Word: gaza
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat failed to agree on any way to expand Palestinian authority without endangering Israeli security. After 2 1/2 hours of talks, a visibly angry Arafat lashed out at Rabin's refusal to lift a 19-day closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, imposed after militant Islamic Jihad bombers killed 21 Israelis last month. "If there is an Israeli wish for political separation, then we welcome it. But we will not welcome that they lock us in Gaza and the West Bank and hold the keys to the big prison." But Rabin...
Israel also redoubled pressure on Arafat to crack down on Islamic militants operating out of the semi-autonomous Gaza Strip. To date, the P.L.O. chairman has treated the Islamists gingerly for fear of igniting a Palestinian civil war. Israeli officials expressed hope that now he would get tough. Palestinian security forces have rounded up 20 alleged Islamic Jihad activists. Nabil Shaath, Arafat's planning minister, swore, ``This time, it will not be a show [detention] for two or three days...
...their cause, and take vigorous steps against the perpetrators. Officials think he is making progress, though not fast or firmly enough. President Clinton froze the U.S. assets of 12 Middle East extremist groups, including the Islamic Jihad group that claimed responsibility for Beit Lid, and its larger cousin, the Gaza-based Hamas. Washington had no illusion that this would matter much; the work of the militants does not cost a lot, and Iran, their chief bankroller, is happy to make up the shortfall. Still, the move was important symbolically to Rabin and Arafat alike...
...Rabin's separation concept is decidedly one-sided. Though Israeli employers are loath to do without cheap Arab labor, the government wants to keep Palestinians out of Israel. Yet it wants to maintain Israeli settlers and--to protect them--Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and even in the Gaza Strip. That is unacceptable to Palestinian negotiators. Closing off Israel to Arab workers also deprives the Palestinians of $1 million in daily earnings. If international aid would stimulate the Palestinian economy enough to replace jobs lost in Israel, the principle of separation would become attractive to the Palestinians. But only...
...borders to include many of the settlements and would probably offer the Palestinians full statehood in the remnants. Sa'eb Erakat, Arafat's minister of local government, says the Palestinians are ready to move straight to a final resolution. The P.L.O. will insist on nothing less than the Gaza Strip and the entire West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which it hopes to make the Palestinian capital...