Pathways to Peace: America and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Recent upheavals in the Middle East are challenging long-held assumptions about the dynamics between the United States, the Arab world, and Israel. In Pathways to Peace, today's leading experts explain these changes in the region and their positive implications for the prospect of a sustained peace between Israel and the Arab World.

Samih Al Abid served as Minister of Public Work and Housing in the Palestinian Authority, as an advisor to the Palestinian Investment Fund, and as the general director of an independent development company aiming to strengthen the local economy and generate investment. He currently heads the Palestinian Housing Council. During final status negotiations with Israel, he headed the committee on borders and territory, and was a key participant in the negotiations in the Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis processes. Al Abid earned a Ph.D. in regional development planning and an M.A. in urban design. Yossi Alpher is a consultant and writer on Israel-related strategic issues, and is coeditor of the bitterlemons.net family of internet publications. Alpher served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence officer, followed by service in the Mossad. From 1981 to 1995 he was associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, ultimately serving as its director. During the Camp David summit, he served as special adviser to the prime minister of Israel, concentrating on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. James A. Baker, III, served in senior government positions under three U.S. presidents. He was the nation's 61st Secretary of State under President George Bush. He was the 67th Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan. He served as White House Chief of Staff to President Reagan during his first term. Mr. Baker's record of public service began in 1975 as Under Secretary of Commerce to President Gerald Ford. It concluded in January 1993 with his service as White House Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to President Bush. Mr. Baker graduated from Princeton University in 1952, and received his J.D. with honors from The University of Texas School of Law at Austin. Mr. Baker received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 and has been the recipient of numerous other awards and honorary academic degrees. He is presently a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, and is Honorary Chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Samuel Berger served as National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton from 1997-2001. In that capacity, he drove policy advancing the peace process in the Middle East. Mr. Berger also served as Deputy National Security Advisor during President Clinton's first term; as director of national security for the 1992 Clinton-Gore Transition; and as senior foreign policy advisor to Governor Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign. He currently serves as chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm. Robert M. Danin is the Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He headed the Jerusalem mission of the Quartet representative, Tony Blair, from April 2008 until August 2010. A former career State Department official with over twenty years of Middle East experience, Danin served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and at the National Security Council as director for Israeli-Palestinian affairs and the Levant. He earlier served as a Middle East specialist on the secretary of state's Policy Planning Staff and as a senior State Department Middle East analyst. Danin earned a doctorate in the international relations of the Middle East from St. Antony's College, Oxford University. P. J. Dermer (Colonel, retired) is one of the Army's foremost Middle East regional experts. His career spanned over 30 years of experience, including, military and civilian arenas in Washington and overseas. He has extensive coalition-building experience working with international counterparts to advance the Middle East peace process, as well as rebuilding Iraq's critical national security institutions. In his post-military career, he has used his skills to foster private business enterprise development, including development of several entrepreneurial start-up ventures. Countries of expertise include Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf. Avi Gil served as the director-general of Israel's ministry of foreign affairs (2001 2002). He was closely involved in Israel's policy-making and peace efforts, including the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty with Jordan. Ambassador Gil is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and a senior strategic sdviser at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. Gershom Gorenberg is the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and The Unmaking of Israel, which examines the impact of occupation and settlement on Israeli democracy and society. As a journalist he has covered Israeli politics for over 25 years. In 2010 he was a visiting professor at Columbia University. He lives in Jerusalem. Samir Hilileh joined PADICO Holding as Chief Executive Officer in 2008. Prior to that, he was the managing director of The Portland Trust in Palestine, served as the cabinet secretary general of the Palestinian government (2005-2006) and as the assistant undersecretary for the ministry of economy and trade (1994-1997). He is an active member in the Palestine Trade Center, the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), the International Chamber of Commerce in Palestine, and the Palestine International Business Forum. He is president of Birzeit University Alumni Association and a member of the board of trustees of the Friends Schools in Ramallah. Ghassan Khatib is vice president for advancement and lecturer on cultural studies at Birzeit University, where he previously served as vice president for community outreach. He has served as director of the Palestinian Government Media Center; and as minister of labor (2002) and minister of planning (2005-2006). He founded and directed the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center. He was a member of thePalestinian delegation to the Madrid Middle East peace conference and the bilateral negotiations in Washington. Khatib co-founded and co-directed bitterlemons.org, a Palestinian-Israeli internet-based political magazine. Khatib holds a Ph.D. in Middle East politics from the University of Durham. He is the author of Palestinian Politics and the Middle East Peace Process: consensus and competition in the Palestinian negotiation team. Daniel C. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. During a 29-year career in the foreign service, he served as the United States ambassador to Egypt and Israel. He is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East (2008) and The Peace Puzzle: America's Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace (2013). He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Robert Malley is director of the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa program. In that capacity, he directs teams of analysts in Israel, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, and the Gulf. Until January 2001, Mr. Malley was special assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs and director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council. He served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White in 1991-1992. He is a graduate of Yale University, Harvard Law School and Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author of The Call from Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution and the Turn to Islam. Aaron David Miller is currently a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC where he's finishing a new book - Can America Have Another Great President? For two decades, he served in the department of state as an analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle Eastern issues to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. He has written four books, including The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace (Bantam Books, 2008). His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times; and his column 'Reality Check' appears weekly in Foreign Policy Magazine. He is a frequent commentator on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Marwan Muasher is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment. He served as foreign minister (2002 2004) and deputy prime minister (2004 2005) of Jordan, and as Jordan's ambassador to the United States and Israel. Between 2007-2010, he was senior vice president of external affairs at the World Bank. He is the author of The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation (2008). William B. Quandt is the Edward R. Stettinius professor of politics at the University of Virginia. From 1972-74 and from 1977-79, he served on the staff of the National Security Council and participated in the peace talks that led to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. He is the author of Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967, third edition, (Brookings, 2005). Steven White is an independent Middle East consultant, currently writing the history of the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) Mission. As a Marine Corps Reserve Major, he served as the senior Middle East adviser to three U.S. security coordinators and as the mission's liaison to the government of Israel, the UN, Office of the Quartet Representative, and the British diplomatic missions in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He was educated at the Military College of South Carolina, The Citadel and was one of the first co- recipients of the Anna-Sobol Levy Graduate Fellowships to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1990-1991.)