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4011. The Broken Promise of the Democratic Peace: Israel and the Palestinian Authority

Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The idea of the democratic peace, although not explicitly named, was an essential element of the Oslo Accords. The term "democratic peace" is generally understood to have two components: the assertion that democracies are inherently peaceful, and that they do not, as a rule, wage war against other democracies. This ideal would have represented the most desirable type of final arrangement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it predicates an environment of shared values, of political, social, and economic stability. The issue of the democratic peace is also one of security, because the presence or absence of its main components may ultimately represent the essence of success or failure, peace or war.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arab Countries, and Oslo

4012. Poison: The Use of Blood Libel in the War Against Israel

Author:
Raphael Israeli
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
On the morning of March 21, 1983, one week before Pesach, in a high school in the town of Arrabeh in the Jenin area of the West Bank, Palestinian girls (between the ages of 15 and 17) were sitting in several classrooms when they suddenly began to faint, one after the other. They were taken to hospital and checked, but no medical reason was found for their fainting. Yet they had fainted, so a search began in order to find the reason.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Arab Countries

4013. Europe's Moral Attitudes Toward the Holocaust in Light of the Current Defamation of Israel

Author:
Manfred Gerstenfeld
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The moral aspects of Western attitudes toward the Jews and the Holocaust since World War II have not yet been analyzed systematically. However, the current campaign of hatred against Israel and the Jewish people — unprecedented since the end of the war — recalls many elements of the prewar decades. Yet it is too easy to generalize and describe this as one more outburst of the ancient illness of anti-Semitism.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and War
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Arab Countries

4014. Whose Fault was the Failure of Camp David?

Author:
Saul Singer
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
It is not often that two articles are enough to shake a powerful pillar of conventional wisdom and trigger an international firestorm. The influence of these articles, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha in the New York Review of Books, and "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why it Failed," by Deborah Sontag in the New York Times, cannot be understood simply in terms of their content. Neither contained any particularly astonishing revelations. Rather, these articles seem to have touched a chord that was just waiting to be struck.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
New York, Middle East, and Arab Countries

4015. The Phalcon Sale to China: The Lessons for Israel

Author:
Jonathan Adelman
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The Israeli decision, under intense American pressure, to cancel the sale of the Phalcon Airborne Early Warning System to China during the Camp David summit in July 2000 threatens to be a major foreign policy debacle for Israel.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Religion
Political Geography:
China, America, Middle East, Israel, and Arab Countries

4016. The Way to Peace Emerged at Madrid: A Decade Since the 1991 Madrid Conference

Author:
Eytan Bentsur
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The October 1991 Madrid Peace Conference represented a breakthrough in relations between the State of Israel and the Arab world. For the first time, Israel engaged in direct, face-to-face negotiations with all its immediate neighbors, and not just with Egypt, with whom Israel had signed a peace treaty in 1979. These talks were between the political leaders of the region, unlike the armistice discussions that Israel undertook in the late 1940s and 1950s. Madrid also launched a multilateral process that brought Israeli diplomats into contact with representatives of Arab states from North Africa and the Persian Gulf.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Arab Countries, North Africa, Egypt, and Persia

4017. Israel's Political Map: After Cancellation of Direct Election of the Prime Minister

Author:
Haim Ramon
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Following the last prime ministerial elections held in Israel in February 2001, the Knesset voted to change the electoral system and restore the former system. Instead of separate ballots for prime minister and for political party, in the next nationwide elections, currently scheduled to take place by the fall of 2003, voters will again be given only one ballot — for political party — and the leader of the party that is able to put together a majority coalition in the Knesset will become prime minister.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Arab Countries

4018. From "Occupied Territories" to "Disputed Territories"

Author:
Dore Gold
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
At the heart of the Palestinian diplomatic struggle against Israel is the repeated assertion that the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are resisting "occupation." Speaking recently on CNN's Larry King Weekend, Hanan Ashrawi hoped that the U.S. war on terrorism would lead to new diplomatic initiatives to address its root "causes." She then went on to specifically identify "the occupation which has gone on too long" as an example of one of terrorism's sources. In other words, according to Ashrawi, the violence of the intifada emanates from the "occupation."
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Palestine, Gaza, and Arab Countries

4019. Armistice in Jerusalem Once Again?

Author:
Raphael Israeli
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Since the 1967 Six-Day War and the reunification of Jerusalem, new Israeli neighborhoods have grown as satellite towns all around the core of the city beyond the old demarcation line. Mount Scopus, now connected to the city by a major network of highways, has been rebuilt into a mammoth fortress-campus which accommodates Hebrew University and the Hadassah Hospital. New roads and highways crisscross the city, linking its new neighborhoods. What was once a formidable array of military positions and fortifications has turned into sprawling housing projects. Free access to the holy places of all faiths has been made available to all. New museums, shopping malls, entertainment centers, and places of worship have sprouted everywhere. Finally, the population more than doubled between 1967 and 1997 from just under 300,000 in both parts of the formerly divided city to more than 600,000 within its current unified municipal boundaries.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, and Jerusalem

4020. First Strike Guidelines: the Case of Iraq

Author:
Charles Knight
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
In the first Clinton administration Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced that the United States would seek the capability to undertake offensive counterproliferation strikes against proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). To this end Les Aspin's 1993 Bottom Up Review calls for "Improvements in the ability of both our general purpose and special operations forces to seize, disable, or destroy arsenals of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their delivery systems."
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East