Word: assad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...good will is strikingly absent from this gathering. Fourteen years ago, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made Israelis believe that his attitude toward them had changed by flying to Jerusalem and shaking hands with Israelis, smiling all the time. In contrast, rumors now fly that Syrian President Hafez al-Assad will refuse to shake Shamir's hand, (in Madrid--forget Jerusalem) and such a refusal is unlikely to evoke sympathy from Shamir, who has promised his electorate that he will not cede real estate for promises of peace...
Whether the Palestinian delegation brings good will is harder to know. Assad is a dictator. Listen to him and hear the Syrian line. The Palestinians, however, bring a fragmented team to Madrid. Some, like newspaper editor Sari Nussiebah, say that the conference is less an opportunity to talk with the Israelis than a chance to rally the world against Israel. Other members of the Palestinian team declare in almost every public forum that they represent the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), knowing that Israel has promised to abandon the conference if the PLO participates...
...forgotten that this conference exists only because the United States twisted lots of arms. Assad does not want to make peace with Israel, but, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he needs a new patron to prop up his dictatorship, and America has made this conference a condition for assuming that role...
Perhaps someone will rise to history's challenge in Madrid, propose a bold new plan, show willingness to compromise, and the Nobel committee can start writing invitations to Shamir, Assad and Arafat. At this point, however, we couldn't even know whether Assad would shake Shamir's hand at the award ceremony...
Syria, however, objected to such talks for fear that Israel would pocket any concessions it made without giving ground toward returning the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 war. If President Hafez Assad is really backing out now, the other Arabs might follow suit. But he appeared primarily to be laying down a marker -- no agreement on anything without a return of the Golan -- and building pressure on the U.S. to push Israel...