Word: arabized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Baker's lonely crossing was an apt symbol for his fourth peace mission to the Middle East since the end of the gulf war. The Secretary has logged 67,500 miles in two months trying to convince the Arabs and Israelis that they should just get together to talk, but his guests would not budge from positions that make a broadly based parley impossible. Israel would not agree to a United Nations presence at such a conference, while Syria said it would not attend without U.N. participation. Israel insisted that the U.S. and Soviet Union be present only...
Still, that breakthrough was an enormous letdown from the high hopes generated during the gulf war. Then, the conventional wisdom held that new alliances and new thinking might create an environment for making progress in settling the Arab-Israeli conflict. But as Baker's frustrations illustrate, no outside power can impose a solution; the bickering factions must want peace themselves. And the evident truth is that they don't, or at least not badly enough. "The only party willing to move is the Palestinians," says a senior Western diplomat in Washington, exaggerating only slightly. "And no one," he adds, "gives...
Moreover, Shamir enjoys the support of a majority of Israelis in holding on to the occupied territories, at least for the present. Iraq's Scud attacks on Israel during the war and Palestinian support for the bombardments heightened distrust of Arab intentions among Israelis. Even the opposition Labor Party seems reluctant to yield too much of the occupied lands; leader Shimon Peres suggested recently that he was not eager to give up the Golan Heights...
...Israel to trade land for peace. Thus Damascus will not settle simply for a one-on-one session with Israel. At the same time, Assad is tempted by the opportunity he sees in Saddam's humiliation to take his old rival's place as the No. 1 radical Arab strongman...
...Princeton thesis 40 years ago, the Secretary of State's underlying pessimism about the prospects for peace in the Middle East has remained constant. As the most political of diplomats, Baker shares Irving Kristol's observation: "Those whom the Gods would destroy they first tempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict." So why has Baker now joined a long line of U.S. leaders who have attempted to do just that...