Word: arafats
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Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat are two sulky guys. When Arafat wanted to bring his wife Suha to the White House for the signing of the 1993 peace agreement with Israel, Abbas, one of the main Palestinian negotiators, objected to the presence of the Palestinian first lady, widely regarded within Arafat's circle as an interloper. If she was going, Abbas said, he was not. In the event, Suha stayed home and Abbas attended the Rose Garden ceremony with President Bill Clinton, but on the plane to Washington, according to two top officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), Arafat...
...place just days after having been rolled out onto the international stage as the new hope of the Palestinians. The barrage of criticism has come not only from those with a vested interest in seeing his pursuit of the "roadmap" fail - the militant groups waging the armed intifadah, and Arafat - but also on the streets. Among those who bothered to pay attention to the meeting in Aqaba, there was widespread anger at the perception that Abbas had said many things the Israelis and Americans wanted to hear, but had avoided articulating Palestinian grievances. "There was no Palestinian voice at Aqaba...
...Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, however, kept open the possibility of a cease-fire. But only if Israel agrees to end the policy of assassinating terror suspects, release the approximately 6,000 Palestinian militants it currently holds in prison and restore Yasser Arafat's freedom of movement on the West Bank. And it's far from clear Abbas could wrest such concessions from Sharon right...
...beneficiary of Abbas's troubles, of course, is Yasser Arafat. He reportedly fumed at having to watch the Aqaba summit on TV from Ramallah, the White House having done its best to use President Bush's first-ever Middle East trip to crown Abbas as the new national leader of the Palestinians and consign Arafat to the dustbin of history. Bush pulled no punches during his stay in Egypt, telling a local TV network that "it's impossible to achieve peace with Chairman Arafat." Arafat's objective, by contrast, is to prove that peace is impossible without him. Washington...
...best asset Arafat, Hamas and others looking for Abbas to fail have going for them is the situation on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, where millions of ordinary Palestinians struggle to survive amid the privations of constant Israeli closures and military incursions. Abbas desperately needs an easing of those conditions in order to demonstrate that his way can bring positive change to Palestinian lives. But Israel's actions are guided by its security concerns, and there may not be much more than symbolic gestures towards the Palestinians until the PA security forces launch a crackdown. Abbas...