Word: israel
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Where have you been all my life, Ehud? Bill Clinton gave Israel?s new prime minister, Ehud Barak, almost six hours of one-on-one face time Thursday, plus an intimate double-date dinner and sleepover at Camp David ?- and he didn?t even have to make a campaign contribution. Why the elaborate courtship? The President badly needs a durable Middle East settlement to crown his legacy, and Barak is the first Israeli leader since Yitzhak Rabin who seems able to deliver. Clinton was never comfortable dragging Benjamin Netanyahu kicking and screaming into land-for-peace agreements...
Despite the lovefest, says TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer, "the relationship won?t be entirely free of friction. Under Netanyahu the U.S. became intimately involved in negotiating agreements and refereeing their implementation. Barak wants the U.S. to step back from that role and allow Israel to settle disputes directly with the Palestinians." That?s not as simple as it may sound, because the Palestinians have very little leverage and could therefore become obstinate if they feel steamrollered by Israel. "Reducing the American role gives Israel a natural advantage as the stronger party, and that makes the Palestinians edgy about...
...Post saw things a different way, trumpeting "Hillary?s Chutzpah" on an issue near and dear to New York?s large Jewish population: the capital of Israel. Last year, Mrs. Clinton had made a splash on a Mideast trip by calling a Palestinian state "inevitable." Last Friday she penned a letter to a leading Jewish group unequivocally declaring Jerusalem ? which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital ? the "eternal and indivisible capital of Israel." Hillary?s first flip-flop? "More like an obligatory pander," says TIME senior writer Eric Pooley. "The two things aren?t mutually exclusive ?- this just...
...easy part was getting elected. Now Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Barak, has to overcome inflated expectations of his peacemaking abilities. Barak, who was sworn in Tuesday, got off to a fast start, issuing a rousing call for a "peace of the brave" with his Palestinian and other Arab neighbors. And in the clearest signal yet that he plans a substantial land-for-peace trade with Syria, Barak offered a peace agreement based on United Nations resolutions recognizing Syrian sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights. He also repeated his campaign pledge to get Israeli forces out of Lebanon within...
...There?s a real danger of new tensions arising because of the unrealistic expectation that Barak?s election can break all the deadlocks in the peace process," says TIME West Bank correspondent Jamil Hamad. "The disputes between Israel and the Palestinians over issues ranging from the status of Jerusalem and the future of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to the question of refugees are exceedingly complicated, and there are no quick solutions." Barak plans to meet with President Clinton and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat shortly to jump-start the peace process. And while the atmospherics of those meetings...