This report was written following the second international conference of the Valdai Club Middle East Section “Scenarios and Models of the Middle East Settlement” organized by the Russian News & Information Agency RIA Novosti, the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy on December 9-10, 2010. The authors start with the premise that the search for a solution to the Middle East conflict has reached yet another impasse and further delays will lead only to deadlock. The restoration of a lasting peace in the region is increasingly viewed as a near impossible task. In that light, the authors revised current approaches to the problem and proposed to return to some previously abandoned ideas that may now help move the process as well as develop new initiatives that could lead to its resolution. The main barrier hampering the solution is the lack of a unified position on the both sides of the conflict. Thus, authors propose a number of political steps that can finally lead to a stabilization in the region.
The main authors of the report are Doctor of History, Professor Vitaly Naumkin and Doctor of History, Professor Irina Zvyagelskaya, who also took into consideration the proposals of discus¬sion participants from Russia Alexander Aksyonenok, Andrei Baklanov, Tatyana Nosenko and Veniamin Popov, as well as their foreign colleagues Gershon Baskin, Yehuda Ben Meir, Shlomo Brom, Rami Dajani, Wassim Kalaajieh, Habib Malik, Mathias Mossberg, Sahar Qawasmi, Hal Saunders, Patrick Seale, Mohamed Shaker, Mustapha Tlili.
