SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM:  Co-Sponsored by Florida Society for Middle East Studies (FSMES)

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: 
Prospects and Challenges
Convener:  Robert G. Rabil

For an administration that had not made peacemaking in the Middle East a key item on its foreign policy agenda, the Bush administration’s recent efforts to jumpstart peace negotiations between Arabs and Israelis at Annapolis raise multiple concerns and questions.

Are the recent efforts toward peacemaking the result of deteriorating security conditions in the Middle East, the result of an American foreign policy plagued by crises and frustration, or a genuine realization by the actors in the region to launch “good-faith” negotiations to try to resolve historic outstanding issues?

This symposium attempts to answer these questions by examining the international, regional, and domestic dynamics that paved the way to Annapolis and to probe the prospects and challenges of peacemaking.