Word: east
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Helmut Kohl could relate. In the 1980s, Germans used to make fun of their Chancellor for his thick Rhineland accent and stumbling speeches. But when more-elegant and eloquent statesmen were dithering after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Kohl seized the moment. He propelled East and West Germany to unification within a year, while others thought that unification, if it happened at all, was a distant prospect. It was Kohl's decisiveness that made him a leader, not his honeyed tone...
...initial phase of President Barack Obama's effort to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process called for confidence-building. While the results haven't exactly inspired confidence in its prospects, Obama may have no choice but to move forward. The President's Middle East envoy, Senator George Mitchell, is scheduled to visit the region during the week of July 20, amid reports that Washington is moving toward outlining a new negotiating process, possibly with fixed timetables for resolving issues. But the palpable distrust each side has shown of the other during Obama's initial mediation effort casts a pall...
...freeze, and he won strong domestic political backing for insisting on "natural growth" construction in existing settlements. Mitchell's visit aims to finalize an agreement on this issue that both sides can live with - the Israelis want to complete some 2,500 housing units already under construction and exempt East Jerusalem from the freeze. (Read about Israeli settlers vs. the Palestinians...
...state solution. Populations on both sides of the divide have lost faith in the concept, but while Israelis are largely content to live with the status quo, Palestinians are not - and they are losing faith in the path of negotiations. The expansion of the Israeli presence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in recent years has eroded faith in the prospects for a territorially viable Palestinian state; the idea of resolving the conflict on the basis of creating two states - a concept that entered the political mainstream almost two decades ago - may have reached its expiration date...
...questions of where to draw borders between Israel and a state of Palestine, the terms of Palestinian sovereignty, how to share Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But both sides have been through such a process before and failed to conclude a deal. For many Middle East watchers, the key question will be whether Obama sets a deadline for such talks. And what it plans to do if, as seems quite possible if not probable, the two sides fail to reach agreement...