Word: assad
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...eagerly watch the overtures to peace progress this summer. Like everyone else here, I excitedly look forward towards a speedy withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, a meeting between Ehud Barak and Syrian President Hafez Assad and the declaration of a Palestinian state. But this excitement is tempered by the reality of the abject living conditions, which will probably prove the biggest obstacle to any real peace, especially in the hearts and minds of the people...
...concerned, it?s an Israeli issue. Arafat, too, is under immense pressure from within his own ranks to deliver on the promises of the peace process." Adding to Arafat's problems is that Palestinian concerns are of diminishing importance among Arab leaders, such as Syria's Hafez al-Assad, most of whom are eager to cement a long-term regional peace. That, and President Clinton?s coaxing, may eventually force Arafat to accept Barak?s terms. But it won?t placate the mounting impatience on the Palestinian streets...
Saturnine by disposition, Syrian President Hafez Assad is not known for saying anything nice about anyone. So it astonished all manner of Middle East pundits last week when he showered praise on the leader of his No. 1 enemy, Israel. Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak, Assad told an Arabic newspaper, is a "strong and honest man" who had a "real desire for peace." Barak blew a few kisses of his own, crediting Assad with creating a "strong, independent, self-confident" country...
...Assad has long wanted to reclaim the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, the loss of which he regards as a personal and national indignity. Outpowered militarily, Assad knows negotiations are his best option. The Syrian leader, 68, suffers multiple ailments, which are thought to include diabetes and heart disease. He is eager to prepare the succession of his son Bashar, 34, a mild-mannered, British-trained ophthalmologist who emerged as heir apparent only after his elder brother Basil died in a 1994 car crash. "Assad has more a sense...
This was not the first such excursion by Jackson--he successfully freed POWs held by Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War, and did the same when President Assad of Syria held U.S. pilots hostage during Ronald Reagan's presidency...