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1311. Netanyahu's Victory: Major Challenges for the Likud Party

Author:
David Makovsky
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Former Israeli prime minister and recently resigned finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the Likud leadership primary on December 19, beating the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, by a margin of 45 percent to 33 percent. Netanyahu returns to the leadership of Likud, which he vacated after his loss in the 1999 election. Netanyahu's victory comes a day after Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered what his doctors called a mild stroke; he was released from the hospital within forty-eight hours. At seventy-seven, Sharon already shares the record for the oldest Israeli prime minister; David Ben-Gurion was seventy-seven when he resigned in 1963. Sharon turns seventy-eight in February.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

1312. Campaign Season Begins in Israel (Part I): Ariel Sharon Bolts from Likud

Author:
David Makovsky
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On Monday, November 21, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon announced that he is bolting the Likud Party and forming a new National Responsibility Party. The Knesset took a preliminary vote to dissolve itself. While wrangling may continue, a final date will soon be set for elections in March 2006. Sharon remains prime minister during the interregnum.
Topic:
Development, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

1313. Israel's Search for Peace and Security: The Challenges Ahead

Author:
Moshe Yaalon
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Ten years ago today, the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated. This was one of the darkest days in the history of the State of Israel, the Israeli democracy, and the Jewish people. Prime Minister Rabin, who had also previously served as the IDF's chief of the General Staff, was born in Jerusalem in1922—perhaps symbolically, during the days of the first significant Arab murderous attacks against there established Israeli settlements in the land of Israel. In January 1964, Yitzhak Rabin was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, becoming the seventh IDF chief of the General Staff. After war broke out in 1967, General Rabin led the IDF to the decisive victory in the Six Day War and, on December 31, 1967, stepped down from his command with Israel enjoying, for the first time since its establishment, defensible borders.
Topic:
Security, Government, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

1314. Abbas's Missed Opportunities in Washington

Author:
David Makovsky
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas returned to Ramallah from Washington last week having missed a key opportunity to spur President George W. Bush to reengage in the Roadmap. Instead, the October 20 joint press conference at the White House concluded with Bush acknowledging that his presidency may not witness the creation of a Palestinian state by 2008. His administration, Bush said, might merely “lay that foundation so that the process becomes irreversible.” The same administration that two years ago endorsed the Quartet's Roadmap to Israeli-Palestinian peace based upon a detailed schedule of commitments now expresses hesitancy on committing to any “timetable” for the creation of a Palestinian state. Bush administration policy has always had a performance-based rather than a time-based approach, but now it is not putting down any time markers.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

1315. Hamas's Tactics: Lessons from Recent Attacks

Author:
Jamie Chosak and Julie Sawyer
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On September 22, 2005, Abbas al-Sayyid was convicted of masterminding two Hamas suicide bombings: the March 27, 2002, attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya and the May 18, 2001, shopping mall bombing that killed five and injured one hundred. The Park Hotel bombing, considered the terror group's most devastating attack since the outbreak of the second intifada, had implications extending far beyond the murder of thirty innocent civilians. The attack prompted Israel to launch Operation Defensive Shield, the reoccupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Additionally, the bombing highlighted Hamas's program of radicalization and recruitment in Palestinian universities and the group's experimentation with chemical and biological agents.
Topic:
Religion, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

1316. A Hamas Headquarters in Saudi Arabia?

Author:
Matthew Levitt
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Israeli authorities on September 27 announced the arrest of an Israeli-Arab Hamas activist who played central militant, political, and financing roles for the group in coordination with what Israeli authorities described as a “Hamas command in Saudi Arabia.” The arrest is just the latest evidence that support for Hamas in particular and Islamic extremism in general continues to emanate from within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Topic:
Religion and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Arab Countries, and Saudi Arabia

1317. A New Reality on the Egypt-Gaza Border (Part II): Analysis of the New Israel-Egypt Agreement

Author:
Michael Herzog
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The September 1 Egypt-Israel agreement regarding the deployment of new Egyptian forces along the Egyptian border with Gaza (the Agreed Arrangements) represents a shared Israeli-Egyptian interest in preventing the militarization and radicalization of Gaza following Israeli disengagement. For the first time, Israel is relinquishing its control over part of the external perimeter of the Palestinian areas, handing responsibility to a third party. Success or failure will bear important consequences for both Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Topic:
International Relations, Peace Studies, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa, Israel, Gaza, and Egypt

1318. A New Reality on the Egypt-Gaza Border (Part I): Contents of the New Israel-Egypt Agreement

Author:
Brooke Neuman
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On September 1, 2005, following lengthy negotiations, Egypt and Israel signed the Agreed Arrangements Regarding the Deployment of a Designated Force of Border Guards along the Border in the Rafah Area (the Agreed Arrangements). This agreement was designed to enable Israel to evacuate the Philadelphia corridor, an eight-mile (thirteen-kilometer) military zone along the Gaza-Egypt border, through the deployment of Egyptian border patrol forces to the Egyptian side of the border in order to prevent smuggling into Gaza. In eighty-three clauses, the agreement describes the mission, weaponry, infrastructure, and obligations of the parties.
Topic:
International Relations, Peace Studies, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa, Israel, Gaza, and Egypt

1319. Empowering Mahmoud Abbas after Disengagement

Author:
Mohammed Yaghi
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Empowering Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas and fellow moderates at this critical time may be in the interest of everyone who favors a return to peace negotiations, but Abbas himself faces immense challenges to his authority that make him unlikely to be able to implement significant changes in the four months left before Palestinian legislative elections in January. The weakened position Abbas inherited included limited control over security forces, paralyzing rivalries within the Fatah movement that limit any support for difficult decisions, and an increasingly assertive Hamas that constantly flaunts its ability to act independently. None of these sources of Abbas's weakness is likely to change significantly in the coming months. And, despite Abbas's intentions to establish law and order and begin economic revitalization in Gaza as articulated in a speech delivered on September 13, the chaos exhibited along the border at Rafah and in the old Israeli settlements immediately after the Israeli withdrawal demonstrates just how difficult his task will be.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

1320. A Wind in Hamas's Sails: Palestinian Militants Gather Post-Disengagement Momentum

Author:
Michael Herzog
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On September 12, the last departing Israeli forces closed the gates of Gaza behind them, followed by a salvo of Palestinian rockets aimed at southern Israel. In the unsettled aftermath of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank, only one camp seems clearly to know where it is heading -- the militant Palestinian Islamist groups, led by Hamas. These groups now profess their intention to continue their violent campaign in and from the West Bank. Their strategy, using armed and political capabilities, poses a serious challenge to both Palestinian and Israeli leaderships and may undermine prospects of improved Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza