Word: arabism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Syria, on the other hand, remains rather glum about the P.L.O.-Israeli deal. Although President Hafez Assad gave it distant approval, he is miffed at being made to look as if he is following Arafat in concluding an accord with Israel instead of playing the lead Arab role he prefers. He might also fear that the Israeli-P.L.O. agreement sets an uncomfortable precedent for his own negotiations to get the Golan Heights back from Israel. The Declaration of Principles foresees a gradual, step-by-step Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Assad seeks a total Israeli...
Lebanon is the third of the Arab neighbors with which Israel has been at odds. Israeli military forces still occupy a self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon that they seized during the 1978 invasion. Guerrillas there killed seven Israeli soldiers in early summer, touching off escalating exchanges of artillery and rocket fire and eventually Israeli air strikes; when the smoke cleared, about 300,000 Lebanese refugees had been driven northward to escape the conflict. Lebanon, however, has become a satellite of Syria in everything but name; if Israel can negotiate an agreement with Damascus, Beirut should follow quickly...
...neighboring Arab states, like Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf oil states, most of which are still officially at war with Israel, will have little incentive to remain hostile, since they can no longer be accused of betraying the Palestinians. Moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Morocco may still be targets for subversion and terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists, crying louder than ever that their governments are selling out to the Zionist enemy and its prime backer, the U.S. But those governments will be able to reply convincingly that the fundamentalists are being more Palestinian than Arafat; any deal good...
...make their economy blossom. "I see a good chance of Israel becoming the Singapore of the Middle East, a place where multinational companies will set up their technological and marketing headquarters for the region," says Gillerman. So far, these companies have not come in large numbers because almost all Arab countries boycott products from Israel. Other experts doubt that is the only reason: Israel's relatively high-tech economy is more attuned to European than to Middle Eastern markets, they say, and labor in Israel is high priced. Amos Rubin, senior director of economic-policy issues at the Bank...
...NATO that forced Moscow into bankruptcy opened the way for dissent that swelled to overwhelming dimensions. A whole realignment of the geopolitical stars brought Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat to their fateful accord: the end of the cold war eliminated superpower rivalry for the affections of Arab states, and made Israel realize that it could not count on a strategic alliance with the U.S.; victory in the Gulf War made the U.S. the sole regional power, opened the door to diplomacy, and cut Arafat off from his treasurers...