Key Points

• Israel's continued threats and belligerence toward its neighbouring states could plunge the region into all-out war. Given the current regional dynamics, it would be most prudent for Israel to come to a comprehensive peace agreement with the strategically placed Syria in order to avoid further escalation.
  
  
• Israel's political leadership and its defence establishment are deeply divided over the proposed methods of securing this peace with Syria. While senior members in the military believe it can be achieved through a deal to include the return of Syria's Golan Heights and thereby remove it from its current alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, others are of the opinion that force should be used to break the alliance.
  
  
• Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, would like a peace deal with Syria but does not want to return the Golan Heights. The alternative appears to be a very risky war on three fronts; Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
  
  
• Syria is prepared to go to the negotiating table with Israel providing it accedes to its demand for the return of its land. It is equally prepared to go to war.

Civil Society in the West Bank: between the rock of occupation and the stone of the Palestinian Authority
Briefing Paper - Jan 2010
Introduction
Palestinian civil society in the Occupied West Bank today faces one of its most daunting challenges in decades. Saddled with a military occupation Palestinians must also contend with an authority that impoverishes them while enriching itself. Media reports abound of widespread financial corruption at the heart of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) while ordinary Palestinians are routinely denied of basic services and rights. Acting in the name of bringing order and security to the territory, the PA has closed scores of charities and dismissed thousands of public servants because of their real or perceived political affiliations. Although the unfortunate ordinary Palestinian people are the immediate victims, according to Professor Norman Finkelstein there is a much broader Western message behind these acts, which is to "teach Third World people what democracy means, and that means you elect people who we like, or you pay a price. And so the Gazans have to pay the price of electing the 'wrong' people into power". That price is also being paid by the people of the West Bank deemed to belong to the "wrong" party.

The prisoners’ exchange; what price?
Briefing Paper - Dec 2009
After last month’s astonishing speculation about a breakthrough in the prisoner exchange negotiations between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza and Israel, it is now clear that the swap deal brokered by Germany has run into a brick wall.

This high stake diplomatic poker match was expected to result in the release of the French citizen and Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

GAZA: ANOTHER WINTER OF DEATHS
Briefing Paper - Nov 2009
The people of Gaza have been suffering for more than two years now under an illegal siege put in place by Israel.  This siege has been aided and abetted by the international community.  Poverty, hunger, and disease have taken hold of the Gaza Strip and thousands of people are homeless as a result of the war.  As winter approaches the situation will become worse. The people of Gaza - young people in particular - face a very bleak future.

Over 5,000 students graduate from the Gaza Strip's universities every year.  Very few are able to get jobs. Last June, UNRWA set up a programme to provide temporary unskilled employment, lasting only for the duration of the summer, to these graduates.  However, when 27,000 university graduates applied, UNRWA was only able to provide 7,000 of them with even this short-term work which does not provide them with enough income to sustain themselves and their families and does not allow them to utilize their skills.