Word: blanketted
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...result of waning support in the Arab world and beyond. To be sure, the primary purpose of the revisions being proposed is to make continued sanctions more palatable to governments that question whether they serve any positive purpose. Essentially, the proposals reverse the current sanctions formula by lifting blanket restrictions on Iraqi imports, except for a list of specified items to prevent Baghdad refurbishing its military or developing weapons of mass destruction. The current formula forces Baghdad to apply to a U.N. committee on a case-by-case basis for all of its imports, a bureaucratic process that causes hardship...
...contention between Israel and the U.S. Washington has called on Israel to freeze settlement activity, in line with the recommendations of a Jordanian-Egyptian cease-fire proposal and also the conclusion of the Mitchell Report into the causes of the current violence. Yet Israel is strongly opposed to a blanket freeze on settlement activity...
...Pentagon hastily explained late Wednesday that Secretary Rumsfeld had intended to say that military-to-military ties should be subject to review on a case-by-case basis, but that a gung-ho aide had misinterpreted this to imply a blanket suspension of such ties. That left reporters asking why it had taken two days for an error of such profound geopolitical consequence to be noticed - and the Pentagon, officially at least, had no good answer. Unofficially, it was reported that Pentagon sources had said the retraction, which followed within hours of CNN broadcasting news of Monday's directive, reportedly...
...Israel certainly has plenty of reason for skepticism, even if not all of its reservations would be acceptable to the United States - Israel rejects a blanket freeze on settlement expansion, for example, but the U.S. has never been sympathetic to Israel's efforts to build settlements on the West Bank and Gaza. But Peres is on firmer ground when questioning what concrete and verifiable steps Arafat would be required to make to reduce violence. Arafat's political authority in the West Bank and Gaza is clearly not what it was even a year ago, when no one dared publicly question...
...question of how Palestinian attacks will be ended is only one flaw in the proposal. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has instructed Peres to make clear Israel has problems with a blanket freeze on settlement activity. He's also questioning the four-week timetable, proposing a three-month cooling off period before talks. But most important, Sharon has made abundantly clear that he has no intention of negotiating on the basis of offers made by Ehud Barak. Sharon considers the Oslo peace process over, and wants to negotiate a series of long-term interim non-belligerency agreements with the Palestinians...