Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories

"The grave threat from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons has not gone away with the Cold War. It has evolved into many separate threats, some of them harder to see and harder to answer. And the adversaries seeking these tools of terror are less predictable, more diverse. With advanced technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile. With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats that come in a shipping container or in a suitcase."

In August 2001, David Satterfield, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon who is now deputy assistant secretary for Middle East affairs, described his talks with Syrian foreign minister Faruk al-Sharaa as "excellent." Satterfield promised a "maximum" U.S. effort to "stop the terrible suffering" in Israel and Palestine and reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the principle of "land for peace" on the Syrian-Israeli front.

The Bush administration presides at a time when the "promise of Madrid" has been rendered hollow. The United States, together with Israel and much of the Arab world, proved unable to realize the vision inspiring the Madrid process--a comprehensive peace between Israel and its neighbors, the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with its capital in East Jerusalem, and the construction of a regional alliance against anti-American political Islam and the creation and deployment of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq and Iran.

"Israelis don't understand," Ami Ayalon, the recently retired head of Israel's internal security service--Shabak-- counseled his fellow citizens, "that all of the Palestinians are afraid of being thrown across the [Jordan] River."