The need to redefine our relationship with Pakistan – a nuclear-armed, frontline state in the war on terror – has never been greater. Now there is considerable opportunity to do so. US Senate Democrats issued a letter to President George W. Bush this month urging him to embark on a new relationship with Pakistan based …

Peace is not easy. Achieving it requires summoning the deepest forms of courage. It means examining one’s darkest prejudices that dehumanize and demonize the other. The quest for mutual recognition of humanity and dignity is an arduous task. The question facing both Israelis and Palestinians is: Do they prefer to cling to the pain of …

On Feb. 12, 2008, Arab League information ministers issued a communiqué outlining tough guidelines for Arab satellite channels. The new guidelines specifically prohibited the broadcasting of negative reporting of heads of state, religious or national figures. In following days, a massive campaign of denunciation ensued, led by those who felt targeted by the new policy, …

Beppo Grillo is one of Italy’s most famous comics. He is also one of Italy’s most influential political commentators. His blog attracts 160,000 hits daily, and if he could run for prime minister (he can’t, because of a criminal record), more than half of Italy’s voters, according to a poll last year, would have considered …

Ten years ago, on Israel’s 50th anniversary, the peace process begun by the path-breaking Oslo accord, reached by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1993, established the legitimacy of two peoples’ national existence in their shared homeland on the basis of territorial compromise. There was a general feeling that this long conflict was being resolved. …

Failed states in the world today are two kinds: vulnerable countries and the most failed states, as per the mainstream classification of countries in accordance with their level of performance and ability to achieve their tasks. One of the most important of these tasks is drafting general appropriate policies, law enforcement, protecting the poor, ensuring …

Burma, once the richest country in Southeast Asia, today is mired in deep poverty. Its economy ruined by nearly 50 years of economic mismanagement under military rule, the only international rankings that it tops are those for most corrupt nation, world’s worst health system, and lowest spending on education – “accolades that are sadly indicative …

Back in 1981, America’s Republican Party gave up all belief that the government’s budget ought to be balanced. The idea took hold that tax cuts should be undertaken all the time, at every opportunity, because reducing taxes supposedly raised revenue. Irving Kristol, sometime editor of the magazine The Public Interest and one of the intellectual …

The situation in Lebanon is very sophisticated. During the 17-month internal dispute both the loyalists and opponents have made mistakes, and taken provocative action. Although the discussion of these shortcomings is beyond the scope of the article, nobody can agree with what Hezbollah has done. What happened in Gaza last year and in Beirut today …

It seems that a studies and research center does not necessarily entail undertaking any research. It’s enough for those in charge to pass judgment without documented proof. Once the falseness of their claims are revealed, the said center would have at least created controversy around the issue at stake; hence the ages old adage: “Throw …

Peace requires forgiveness. Jimmy Carter’s meeting in Damascus last week with the leadership of Hamas has aroused strong emotions. If compromise of principles disqualifies parties from peace making, the Middle East is doomed forever. The Damascus visit involves five main parties: Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, the United States, and former President Carter. There is …

When Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz became in 1988 the first (and so far only) Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was hoped that this would lead to a major breakthrough for Arab literature in the West, including Britain. But for years such a breakthrough remained elusive. True, a few Arab authors …

A number of serious voices are saying it is time for a new approach on Iran. Senator Diane Feinstein and former high-level US government officials have called for the United States to enter into negotiations with Iran without preconditions, at the same time proposing ideas to surmount the current impasse over Iran s nuclear program. …

Chinese President Hu Jintao is making a high-profile visit to Japan from May 6-10, making him the second Chinese head of state ever to travel there. The trip is being carefully managed by both countries, and is being watched closely around the world, with good reason: Sino-Japanese relations over the past decade have been turbulent, …

The World’s central bankers are a close-knit club, given to fads and fashions. In the early 1980s, they fell under the spell of monetarism, a simplistic economic theory promoted by Milton Friedman. After monetarism was discredited – at great cost to those countries that succumbed to it – the quest began for a new mantra. …

The killing by Israeli undercover troops of four Palestinian militants in Bethlehem, on March 12, raises questions not as much about Israel s right to self-defense but about the context and the circumstances under which this right is exercised. Even the right to self-defense and matters of national security must be balanced against the prevailing …

Thirty-four years ago, Egypt’s most celebrated author, Naguib Mahfouz, published his novella Karnak Café. Set in Egypt during the late 1960s, it tells the story of a group of young, idealistic students who become acutely aware of the gap between the ideals espoused by Nasser’s pan-Arab socialism and the realities of Egyptian daily life. The …

I think it’s an appropriate time to ask: How many Egyptians actually belong to the Muslim Brotherhood? For decades, this question has been a part of the discussion over the size and weight of the Muslim Brotherhood, but no clear answer has ever been reached. As an outlawed organization, the Brotherhood’s leadership understandably declines to …

It is unclear what Jimmy Carter thought his recent meetings in the Middle East with Hamas leaders would actually accomplish. Given his political experience, he could not have believed that his trip to Damascus was likely to succeed in jumpstarting a process that would quickly include Hamas in actual peace negotiations. More probably, he decided …

The best outcome of the May 4 Strike is that it has re-established the relationship between the citizen and the state in Egypt. I think the main advantage of this strike was the rehabilitation of society in its relationship with the regime, having remained outside the political game for half a century. It has become …

What was he thinking? How can Barack Obama’s pastor of 20 years, the fiery Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a man of golden tongue and lofty ideals, shove his own candidate to the back of the bus? This isn’t a stupid man; this is a man who has the audacity to kill hope. He’s John McCain and …

The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air, or land. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, …

I car-pooled in to work with my colleague Sarah El-Sirgany yesterday morning. “Let’s hit the gas station, shall we? she said. We were adamant to find out first hand about the hiked fuel prices. All day Monday the newsroom was abuzz with mostly rumors about whether the new pricing was going to be effective immediately. …

Yehiel and I met Elliott at the appliance repairman’s shed on a side street in South Jerusalem. Elliott Horowitz, a historian at Bar-Ilan University, had already paid for the almost-new washing machine, with cash that friends have pledged to repay. We wrestled the heavy white hunk of metal into the back of Yehiel’s undersized station …

Are banks doomed as a result of the current financial crisis? The securitization of mortgages originally was seen as a triumph, because it shifted risk to financial markets, while taking deposits and making and monitoring loans – the purview of traditional banks – was regarded as narrow and old-fashioned. By contrast, modern banks would seek …

On May 4, 2008, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak celebrated his 80th birthday. In a country such as Egypt – where 45 percent of the population survives on less than $2 per day, people die while waiting in bread lines, and inflation of prices runs even more rampant than in the rest of the world – …

Real change can result from elections in Iran as long as there is a home grown democratic heart beating within the theocratic Republic. But for how long will that be the case? Iran may not be a liberal democracy but it is certainly a far cry from those fake Democratic Republics that littered the world …

President George W. Bush’s Middle East policy undeniably managed to achieve one thing: it has thoroughly destabilized the region. Otherwise, the results are not at all what the United States had hoped to accomplish. A democratic, pro-Western Middle East is not in the cards. But, while things are not developing as American neo-conservatives had intended, …

As Israelis finalize preparations for their momentous sixtieth anniversary – a date marking 10 years of consistent economic growth and industrious expansion – there remains the underlying question that will go unanswered yet another decade: What will be done with the West Bank and Golan Heights? Despite all of its considerable achievements, cross-border violence persists …

I was astonished when my mobile phone bill was double the usual amount this month. When I checked the breakdown carefully, I realized that they had included last month’s amount by mistake, even though I had paid it as I usually do. I immediately called the customer service number. An extremely polite young man answered …