Word: arafats
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...rots at the roadblocks. Prime Minister Shimon Peres vowed to keep Palestinian lands sealed off until those responsible for the bombings are in jail. The block imposed February 25 has created food shortages, widespread unemployment and an increasingly angry Palestinian population. Speaking at the summit, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat condemned Israel's actions, saying they undermine the Palestinian Authority and constitute collective punishment. He added that the anger caused by the sealing could lead to new violence. Israelis say the siege may be lifted by the end of the week. Responding to appeals from the United States and Egypt...
...least through last week, failed: Israel and the new Palestinian Authority continued to make progress toward implementing their agreements. Last fall Israeli troops, already departed from the autonomous part of the Gaza Strip, withdrew from most West Bank cities. Then, this past January, the Palestinians held elections, which Arafat won by a landslide--and Hamas boycotted. Polls showed unprecedentedly strong support for the peace process among the Palestinian public, and popular support for Hamas--once as high as 40%--dropped into the low teens...
...were some of the militants looking for a pause? "Ramzi," a figure in the military wing of Hamas, says even hard-liners like himself are weary of being excluded from negotiations. "Arafat should not be the only one who decides what is good and bad for the Palestinians," he says...
Israel has its own ideas of how to deal with Hamas. Immediately after the first bombings, Israel launched a dragnet in the areas still under its control, and military chief of staff Lieut. General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak demanded from Arafat the arrest of specific individuals, extradition of fugitives from Israeli justice and expansion of the P.A.'s intelligence network...
Anxious about looking like a tool of the Israelis and fearful of going on the offensive against an armed movement that still retains significant support, Arafat has usually made only token efforts to make Hamas pay for its crimes. P.A. officials, however, were outraged by the meeting with Lipkin-Shahak. According to one, it devolved into a shouting match: "They treated Arafat like a kid in school, telling him to do this and do that." Nevertheless, the P.A. rounded up some 250 Hamas members and renewed an old, largely unenforced demand that residents turn in unlicensed firearms or face prosecution...