Word: arafats
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...Islamic Jihad pulled his car alongside a bus loaded with Israeli passengers there, and detonated a bomb that turned it instantly into a flaming hulk, killing 16 aboard. Israel retaliated by sending tanks back into the West Bank city of Jenin and the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Hours later they left, after blowing up three buildings in the compound. And while it may be premature to interpret the Megiddo attack as the opening volley of an Armageddon, the carnage there, and the response it triggered, serves as a sharp reminder that the violent impasse that forced the Bush...
...sending troops and tanks to once again attack Arafat in his office, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is reiterating his demand that Arafat relinquish power as a precondition for progress. But targeting Arafat is, in many ways, a symbolic response for the Israelis to a day-to-day security crisis which has scarcely eased since "Operation Defensive Shield" and the ongoing Israeli operations in West Bank towns that have continued ever since. While some of them support the idea, Israel's security chiefs don't believe that getting rid of Arafat will stop terror attacks. The Palestinian leader's political popularity...
...Washington continues to push for an immediate resumption of political dialogue in tandem with efforts to stop terror attacks and to reform the PA. Sharon refuses deal with an Arafat-led PA, and Israeli officials have openly questioned the wisdom of Bush administration efforts to rebuild PA security structures as long as they're answerable to Arafat. Still, Arafat's not retiring anytime soon, and when he met with CIA director George Tenet on Tuesday to discuss PA reform the Palestinian leader emphasized that progress depends on Israeli forces withdrawing from PA territory - something Israel has shown no inclination...
...Although Arafat looks set to respond this week to calls from the PA legislature for the appointment of a new cabinet, it appears that the political coalition on which it will be based will be exactly the same as the current one. On the ground, ordinary Palestinians are less concerned with the composition of Arafat's cabinet than with the impact of Israel's continuing economic stranglehold and military operations. And on the Israeli side, too, the signs are that nobody's holding their breath for the outcome of the Bush administration's efforts. The ongoing deployment of Israeli troops...
...Absent some form of shock therapy, the administration's efforts to start a regional political dialogue at a summit that was to have been held in June - but has now been postponed - may simply drift into oblivion. The Israelis insist they won't talk to Arafat, and it remains abundantly clear that no Palestinian will step forward to negotiate with Israel. Much now depends on what transpires over the next week when Bush meets first with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, and then with Sharon. Bush is unlikely to hear much that will please him. The question is, what will...