Word: arafats
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...road to a Palestinian state may now be open, but Palestinians aren?t exactly queuing up at the on-ramps. Yasser Arafat Tuesday approved a draft agreement to open a direct road link between the Palestinian-controlled territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which he plans to combine into a Palestinian state. But Palestinians will be allowed to travel the road only at Israel?s discretion, and that?s left many of Arafat?s constituents angry and frustrated. "To travel this road to Gaza in my car, I?ll need a permit from the Israelis," says TIME West...
Jordan may want to help Israel and Yasser Arafat as they try to reach a peace settlement, but it?s not about to put its own stability on the line for its neighbors. So although Jordanian authorities on Wednesday showed themselves willing by arresting three senior leaders of the anti-peace-process Hamas organization, King Abdullah?s government will stop short of a full-scale confrontation with Hamas. "Jordan itself has no problem with Hamas, and this clampdown is being undertaken on behalf of Israel and the Palestinians," says TIME West Bank correspondent Jamil Hamad. "But Jordan will always...
Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak prefers to do things himself ? and usually late at night. So does Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. And so, although Barak sent his foreign mininster, David Levy, to start the historic "final status" peace talks with Palestinian negotiator Abu Mazen on Monday, he raised eyebrows in Israel Friday by holding a secret overnight meeting directly with Arafat to discuss some of those same final status issues. It's not unusual for leaders to intercede when talks between negotiators deadlock, but these talks had only just gotten started ? and Levy first heard of the meeting...
While Barak's late-night maneuver may have undermined Levy's clout as a negotiator, reaching agreement on the contentious final-status issues may require all of Barak's political authority, and then some. Palestinian sources said the meeting was positive, and had been initiated by Barak to reassure Arafat after the Palestinians objected to comments by the Israeli leader on West Bank settlements and other issues. The Israeli leader has adopted an approach dramatically different to that of his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to combine concessions to conservative constituencies at home with parallel concessions on other fronts...
...Arafat is currently both president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the PLO, but those positions may be separated once he leaves the scene. "The PA would govern Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, while the PLO would continue to act as a representative of the Palestinian diaspora spread across the Arab world," says Hamad. But fear of a challenge to his leadership has restrained Arafat from cultivating candidates for either position, and even the procedures for choosing a replacement are far from clear. "The only certainty," says Hamad, "is that whoever replaces him will be 100 percent...