of the historic Jewish homeland—these ancient and starkly beautiful hills whose biblical names are Judea and Samaria—thousands of

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Settlers Attack Palestinian Property in Bid to Avenge Hebron Eviction
News | Dec 4, 2008
Settler youths vandalized Palestinian property in Hebron on Thursday in a bid to avenge Israel’s evacuation of a disputed house in the West Bank city. …

The Israel Defense Forces declared the whole of Hebron a closed military zone later in the day in an effort to prevent the entry of other settlers into the area.

Internal Report: IDF Must Take Strong Stance on Settler Violence
News | Dec 4, 2008
A good part of recent settler violence resulted from the fact that extremists among the settlers saw an “opportunity” and were not met with a determined enough response by the army, according to a report by the Israel Defense Forces’ organizational consultant.

In a report prepared last year by Major Yotam Amitay for GOC Central Command Gadi Shamni when he took up his post, Amitay warned against giving in to settler leadership.

IDF Opposes Plan for NATO in West Bank
News | Dec 4, 2008
A day after President-elect Barack Obama chose retired general James Jones as his national security adviser, Israeli defense officials said Tuesday that they were opposed to the deployment of a NATO force in the West Bank following an Israeli withdrawal, a plan Jones supports. …

During his meetings with Israelis, Jones has proposed that a NATO-based international force deploy in the West Bank in the interim period between an Israeli withdrawal and the Palestinian forces becoming able to curb terror

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