Word: gaza
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...state has seen in a decade - and that in itself may be a measure of the sense of national crisis that has seized the country following last year's collapse of the peace process and the onset of the renewed intifada uprising by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite its broad character, the bottom line of Sharon's government is security. The mandate given him in his landslide victory over the hapless Ehud Barak was not to conclude the peace process, but to deal harshly with the Palestinians and restore Israelis' collective sense of security...
Only yesterday a Palestinian dream seemed within reach. Trying to finalize the Oslo peace accords signed by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993, Barak had agreed to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He threw in some sovereignty over Jerusalem. But Arafat bargained for more and didn't get it, then gambled on the new intifadeh, demolishing Barak's re-election hopes. So Arafat must now face Sharon, who calls him a liar and refuses to shake his hand. The dread is, it could be Beirut all over again...
...impatience with the peace process was mounting. So were gripes about corruption, cronyism, press curbs and human-rights abuses in Arafat's Palestinian Authority. The discontent with his rule is still there, as thick as the tear gas and the smoke. During the second week of the intifadeh in Gaza, a mob broke away from an anti-Israel protest and marched near Arafat's office. They besieged a nearby hotel known as a watering hole for Arafat's cronies and burned the place down...
...change after Arafat signed Oslo. But while Israelis saw Oslo as the end of the war, Palestinians saw it merely as the first, conditional step toward peace. Today they still live with no state, no capital in Jerusalem. Israeli forces still occupy much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, requiring Palestinians continually to move through humiliating military checkpoints. Jewish settlements housing 180,000 Israelis dot the territories. Palestinians have seen economic decline, while Israel's GDP initially took...
...discontent. Recently, an angry mob besieged a police station and set free a youth arrested by one of Arafat's officers for gun running. With each passing day the intifadeh becomes more of a guerrilla war, including armed attacks by Arafat's security men working underground. Last week in Gaza, as Sharon forged a unity government with Barak, Israel assassinated a Force 17 commander, alleging he attacked a Jewish settlement. The following day, a Gaza bus driver in Israel killed eight Israelis by ramming his vehicle into a crowd of soldiers at a bus stop...