Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have reportedly reached a deal to end their four year dispute according to Egyptian and Palestinian officials.  Meetings between the officials of the two groups took place n Cairo under Egyptian auspices.  The tentative plan calls for the formation of a single caretaker government with presidential and parliamentary elections to follow in a year's time.  Key questions over the control of rival security forces ...

Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Jean Marie Guéhenno asserts that the 'Arab revolutions are beginning to destroy the cliché of an Arab world incapable of democratic transformation."  In place of this narrative, she states, a new one is building and that the source of the revolutions stems from a thirst for Western style freedoms "mobilized by Facebook and Twitter."  She refutes these claims and states that the revolutions are "about ...

Young, educated, and tech-savvy activists in Gaza are helping organize the self-named March 15 movement seeking to promote Palestinian national reconciliation between the rival Hamas-Fatah. On March 15th, youth activists protesting in Gaza City clashed violently with Hamas police who attacked protesters on motorbikes.  One of the activists, Asma al-Ghoul, a local feminist and journalist in Gaza City, says that the "fear inside the people"  is dissipating.  As the movement ...

David Schenker, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former U.S. Defense Department official, argues that U.S. policy of maintaining stability in Damascus is not the country's vested interest.  Schenker says the Bush administration routinely sidelined any policy aimed at regime change or destabilization fearing that the possible alternatives to Assad were worse despite the regime's active anti-U.S. policies, particularly regarding Iraqi insurgents. While the Pentagon never advocated ...

Bilal Y. Saab, writing for The National Interest, argues that a collapse of the regime would have ripple effects across the Middle East and the country's network of external relations could collapse.  He outlines two ways in which a post-Assad Syria could develop.  On the positive side, Syrian intervention in Lebanese politics could essentially be eliminated along with its support for Hezbollah.  This would significantly weaken Hezbollah he argues.  The ...

Writing at The American Conservative blog, Patrick Buchanan argues that "in the Middle East, democracy is not necessarily America's ally." Buchanan criticizes the Bush Administration for its zealous calls for democracy in the region and points to the gains of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and most recently Muqtada al-Sadr's party in Iraq as evidence that "when elections are held or monarchs and autocrats overthrown, the masses will turn to leaders who will ...

Hamas and Fatah representatives met for a second round of reconciliation talks in Damascus yesterday, focusing on issues regarding control of the Palestinian security and governance apparatus. A Fatah authority said: “We realize that reconciliation is a national Palestinian interest.” Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. will give the Palestinian Authority an additional $150 million in aid. The increased funding is an apparent effort to boost the ...

The Christian Science Monitor reports today on a “protracted disagreement” between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority over who will pay Gaza’s electricity bills. The standoff means that “for Gaza residents, deep Palestinian divide…not only prevents peace, but literally leaves them in the dark.” Although the European Union used to buy fuel for Gaza from an Israeli supplier, the Palestinians have been paying the bills since December 2009. Now, both ...

The National Council on US-Arab Relations held its 19th annual Arab-US Policymakers Conference on Thursday. Opening remarks were made by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President and CEO of the National Council on US-Arab Relations and Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen, chairman of the Board of Directors at the National Council on US-Arab Relations. The first talk on the agenda was entitled “Arab-US Relations: Misadventures Past and Present,” and was given ...

Matt Duss, writing at Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel, asks if a "focus on security at the expense of democracy does generate bad consequences why are we doing it again in Palestine?" As Duss explains, the West's confidence in Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has become pervasive and possibly dangerous. Fayyad assumed power under a "state of emergency" that Duss says "resembles Egypt's," which brings the Palestinian Authority's (PA) ...

The New America Foundation (NAF) held an event today marking the release of Hooman Majd’s new book, “The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge.” Majd was introduced by Steve Clemons, Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at NAF.  (To read full notes, continue below the fold or go here for pdf) Clemons began his introduction by comparing Hooman Majd to either a rockstar or a CIA agent. This description would ...

There have only been 80 political protests in Egypt this year and only a "handful" of those have been in support of Mohammed ElBaradei's National Association for Change, writes Noha El-Hennawy  in Al-Masry Al-Youm. She compares the current dearth of protest with the outpouring of action seen in 2005. "Then the opposition was not restricted to a bunch of intellectuals. It spread to professional groups that seized the ...

An event was held today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace celebrating the release of the book "Between Religion and Politics", coauthored by Amr Hamzawy and Nathan Brown. Marwan Muasher acted as the moderator for the event, where the authors explained the process they utilized in the researching of the book and explored, in depth, the case studies of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. (To read full notes, ...

On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the United States Institute of Peace co-hosted a panel discussion titled “Towards a Palestinian State: Is Institution Building Succeeding?” The discussion was moderated by Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, a Program Officer in USIP’s Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution. The panelists were Nathan Brown, a Nonresident Senior Associate of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment, Neil Kritz, the Senior Scholar in ...

According to Deutsche Press-Agentur, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stated today that reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas will be the best response to the end of Israel’s moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank. In his view, internal Palestinian reconciliation will give negotiators the necessary clout in peace talks with Israel. He called on Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to pursue that reconciliation, and also to make good on his threat ...

"Relying on 'Fayyadism'...alone will likely lead to failure and disappointment. Technocratic management can probably keep Palestinian institutions afloat and even improve their functioning in some limited ways. But it does not even pretend to offer a solution for the deeper problems afflicting Palestinian politics—division, repression, occupation, alienation, and wide-reaching institutional decay." This was the conclusion of a paper by Nathan J. Brown two months ago. In ...

In an interview with Middle East Progress, Dr. Robert Dannin addresses the progress that has been made in the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority and the prospects for peace with the Israelis. Having recently returned from a post with the Office of the Quartet Representative, Dannin says, "I’m left with a real sense that a majority of the people wants peace and yet they are almost without hope. ...

With negotiations set to begin today in Washington between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, members of the Palestinian community are calling on their leaders to resolve internal disputes. In an interview with Reuters, influential Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti emphasized the need for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the importance of this reconciliation to the peace process: "The problem is not in the principle of negotiations, which we accept, but ...

A new piece in The Economist offers an assessment of Palestinian democracy, arguing that "instead of building a democratic state, the PA is fast on its way to creating just another Arab autocracy." The article says that while many observers criticize Salam Fayyad's promise of institution-building, most Western governments "prefer division and no elections to reconciliation and elections,” as they are wary of Islamist rule under Hamas. According to the ...

Jonathan Schanzer and Asaf Romirowsky writing for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) question the future of democracy in Palestine. Noting that the Palestinian Authority (PA) decided last month to indefinitely postpone West Bank municipal elections that were scheduled for this Saturday, July 17, Schanzer and Romirowsky observe that ruling party Fatah's motivation for the cancellation was that leaders could not agree on the candidates they wanted to field, ...