Word: flank
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...those on the dovish flank of the Labor party ought to be well aware that there's little chance of the Palestinians being ground down by force. And the conflict is placing tremendous strain on the pro-Western Arab regimes who have kept the peace in the region for most of the past three decades. An Egyptian commentator warned last week that Sharon's path was jeopardizing "the entire network of political relations upon which the possibility of Israel's peaceful existence in the Middle East depends...
...would simply be to clear the playing field of those Palestinian leaders who had originally championed the peace process and have been engaged with Israel and the West over the past decade, leaving behind only the implacable militants to continue their Lebanon-style war of attrition. On his left flank, Sharon is under diplomatic pressure to offer Arafat some form of political incentive for rounding up the militants - rather than the current policy of creating disincentives for failing to do so - but the Israeli leader remains resolutely opposed to doing anything he perceives as "rewarding violence." That leaves Israeli mired...
...whole we can work and move forward," Sharon told an audience of Israeli businessmen Tuesday. Having risen in Western public opinion because of Israel's restraint following the suicide bomb in a Tel Aviv disco 11 days ago, the Israeli leader was content to feel pressure from his right flank in order to retain the diplomatic high ground. And having blundered, initially, Arafat added his approval in order to stay in the game...
...Israeli prisons. But the fact that Syria is the de facto military power in Lebanon and sets the rules within which Lebanese groups operate, Hizballah's continued campaign has been widely interpreted as an expression by proxy of Syria's desire to maintain pressure on Israel's northern flank in pursuit of its goal of reclaiming the Golan Heights...
...Israel's media has been filled all week with reflective commentaries over the wisdom of the withdrawal, which hinge less on the security situation on its northern flank than on the impact of the retreat on Palestinian thinking. The Israeli withdrawal was celebrated throughout the Arab world as a famous victory - indeed, it was the first time Israel had been compelled, by force of arms, to withdraw from Arab territory. And nowhere was the lesson more ardently embraced than in the West Bank and Gaza, where rank-and-file Palestinian activists had grown increasingly skeptical of the prospects...