Marvin G. Weinbaum
Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies
The U.S., until recently a tireless promoter of peace talks in Doha, is now making an end run around the deadlocked inter-Afghan negotiations. With the whole peace process seemingly grinding down to defeat, U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad has presented a new game plan designed to keep reconciliation hopes alive. The eight-page document envisions an interim governing structure that would presumably pave the way to a permanent power-sharing arrangement between an array of Afghan political elites and Taliban senior leadership. To kick off the diplomatic effort, the U.S. has proposed holding a U.N.-sponsored conference in Turkey. Expected to attend along with the U.S. would be representatives from Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and India, whose deliberations would set the stage for Afghan government-led and Taliban delegations to negotiate their differences.
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Nobody, and co-author of
Except for Palestine. His newest book,
Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy, is a political analyst and a frequent writer on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. His past roles include vice president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, director of the U.S. Office of B’Tselem, and co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Khaled Elgindy is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute where he also directs MEI’s Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs. He is the author of
Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, published by Brookings Institution Press in April 2019. Elgindy previously served as a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution from 2010 through 2018. Prior to arriving at Brookings, he served as an adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the An
Palestinian refugees can no longer be sidelined
December 16, 2020 Share
On Dec. 3, MEI’s Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs convened a webinar on the future of Palestinian refugees and their place in the policy discourse following the election of President-elect Joe Biden and the departure of the Trump administration. Below is a summary of the major takeaways from the event, organized by topic.
Watch the webinar, Palestinian Refugees Beyond the Trump Era, here.
Gaza refugees and COVID-19
Mattias Schmale, director of field operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, gave a sobering update on the public health crisis Palestinian refugees in Gaza are facing during the global COVID-19 pandemic. “The latest trends are really extremely worrying. We’ve had over the past few weeks a steep rise in daily infections, between 700-800 daily. We now have 122 people dead. Keep in mind here in Gaza, the prison-like conditio
د. بول سالم
رئيس معهد الشرق الأوسط
تميز عام 2020 في الشرق الأوسط بجائحة كوفيد-19، والتكلفة الاجتماعية والاقتصادية العميقة التي تتسبب فيها. والتحولات الإقليمية التي أحدثها تطبيع العلاقات بين إسرائيل وعدد من الدول العربية.
ضرب الوباء إيران وتركيا في وقت مبكر، تلاه العراق وبعض دول الخليج، لكنه سرعان ما انتشر في جميع أنحاء المنطقة. من الصعب تعميم معدلات العدوى والوفيات على نحو دقيق. حيث إن العديد من دول الشرق الأوسط تعلن أرقامًا أقل من الواقع، ولكن الجائحة ينتج عنها أزمات صحية في جميع أنحاء المنطقة. العديد من الدول كانت استباقية في اتخاذ إجراءات ال