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1. 40 Years After 1967 War: Need for Peace Greater than Ever

2. Diplomacy Update: U.S. Statements, Benchmark Plan and Quartet Meeting

3. Jerusalem Redux: Past, Present and Future of the Holy City

4. Humanitarian Focus: West Bank and Gaza

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1. 40 YEARS AFTER 1967 WAR: NEED FOR PEACE GREATER THAN EVER

The beginning of June marks forty years since the 1967 War between Israel and the Arab states and the beginning of the occupation.  The war and the ensuing occupation drastically altered the daily reality of the conflict while at the same time creating a mode by which it could be resolved through territorial compromise.  The “land for peace” formula, enshrined in UN resolution 242, laid the groundwork for the two-state solution and is the basis of the recently re-launched Arab League Peace Initiative.  However, four decades later, this peace has yet to be realized and the years of unresolved conflict have wreaked havoc on both Israelis and Palestinians and continue to damage a region that has failed to stabilize, to the detriment of all of its peoples and to the national security interests of the United States.  The escalating violence in and around Gaza, with intra-Palestinian fighting, rocket attacks by Palestinian militant groups and Israeli military responses, is threatening to usher in yet another summer of war and only highlights the urgent need for a resolution of the conflict.  Without a political context that includes a viable peace process, Palestinian factional hostilities, Israeli domestic politics, and the new spiraling violence in Gaza may overtake any possible progress.  As we mark this 40^th anniversary, now is a time to seize opportunities for moving forward.  The end-game for Israeli-Palestinian peace is known: two states based on the 1967 borders, with a secure Israel living alongside a viable and contiguous Palestinian state and sharing the city of Jerusalem.  The United States has a unique role to play in bringing the two parties together to work toward the goal of final status negotiations.  Let’s hope it will not take another forty years to get there.  

Below are two articles highlighting the importance of U.S. engagement to help bring about an Israeli-Palestinian final settlement and laying out steps that the United States could take to reinvigorate the peace process.   

U.S. Must Lead for Middle East Progress, Mara Rudman and Brian Katulis, Washingtonpost.com, May 28, 2007 

“With the one year anniversaries of the kidnappings of Israeli soldiers by Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah fast approaching, rumblings of another major conflict in the Middle East are in the air. Palestinians in Gaza are caught in the daily crossfire of fierce fights among Palestinian militant factions, tentative cease-fires are made and broken, and Qassam rockets are firing from that chaos into southern Israel. Many worry that extremists are working towards a repeat of last summer's conflicts…The situation on the ground in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, rarely improves in a vacuum of diplomatic activity. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian leaderships are operating from a strong domestic base. In such a context, near-term politics can often over-ride long-term national interests. The United States can help make the difference in this equation, aided by regional and other actors, by laying out a political horizon, a path for getting there, and committing itself to be a reliable participant in the process…”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/28/AR2007052801669_pf.html 

“Ten Commandments for Mideast Peace”, Daniel Levy, Ghaith al-Omari and Robert Malley, The American Prospect, May 20, 2007 

“..For the first time in six years, Washington is putting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations near the top of its agenda. For the first time, it wants those negotiations to address the fundamental political issues that divide the two sides and has begun to evoke the need to lay out what the administration calls a political horizon…Movement on the peace process is important on its own merits, but -- more important from a U.S. perspective -- there are critical benefits to America's national security as well…During the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the three of us worked on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for our respective peace teams -- Israeli, American, and Palestinian. Much has changed since those days, little of it for the better. Still, many lessons remain -- from the failures no less than from successes -- of that previous experience…we herewith offer 10 recommendations regarding what the United States ought to do -- and what it ought to avoid…”

Link to full article

To read the update in its entirety, go to: www.cmep.org/Updates/2007June1.htm.