With the revival of Middle East peace talks following the Annapolis meeting, agreement over security issues between Israelis and Palestinians will be crucial to building a negotiating momentum. In particular, the development and expansion of Palestinian government security forces is a vital national interest for Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans alike. Palestinians face a double threat …

A global killer is ripping through the world’s poorer countries largely unchecked. Within 25 years, it will cause 10 million deaths a year worldwide – more than malaria, maternal deaths, childhood infections, and diarrhea combined. Over half of the dead will be aged 30 to 69, losing about 25 years of life expectancy. The culprit? …

O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, though it may be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts of your hearts, lest ye swerve, and if ye distort justice or …

On the 10th of this month, France received Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi in a step representing the pinnacle of President Sarkozy’s “realpolitik, which was preceded by his famous visit to Libya when he settled the Bulgarian nurses’ crisis. Although it’s widely known that Qaddafi’s visit was harshly criticized by the major political forces on both …

The recent comprehensive assessment by America’s spy agencies about Iran’s nuclear program and ambitions – the so-called “National Intelligence Estimate – has opened the door to fresh strategic discussions among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany. Such a strategic reconsideration is probably most necessary for those in the Bush …

If you ask anyone in any city in the world how long is the journey to the airport or any other destination, they’d say that on Sundays it would take a third or a quarter of the time it usually does, depending on the city. But in Egypt, the length of any trip is not …

The triumphant Dec. 10 reunion of Led Zeppelin, among the most anticipated in rock history, more than lived up to the surrounding hype. And for good reason. In the 1970s, the British band was mesmerizing. But beyond unforgettable songs and legendary live shows, Led Zeppelin broadcasted a powerful message to fans that tuned in to …

In October 2007, we were part of a Muslim American delegation of peace and conflict resolution experts who went on a one-week trip to Iran to discuss ways in which various Iranian groups approach conflict prevention, resolution and dialogue. Our delegation met with peace-practitioners, lawyers, human rights experts, NGOs, scholars, religious leaders and students. There …

This month’s international meeting in Bali will set a framework that will attempt to prevent the impending disaster of global warming/climate change. There is now little doubt that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are leading to significant changes in climate. Nor is there doubt that these changes will impose huge costs. The question is …

Televised historical dramas are often successful, yet critics are almost always astounded by their success. The public discussions around last Ramadan’s King Farouk television series are still alive. In the past decade, two movies about former Presidents Nasser and Sadat, and a television series about the legendary Um Kulthoum sparked very similar reactions. Typically some …

As an Australian citizen, I voted in the recent federal election there. So did about 95 percent of registered Australian voters. That figure contrasts markedly with elections in the United States, where the turnout in the 2004 presidential election barely exceeded 60 percent. In Congressional elections that fall in the middle of a president’s term, …

As Palestinian and Israeli leaders were meeting at the Annapolis Naval Base last week for yet another attempt at peacemaking, I remembered how my journalistic career led me to cover the Madrid peace conference in 1991. I vividly remember how then-US Secretary of State James Baker had kept everyone in the dark about the location …

Discussions about university independence have recently gained new momentum. The agenda of the 1986 general conference for Egyptian university faculty members stressed the issues of university independence and freedom of opinion and expression for both faculty and students. In that same year, judges also invoked basic demands for judicial independence. Two decades later, talk of …

December 10 was the anniversary of the International Declaration of Human Rights. But while the whole world kicked off celebrations marking 60 years since the declaration was made in 1948, Egypt has begun its own ingenious festivities before everyone else, making the event unforgettable for both Egyptians and the rest of the world. For the …

One of the most significant outcomes of Colonel Qaddafi’s recent visit to Paris is that it revealed the double standard practiced in French politics, a quality that is ingrained in all its consecutive governments. I must admit that I’m a great admirer of the French school which believes that politics is never unilateral; it always …

As a Muslim who loves Islam, I certainly feel sad knowing that my religion is misunderstood, feared and even hated by many in the West. I feel the frustration of a child who sees his or her parent falsely charged as an adulterer or a thief. While he or she knows the labels are not …

The United States needs to rediscover how to be a “smart power. That was the conclusion of a bipartisan commission that I recently co-chaired with Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration. The Smart Power Commission, convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, comprised Republican and …

Justice is the glue that holds society together. Without an agreed system of law, people have no recourse when they have been wronged but revenge, blood-feuding, and conflict. But here is an irony: The price of conjuring peace out of conflict is that justice is not done; most crimes go unpunished. As participants in the …

President Musharraf finally took off his uniform last week, handing over command of the armed forces to General Ashfaq Kiyani – a well-respected general in Western circles. The following day, he took the Presidential oath as a civilian president for the next five years. Though the emergency rule he imposed on 3 November remains intact, …

Since time immemorial, people have worried about the earth’s future. We once believed that the sky would fall. More recently we worried that the planet might freeze, and then that technology would grind to a halt because of a computer bug that was supposed to be unleashed at the turn of the millennium. Those fears …

The case of a teddy bear in a Khartoum classroom has become headline news across the world. The events seem ridiculous to most, politically motivated to some and worthy of outrage to only a small minority. But the facts of this debacle are less important than the emotions and reactions that the whole sorry event …

In October, the Spanish parliament passed a Law on Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored. There are plausible reasons for enacting such a law. Many people killed by the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War lie unremembered …

Out in the ravaged fields, days after Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh, the devastation was everywhere. Flattened houses, crops, trees, dead livestock and, sadly, also people. Yet even more evident was the resilient Bangladeshi spirit. Traders had already started selling rice with little or no increase in price; villagers were salvaging what they could and rebuilding …

The appearance of the first former Khmer Rouge leader in a special hybrid court established in Cambodia to bring that movement’s surviving leaders to justice provoked a question on which the tribunal’s integrity will depend: should an accused mass murderer be released from prison pending his trial? Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as “Duch, presided …

Would anyone have imagined that the employees of Egypt’s over 5000-year-old bureaucracy would ever rise up in revolt? Would anyone have imagined that civil servants would unleash themselves from the government’s grip, flouting the constant threats and terror tactics practiced by government officials intent on crushing their will, to achieve their demands? For over a …

The ink on the joint Israeli-Palestinian understanding is dry, the delegates have gone home, and the streets of Annapolis are no longer crowded with diplomatic security details. After Annapolis, everyone is asking: what next? Even before the sessions began, pundits on the left and right flashed their skepticism in editorials and commentary. Extremists on the …

Discussions of a democratic deficit in the Middle East are not new. What is novel is the persistent claim that Islam hinders democratic reform; with its emphasis on God s sovereignty and its patriarchal cultures, Islam is argued to be essentially incompatible with democracy. Even though many Muslims argue that God has granted sovereignty to …

Last week, former deputy minister for economic affairs in the Palestinian Authority, Saeb Bamya was delayed at the Qalandiyah checkpoint on his way from Ramallah to the Defense Ministry s offices in Tel Aviv. He and Prof. Arie Arnon entered the office of Major General (res.) Amos Gilad, where they presented Gilad with a thick …

It is finally happening. After 13 years of negotiations, delays, and hesitation, the UN General Assembly will vote this month on the proposal for a universal moratorium on the death penalty. A large majority of the UN adopted the proposal on Nov. 15, despite attempts by some member states to obstruct, amend, or bury it. …

The Annapolis conference was primarily an instance of political theater rather than a significant international diplomatic event. And while the performance was not particularly good and the two key actors, the Israeli prime minister and the president of the Palestinian Authority, not at their best, the show – at least from the standpoint of the …