By Barry Rubin

Have you heard from any of the Western mass media about the Resistance strategy of Middle East radicals? I’m sure you haven’t. Yet without understanding this powerful and widely accepted worldview how could anyone possibly comprehend events in the region?

“Resistance” is the slogan used by Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah especially but also is used by Iran’s regime, other Lebanese supporters of the Iran-Syria bloc, and assorted radicals throughout the region. While the word has echoes for any Western auditor of the French Resistance against the Nazis, this is not the origin of this Middle East usage.

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By Barry Rubin

We now have Mahmoud Abbas’s answer regarding short-term Palestinian Authority (PA) strategy. He says that if Israel stops all construction now-in Jerusalem and the 3000 apartments being completed-and accepts in advance the 1967 borders and there will be peace within six months. This is the basic story we’ve been hearing since around 1988: one or more Israeli concessions and everyone will live happily ever after.

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By Barry Rubin

In contrast to my rather gloomy assessment of the Obama Administration’s prospects in the Middle East, Israel’s prospects look rather good. This is granted, of course, that the chances for any formal peace (note the word “formal”) with the Arab states or the Palestinians are close to zero. In addition there are two longer-term threats in the form of Iranian nuclear weapons and Islamists one day taking over one or more Arab states.

But let’s enjoy ourselves while we can. It’s also important to remember in the Middle East, optimism does not mean forecasting blue skies but merely ones only lightly overcast.

It’s funny, though, how much better Israel’s situation is then it’s generally perceived. Consider the pluses:

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By Barry Rubin

The year 2010 is going to be interesting. Well, all years in the Middle East are interesting; many of them are far too interesting.

For the Obama Administration, I’m going to predict, it will not be a fun year. True, the best face will be put on things. Since it is protected-perhaps next year to a lesser degree — by the media, the administration has a special advantage over its predecessors. Yet there are two huge and two potentially serious problems which it cannot solve.

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by Steven J. Rosen*

For a year or two at an early stage in his career, I commuted to and from our adjacent offices each morning and evening with Martin Indyk, later a top peace-process official of the Clinton administration at the Camp David negotiations and now vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. I had just left the Rand Corporation to work at AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington.

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By Barry Rubin

Of course, the Obama Administration has its defenders. They either ignore criticism of the Administration’s foreign policy or claim it is all partisan and ideological. And yet the truth is that if you watch the government’s policy on a daily basis it is truly remarkable how many dumb, avoidable mistakes are made.

I won’t supply a long list here but instead will talk about the latest one. Let’s take it step by step to see what a mess is being created.

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By Barry Rubin

There’s something big happening in the air regarding American media coverage of the Obama Administration. With the Washington Post in advance, the New York Times waking up the tiniest bit, the Los Angeles Times trailing far behind, and a lot of other newspapers getting tough, reality is seeping into their coverage. Even the Boston Globe, America’s most liberal newspaper, is strongly criticizing Obama.

The Globe remarks:

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By Barry Rubin

The UN Human Rights Council has now endorsed the Goldstone Report. There are important implications to this decision that make it a turning point.

It means the first make or break test for Obama’s foreign policy. There is no easy way out. The president must either block a disastrous UN resolution through effective diplomacy in the UN corridors, accept a bad resolution in order to avoid a confrontation, or veto such a resolution an accept the price in unpopularity. Oh, and it also marks the end of the peace process era that began in 1993, showing both sides why they don’t want a compromise deal.

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By Barry Rubin

There’s nothing written about more often — and inaccurately — than the Palestinians, yet there is curiously little interest about the politics and ideology which governs their behavior. The same situation applies to the man s slated to become that movement’s next leader, only the third to hold that post in 50 years, after Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Almost unnoticed, Binyamin Netanyahu won a major victory last week when Barack Obama backed down on a signature policy initiative. This about-face suggests that U.S.-Israel relations are no longer headed for the disaster I have been fearing.

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by Daniel Pipes*

When Barack Obama announced in June 2009 about Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, “I’m confident that if we stick with it, having started early, that we can make some serious progress this year,” he displayed a touching, if naïve optimism.

Indeed, his determination fits a well-established pattern of determination by politicians to “solve” the Arab-Israeli conflict; there were fourteen U.S. government initiatives just during the two George W. Bush administrations. Might this time be different? Will trying harder or being more clever end the conflict?

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By Barry Rubin

One of Israel’s highest priorities in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is recognition by the PA and Arab states as a “Jewish state.” The purpose of this demand is to ensure a lasting peace with Israel as it exists rather than some formal declaration which would thereafter be subverted in every possible way.

[For Israel's peace plan go here; for a summary of the two sides' negotiating positions, go here.]

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By Barry Rubin

After watching Middle East politics for more than 30 years, it is clear that these events — and the perceptions of them — move in cycles. At times, developments force a more realistic, and at other times a less realistic, understanding of what’s going on. Sometimes, sadly, it is only when things go wrong that people in the West wake up.

Let’s take some “positive examples,” in terms of negative developments, as examples:

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By Jonathan Spyer

The idea of gestures of ‘normalization’ from Arab states to Israel is a central component in the US administration’s plan for reviving the Mideast peace process. The notion represents a variant of the Oslo-style approach whereby a series of confidence-building measures will create a climate conducive to the successful conclusion of final-status negotiations. President Barack Obama’s approach seeks to expand the circle of confidence-building, so that the Arab states, and not only the Palestinians and Israelis, will be drawn into it.

According to reports, the US is now in the final stages before the announcement of its new, comprehensive peace plan. In the past week, meanwhile, three Arab states appear to have rejected the possibility of gestures of normalization.

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By Barry Rubin

Aluf Benn, possibly Israel’s smartest journalist, makes a fascinating point about the construction on settlement freeze issue: why is Israel’s left so indifferent to it? In the past, the left (which can mean, say, Labor party through Peace Now) has eagerly rallied to U.S. efforts to press Israel for concessions, especially on the territories. Not this time, even though the concession being sought is smaller than many in the past.

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