Word: arabized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...root of Shimon Peres' galling defeat. Many voters mistrusted his New Middle East as just the feel-good visions of a naif. His attempt to buttress his security credentials by ordering a callous 17-day bombardment of Lebanon that killed as many as 200 civilians alienated many more Israeli-Arab voters than it earned him Jewish ones. Leah Rabin, wife of the Prime Minister slain by a right-wing extremist last November, criticized Peres' high-minded refusal to exploit the assassination for electoral advantage. He never responded in kind to Likud's pointed, simplistic and endlessly repeated negative ads that...
...achieved his burning ambition to be Prime Minister. Some claim he is pragmatic enough to jettison hot campaign rhetoric for cool reason and enlightened choice when he must. But who can say whether the realpolitik pressures of governance will override an ingrained skeptical and vigilant view of the Arab world that underpins Likud's siege mentality? Its fundamental belief, says political scientist Sprinzak, "is, 'We're still at Masada, much stronger, not as isolated, but still a Jewish island in a sea of hostile Arabs." Leaders who can assess their choices only in terms of preconceived, fixed notions, who refuse...
...vote count starts, early reports predict only a modest turnout of Israel's Arab citizens; Shaath becomes nervous. "We need an 80% Israeli-Arab participation rate," he says heatedly ("we" refers to the Peres effort, and Shaath uses the word throughout the evening). To reach that goal the Palestinian Authority had urged Arab clerics and other trusted pro-Peres Palestinians to go door to door to push Arab Israelis to the polls. After a last-minute surge, 79% of them did vote, and more than 94% supported Peres. "Remember," Shaath says, smiling, "we don't interfere. But after this...
...Hamas, a Lebanonization of Palestine. The Syrians would use this kind of unrest and violence as an excuse to move in, as they did in Lebanon, to "restore order." Israel would have to react, and this could set the stage for a serious outbreak of armed hostility that other Arab states would get sucked into, to make one last effort to wipe the Jewish state...
...subtract the Israeli-Arab vote, it means Netanyahu received 55.5% of the Jewish vote. It's like a landslide--not a close vote at all. For me, the real question is whether the momentum toward the establishment of a Palestinian state and Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for Assad's paper agreement can be entirely stopped. My guess...