On September 23, 2011, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appeared before the U.N. General Assembly to request full membership for the State of Palestine. America’s veto power renders their bid largely symbolic, but there could be leverage gained– like indirect recognition of statehood– in the process. After 20 years of failed talks with Israel, can this plea to the international community be the only path left to a two-state solution, or have the Palestinians set the peace process back by bypassing negotiations?
Bio
Dr. Mustafa Barghouti
Palestinian democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti was a candidate for the presidency of the Palestinian National Authority in 2005, finishing second to Mahmoud Abbas, with 19% of the vote. A medical doctor trained in the former Soviet Union and Jerusalem, he also received a degree in management from Stanford University in the United States, as a Sloan Fellow. Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, Barghouti is Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, a movement that campaigns for political reforms.
John Donvan
John Donvan is a correspondent for ABC News Nightline. He has served as ABC White House Correspondent, along with postings in Moscow, London, Jerusalem and Amman.
Dore Gold
Dore Gold is a world renowned expert on Middle Eastern affairs, a bestselling author, and an accomplished diplomat. During his career as the Prime Minister of Israel's Foreign Policy Adviser and later as Ambassador to the United Nations, Gold distinguished himself in negotiations with world leaders which included the President of the United States, the US Secretary of State, and the British Foreign Secretary. He also served as a special envoy to the leaders of Arab states.
Daniel Levy
Daniel Levy is co-director of the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force and an editor for the The Middle East Channel at ForeignPolicy.com. He is a senior fellow at both The Century Foundation and the European Council on Foreign Relations. Levy was previously an official negotiator for the Israeli government in peace talks with the Palestinians under Prime Ministers Rabin and Barak. Levy served as the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative. He is a board member of the New Israel Fund and a founder of J Street.
Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller became a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in January 2006. He is the author of The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace and a forthcoming book, Can America Have Another Great President? (Random House, 2012) For the prior two decades, he served at the Department of State as an advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process, most recently as the Senior Advisor for Arab-Israeli Negotiations. He also served as the Deputy Special Middle East Coordinator for Arab-Israeli Negotiations, Senior Member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and in the Office of the Historian.
Region, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It extends east to the Jordan River, north to the border between Israel and Lebanon, west to the Mediterranean, and south to the Negev desert, reaching the Gulf of Aqaba. The political status and geographic area designated by the term have changed considerably over the course of three millennia. The eastern boundary has been particularly fluid, often understood as lying east of the Jordan and extending at times to the edge of the Arabian Desert. A land of sharp contrasts, Palestine includes the Dead Sea, the lowest natural point of elevation on Earth, and mountain peaks higher than 2,000 ft (610 m) above sea level. In the 20th and 21st centuries it has been the object of conflicting claims by Jewish and Arab national movements. The region is sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Settled since early prehistoric times, mainly by Semitic groups, it was occupied in biblical times by the kingdoms of Israel, Judah, and Judaea. It was subsequently held by virtually every power of the Middle East, including the Assyrians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, and Ottomans. It was governed by Britain after the end of World War I (1914–18)—from 1922, under a League of Nations mandate—until 1948, when the State of Israel was proclaimed. Armies from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq attacked the next day. They were defeated by the Israeli army. SeeIsrael, Jordan, West Bank, and Gaza Strip for later history of the region.
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