Word: mahmoud
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Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas seemed uncomfortable in the official meetings with his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, and President George W. Bush at their summit in Aqaba, Jordan, last week. So Bush stepped in and did what he does best: he schmoozed. Leaving aides and interpreters behind, the President took the two leaders outside, where they sat under the shade of palm trees for 40 minutes and discussed ways to give a fresh start to the peace process. "I wanted...to observe the interplay between the two," Bush said later. "Did they have the capacity to relax in each other...
...Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat are two sulky guys. When Arafat wanted to bring his wife Suha to the White House for the signing of the 1993 peace agreement with Israel, Abbas, one of the main Palestinian negotiators, objected to the presence of the Palestinian first lady, widely regarded within Arafat's circle as an interloper. If she was going, Abbas said, he was not. In the event, Suha stayed home and Abbas attended the Rose Garden ceremony with President Bill Clinton, but on the plane to Washington, according to two top officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), Arafat...
President Bush twice saluted Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas's "strong leadership" earlier this week, but by Friday there were reasons to doubt the extent of his following among Palestinians. First, Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat ripped into Wednesday's meeting at Aqaba, saying Abbas had gotten precious little by way of concrete undertakings from Ariel Sharon. Then on Friday the militant Islamist group Hamas announced that it would hold no further talks with Abbas on a proposed cease-fire, accusing him of having sold out the Palestinian cause by agreeing at Aqaba to end the intifadah without securing Palestinian...
...Mahmoud Abbas is in a very lonely place just days after having been rolled out onto the international stage as the new hope of the Palestinians. The barrage of criticism has come not only from those with a vested interest in seeing his pursuit of the "roadmap" fail - the militant groups waging the armed intifadah, and Arafat - but also on the streets. Among those who bothered to pay attention to the meeting in Aqaba, there was widespread anger at the perception that Abbas had said many things the Israelis and Americans wanted to hear, but had avoided articulating Palestinian grievances...
...taxing on the time and energy of the administration. The gulf that remains between the Israelis' and Palestinians' understanding of what the "roadmap" will require of them and the vagueness over how their promises are to be implemented suggests the plan will require considerable, ongoing micro-management. Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas are not sitting together because they've recognized each other as kindred spirits; they were at Aqaba because Bush told them to be. And the best hope is that they'll continue to do what Bush tells them to do, which, of course, requires constant monitoring and engagement...