Against a background of prolonged stalemate, this essay provides a detailed examination of two decades of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations with a view to identifying deficiencies in the Palestinian negotiating approach and drawing lessons of use to future Palestinian negotiators in the context of power imbalance. After outlining possible conditions for resuming and conducting negotiations (making the decision and timing tactical rather than strategic), the author advocates a shift in the Palestinian negotiating paradigm that considers negotiations as one diplomatic tool among others in the long Palestinian struggle to achieve their national program, and places the negotiations in the context of priorities for the coming period.

This essay looks at the Gaza war of winter 2008––2009 within its broader politico-military context. At the political level, Israel's post-2005 disengagement policies and initiatives with regard to Gaza (and Egypt) and their implications relative to the future of the West Bank are emphasized. Militarily, in examining the background and objectives of the war, the author gives particular importance to the testing of lessons drawn from the past, especially the summer 2006 war on Lebanon, in the aim of regaining a kind of ““Dahiya”” deterrence based on reprisals against civilians rather than on battlefield victory.

This article examines the impact of the 11 September 2001 events on the Israeli-Palestinian equation. It begins with a close analysis of the positions and strategies of the two sides on the eve of 11 September, with special emphasis on Israel's erosion of the externally imposed "red lines" and on what the author calls the PA's "overseer" approach. The second part of the article traces their trajectories since September, highlighting in particular the evolution of the American position that accompanied the mounting victories in Afghanistan and the possible repercussions in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

In commemoration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, JPS asked a number of specialists in Middle Eastern affairs to give their thoughts on the future of the peace process and, more particularly, on what they would consider an equitable solution in light of a century of conflict, thirty years of occupation, five years of negotiations, and the recent election of a right-wing Likud government. The responses were as follows.