Word: madrid
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...third and final day of the ceremonial opening phase, enmity permeated the Hall of Columns of Madrid's Royal Palace. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir labeled Syria a tyrannical regime, and Syria's foreign minister waved a 1948 "wanted" poster of Shamir, accusing him of involvement in the assassination that year of a Swedish diplomat...
...NEWS, however, is not all bad. Faisal al-Husseini, the real Palestinian mover in Madrid, earnestly tries to squash the PLO-yelping delegates, hoping to keep the conference on course. Arafat's announcement that he will abide by whatever the Palestinian negotiators agree to is equally encouraging. Arafat has nothing to worry about, of course, because he will be telling the Palestinian team what to say. But at long last, he has decided to play the game that might make peace possible instead of allowing ideology and extremism to snatch despair from the jaws of hope...
NEVERTHELESS, NO ONE should believe that Madrid will see enough good will to make friends of old enemies. Israel, Syria and the PLO--oops, I meant the Palestinians--are not going to sit down at a table and discover that they are really all nice people after...
...unless someone has a realistic plan to bridge differences in Madrid, nothing prevents these reluctant healers from bleeding the patient. For some unfathomable reason, a plan is just what the American orchestrators say they don't want to have. Calling the conference and showing up with no proposals, hoping that the parties will develop their own, is not very different from convincing vegetarians to attend a barbecue and expecting them to bring the meat...
Perhaps someone will rise to history's challenge in Madrid, propose a bold new plan, show willingness to compromise, and the Nobel committee can start writing invitations to Shamir, Assad and Arafat. At this point, however, we couldn't even know whether Assad would shake Shamir's hand at the award ceremony...