Word: arafats
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Certainly Arafat was a terrorist and the acts he has encouraged are horrifying: few deny that. But the peace prize was awarded to him for his current role as negotiator, not for past transgressions. And if past transgressions are an issue, it should be remembered that the Israeli army has committed crimes against Palestinians during the long course of the conflict as well...
What the Israeli government realizes but the staff chooses to ignore is that Arafat is a necessary part of a peace process; it has been his willingness to sit down with Peres and Rabin that has allowed discussions to begin. The Nobel Committee offered the prize, as it has done many times in the past, not for past records, not for completion of peace (indeed, when is peace ever completed?) but in recognition of genuine efforts towards peace...
...bombing--which occurred on Dizingoff St., the city's commercial center--is the most recent of a series of terrorist attacks claimed by the group, including the recent kidnapping and slaying of an Israeli soldier. These events have occurred in stark contrast to recent triumphs by leaders Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in promoting the Arab-Israeli peace process...
...Immediate cause for the escalating violence in the last few weeks is the diplomatic breakthroughs going on, like Rabin and Arafat's winning the Nobel peace prize," Bellin said...
Instead, the winners--Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and Palestine Liberation Organization Chair Yasser Arafat--spoke soberly of the work that remains to be done if peace is to last. They acknowledged, somberly, the victims on both sides who have died in wars and terrorist attacks. They dedicated their honor to the memory of those victims...