ABSTRACT
It has been more than two years since Barack Obama took office. During this period, there have been numerous media comparisons between the policies of the Obama administration and those of its predecessor, the George W. Bush administration. The policy of the Bush administration toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict moved through some distinct stages. First, from his inauguration until 9/11, George W. Bush was generally supportive of Israel while distancing his administration from the Arab-Israeli conflict. Second, from 9/11 to June 2002, the administration actively sought to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to build Muslim support for Bush's war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and the coming war against Iraq. The final stage, from July 2007 to January 2009, witnessed a final, albeit unsuccessful, effort by the Bush administration to achieve a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, highlighted by the November 2007 Annapolis conference.
