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141. The Jerusalem Powder Keg

Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
While the world focuses on Gaza, the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations in fact may be playing itself out away from the spotlight, in Jerusalem. With recent steps, Israel is attempting to solidify its hold over a wide area in and around the city, creating a far broader Jerusalem. If the international community and specifically the U.S. are serious about preserving and promoting a viable two-state solution, they need to speak far more clearly and insistently to halt actions that directly and immediately jeopardise that goal. And if that solution is ever to be reached, they will need to be clear that changes that have occurred since Israelis and Palestinians last sat down to negotiate in 2000-2001 will have to be reversed.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and International Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Jerusalem, and Gaza

142. Disengagement and Its Discontents: What Will the Israeli Settlers Do?

Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Scheduled for 15 August 2005, Israel's disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank has already begun. How Israel for the first time evacuates settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories will have profound implications for Israeli-Palestinian relations, but also for Israeli society. Regardless of one's assessment of the settlers and their enterprise -- regarded internationally as illegal, by many Israelis as irresponsible and by others as the embodiment of the Zionist project -- it is bound to be a traumatic event for Israel. If it should be mishandled, accompanied by violent settler resistance or Palestinian attacks, the prospects for subsequent peace would be much bleaker. The international community's interest is to press for complete disengagement and then a credible follow-on political process.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

143. Japan and North Korea: Bones of Contention

Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Relations between Japan and North Korea continue to deteriorate due to concerns over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and past abductions of Japanese citizens. Nearly a decade and a half of efforts at normalising relations between the countries have faltered due to Pyongyang's unwillingness to give up that program or come clean over the abductions. For Japan, normalisation would help preserve regional stability and represent one more step toward closure on its wartime history; for North Korea, it would potentially produce the single greatest economic infusion for reviving its moribund economy. Indeed, the prospect of normalisation with Japan is one of the leading incentives that can be offered to North Korea in a deal to end the North's nuclear programs.
Topic:
International Relations, Nuclear Weapons, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Japan, Israel, and North Korea

144. Building a democratic Palestine: an Australian contribution to legal and institutional development in the Palestinian territories

Author:
Anthony Bubalo
Publication Date:
05-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The current fragile ceasefire between Palestinian militants and Israel has raised hopes of an end to four years of violence. To sustain that ceasefire both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must meet their respective commitments under the "Road Map for Middle bast Peace". For the PA this means preventing terrorist attacks against Israel and undertaking political, legal and security reforms. These reforms are also critical to meeting the Palestinian public's own demands for an end to lawlessness and corruption. Given Australia's expertise in legal and institutional development, the Australian government's commitment to promoting democracy and peace in the Middle bast and its sound relationship with both the PA and the government of Israel, Australia should lend what support it can to the Palestinian effort to establish strong foundations for a stable, prosperous and democratic Palestinian state.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Development
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Australia

145. Japan Moves toward Sustainable Recovery

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Japan's stock market, one of the world's strongest this year, is up about 20 percent since spring. It is doing remarkably well for a country whose nominal GDP is still below its 1997 level. By contrast, the U.S. stock market has been drifting lower all year. The S 500 Index is down about 4 percent in the last five months, even more when the highflying energy sector is excluded. This is the case despite U.S. nominal GDP having grown by a cumulative 46 percent since 1997. Clearly, stock markets are looking ahead and seeing a brighter future for Japan than for the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Israel, and East Asia

146. 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

147. 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

148. 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

149. 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

150. 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