A focus on Palestinian rights must come before negotiations over a state.
Marwan Muasher is vice president for studies at Carnegie, where he oversees research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East. Muasher served as foreign minister (2002–2004) and deputy prime minister (2004–2005) of Jordan, and his career has spanned the areas of diplomacy, development, civil society, and communications.
Muasher began his career as a journalist for the Jordan Times. He then served at the Ministry of Planning, at the prime minister’s office as press adviser, and as director of the Jordan Information Bureau in Washington.
In 1995, Muasher opened Jordan’s first embassy in Israel, and in 1996 he became minister of information and the government spokesperson. From 1997 to 2002, he served in Washington again as ambassador, negotiating the first free-trade agreement between the United States and an Arab nation. He then returned to Jordan to serve as foreign minister, where he played a central role in developing the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East roadmap.
In 2004, he became deputy prime minister responsible for reform and government performance and led the effort to produce a ten-year plan for political, economic, and social reform. From 2006 to 2007, he was a member of the Jordanian Senate.
From 2007 to 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 (Yale University Press, 2008) and The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism (Yale University Press, 2014).
A focus on Palestinian rights must come before negotiations over a state.
Without a vision to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the Jordan-Israel peace treaty has lost almost all its luster.
A conversation on the future for the region, the chances of a two-state solution, and how much influence Iran continues to have in Lebanon.
If Israel does not seek to end the occupation or acquiesce to a two-state solution, then Jordan fears that Israeli designs regarding the mass transfer of Palestinians remain on the Netanyahu government’s agenda and have not been buried.
Foreign leaders typically use their addresses to lay out visions for the future or offer hope for peace. The Israeli leader did neither.
Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at Carnegie and former deputy prime minister of Jordan, discusses recent European countries' recognition of the Palestinian state—and what this may mean for a potential two-state solution in the region.
Through concerted efforts to strengthen adaptive capacity in the socioeconomic and urban sectors, Jordan can improve its prospects for resilience and prosperity in the face of climate change.
In the third of this four-part series, experts analyze critical issues on what happens after the fighting abates, from regional points of view.