Word: gaza
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Yasser Arafat likes his helicopters. Real leaders, military leaders especially, get around by helicopter, and nothing suited the style of the khaki-clad Palestinian boss better than dropping in and out of places with a backdrop of rotors loudly beating, whipping up the air. Choppering between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Arafat's two disconnected realms, had the added advantage of sparing the Palestinian leader the humiliation of passing through Israeli checkpoints on the ground below...
...local level that the structures of Arafat's Fatah coordinate directly with the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and where even Arafat's own rank-and-file reserves the right to conduct armed attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza even when decisions are taken to temporarily suspend attacks inside Israel...
...Arafat on Thursday wanly ordered the offices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad closed. But Hamas's sprawling welfare operations across the West Bank and Gaza were reportedly open for business that day. And by Friday, the PA had suspended whatever efforts it was prepared to make to round up the militants, claiming the Israeli barrage against its facilities made such action impossible. European and U.N. diplomats are insisting that the only way for the Palestinian leader to save his political hide is to crack down hard on Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But that may be wishful thinking, now. It would...
...Eliminating Arafat from the equation, then, essentially leaves Israel the task of directly taking on the militants in the West Bank and Gaza, which Arafat has failed to do. And that's a lot easier said than done. The assassination of more than 70 leaders of radical groups and periodic incursions into Palestinian towns from which terror cells operate have not stemmed the tide of suicide bombings. And more sustained, long-term operations in Palestinian towns and refugee camps carry the risk of a substantial increase in Israeli casualties for limited tactical benefits. After all, the difference between the first...
...file of Arafat's own Fatah have long-since given up on the potential for diplomacy to secure Palestinian national goals. The strategy of the militants will be to "Lebanize" the conflict, waging a long-term campaign of violence against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, combined with sending suicide bombers into Israeli cities, all in the hope of making the cost to Israel of remaining in the West Bank and Gaza unbearable. But the idea of reproducing in the West Bank and Gaza the strategy successfully employed by Hezbollah to drive Israel out of Lebanon...