It was 1988, with the first Intifada in full bloom and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the lead up to their November 29th declaration of independence, when I met with a few members of the PLO Executive Committee to discuss their plans. "Is this serious?" I asked. "Absolutely," they assured...

A story universally missed last week was the extraordinary debate that occurred in Congress in advance of a vote on a resolution against the Goldstone Report. It may have been that this story was not seen as newsworthy as others playing out at the same time: the fallout over Secretary...

I landed in London at 6:30 am (GMT) and turned on my BlackBerry to find it flooded with emails sent while I had been in the air, flying home from the Middle East. Looking at just the "sender" and "subject" lines, I observed that some were "news alerts," others...

On October 25th the Arab American Institute and J Street convened a joint meeting that brought leaders and activists from both communities together as an expression of our shared commitment to advance a just and comprehensive Middle East peace. Two nights later, my wife Eileen and I had the...

On Sunday, October 25th, representatives of over three dozen Arab American and American Jewish community organizations met in Washington to make clear their shared commitment to a comprehensive Middle East peace. Hosted by J Street, which calls itself the US's "pro-peace, pro-Israel lobby" and the Arab American Institute, "the research...

During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama, touting his background as a professor who taught Constitutional Law, often waxed eloquent about his commitment to civil liberties and to correcting the Patriot Act's threats to basic constitutional protections.

It was part of his stump speech on the campaign trail....

The Goldstone Report is back, taking center stage in a raging international debate. What is most troubling, is not the circuitous route the Report took on its way to the United Nations Security Council. Rather, it is the fact that those making the most noise about the Report have, I...

The immigrant experience in America is a topic rich in meaning. For me, it is personal, since my understanding has been informed both by my family's story and my work of several decades.

Because America has a complex and conflicted relationship with immigrants, being both inclusive and generous, while...

With the dust having settled following President Obama's New York meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a sober assessment of what actually happened, and what may happen next, is in order.

In the days following the bilateral meetings, the trilateral session and President...

Despite the continuing horrors visited upon Palestinians, their deep political divide, relentless Israeli settlement expansion and more, there are glimmers of hope in the Palestinian skies. What I am referring to here, are not external developments like ongoing U.S.-led efforts to rekindle Israeli-Palestinian peace talks or growing European impatience...

Although President Obama's Wednesday night address to a special joint session of Congress may not have won the support of many of those hostile to his efforts to reform the nation's health care system, and though it exposed the depth of the nation's partisan divide, it was, nevertheless, a "game...

I had the distinct honor of being invited to address this year's Iftar dinner at the Pentagon, together with Ms. Farah Pandith, the State Department's Special Representative to Muslim Communities and Ms. Dalia Mogahed, of the Gallup Corporation. In attendance were over 125 American Muslims, members of every branch of...

It is more than ironic that at the very moment when the US is pressing Arab States to take steps toward normalizing relations with Israel (including measures like: opening airspace to Israeli overflights, exchange of commercial offices, and issuing visas for business and cultural exchange), the government of Israel...

Ted Kennedy will rightly be remembered by generations of Americans for the values he espoused, and his legislative accomplishments, which translated those values into action.

I have a number of memories of the Senator, but one, in particular, will remain with me forever.

In the horrifying days after 9/11,...

On August 12, 2008, President Barack Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor, to 16 individuals whom he described as "agents of change". Among the awardees were: Senator Edward Kennedy; former Congressman and Cabinet Secretary, the late Jack Kemp; and Grameen Bank founder, Muhammed Yunus.

There is a social movement stirring on the far right of American politics and it bodes ill for our future.

It is, in the classic sense, a movement, not an organization, with no coherent structure, no creed or litmus test for membership. Rather, it represents disparate currents, born of...

With Benyamin Netanyahu agreeing to a Palestinian State (albeit one that meets his specifications), and the European Union's Javier Solana calling for a Security Council resolution to recognize a Palestinian state by a date certain, the idea has now become commonplace. Even here in the US, it is a near...

In 1991, as part of its overall approach to post-Gulf War peace-making, the Administration of George H. W. Bush secured an Arab agreement to suspend their secondary boycott against companies doing business with Israel, in return for an Israeli commitment to freeze settlements.

Three years later,...

On June 29th, in keeping with the timetable set by the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, the US redeployed its combat forces out of major Iraqi cities--the first phase of a plan that should lead to a complete US withdrawal from Iraq by December 31, 2011.

The Iraqi government declared...

During the 2008 election there was a television ad featuring a late night phone call on the White House hot line. "It's 3:00 am," the narrator said, "there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing, something is happening in the world...who do you want answering the phone?"