Word: gaza
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Yasser Arafat loved the cartoon Tom and Jerry. Learning on the eve of his triumphant 1994 return to the Gaza Strip that the show didn't air there, he joked that in that case, he wasn't going. He adored the program, he said, because the mouse, not the cat, always won. All his life, Arafat was the little guy of the Middle East, scampering feverishly to avoid one lethal trap or another. While he never quite prevailed over any of the region's heavies, he did have the indestructible quality of an animated figure. Or so it seemed until...
...Muhammad negotiated with his enemies only so that he could later conquer them. Arafat's Israeli critics believe he never gave up on the Palestine Liberation Organization's "phased plan" of taking lands bit by bit from Israel with the aim of eventually seizing control of not only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank but Israel as well...
...Arafat's abandonment of the peace process. At the beginning, he was the lead cheerleader for Oslo among the Palestinians. They were never enthusiastic about the accords because they fell far short of the minimum condition most of them required: a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That was plainly the bait Oslo offered, but it was not guaranteed. First the Palestinians would have to submit to a test, a period of autonomy. Arafat, aging and struggling for relevance in the early 1990s, was desperate for a toehold on the future. During a heated meeting with reluctant...
...became clear in time, though, that Arafat failed to understand how weak a deal he had made. In an interview with TIME after the first Oslo agreement, he boasted that Palestinian "independence" would soon begin in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. When a reporter noted that the agreement provided for limited self-rule, not sovereignty, Arafat shot back, "Who told you that? It has to be under my control. I know what I have signed." Associates confirmed later that Arafat had not actually read the document...
...came to learn the limitations of his power after he arrived in the Palestinian territories following an absence of a quarter-century. His hard-line critics remarked that he had been reduced to the status of "governor of Gaza," responsible for such matters as trash collection. Arafat, who loved power, didn't think much of governance and was ill suited to it. It was one thing to be the icon of Palestinian aspirations, another to manage an economy, deliver health care and pave roads. On top of those challenges, Arafat and his P.L.O. had to compete for popular standing with...