Word: barak
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...Ehud Barak didn't become Israel's most decorated soldier by acting predictably. He earned his stripes in such daring escapades as the dramatic 1976 hostage rescue at Uganda's Entebbe airport and the assassination of key PLO leaders in distant Arab capitals. Now the plucky little commando appears to have sprung a nasty booby trap on his domestic political foes - by announcing his resignation Saturday, and calling a new election that must be held within two months...
...Israel, rather than Arafat, is the focus of most Palestinian anger - and the economic blockade and the heavy handed response of Israeli troops is only deepening their rage. That dims Ehud Barak's already slim prospects of achieving the pre-election peace deal that may be his last hope of holding off the challenge of Benjamin Netanyahu, and also nurtures Hamas, Islamic Jihad an other radical elements who have no interest in negotiating a peace agreement. So with an intifada in full swing, the right-wing Likud party poised to return to power and most of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations...
...economy, stupid" is unlikely to be the mantra of any of the candidates in Israel's forthcoming election campaign. Barak is still desperate to cobble together an eleventh-hour peace agreement with Arafat to take to voters, although prospects for such a breakthrough are receding almost daily as new waves of violence wash away progress toward a cease-fire. Indeed, parallel with his election track, Barak is still pursuing the option of sharing power with Likud leader Ariel Sharon in a national unity government - a handy tactic for both men to postpone the challenge of the election's undisputed front...
...While Israeli leaders such as Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu are pressing Prime Minister Ehud Barak to ratchet up the economic pressure on the Palestinians - for example, taking advantage of the fact that Israel still controls water and electricity supplies to the territories under Yasser Arafat's control - others share the concerns of international monitors over the long-term effect of such a strategy. After all, the declining economic circumstances make it a lot easier for Hamas to recruit young men as suicide bombers, its promise of the paradise of martyrdom holding considerably more allure amidst squalor and hopelessness than...
...Yasser Arafat, who has found his diplomatic leverage expanded by the 10-week intifada - and, arguably, by Barak's reliance on a peace agreement to win reelection - has even higher expectations for the Mitchell inquiry. The Palestinian leader is hoping it will endorse his call for an international peacekeeping or monitoring force to be deployed in the West Bank and Gaza. That's an idea to which Israel remains hostile, and for obvious reasons: Arafat wants peacekeepers deployed around Palestinian populations to make it more difficult for Israel to annex land if a Palestinian state is unilaterally declared. Of course...