Word: palestinian
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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JERUSALEM: Three Palestinian trucks carrying eggplants and tomatoes left the Gaza Strip today. It may not seem like news, but this is the first step in cooling down the crisis in the Middle East. Since the suicide bombing thirteen days ago, Israel kept the Gaza border closed as part of an array of sanctions against the Palestinians. Now, those sanctions are being rolled back -- and the vegetable trucks are rolling again...
While the resignation of the Cabinet gave Arafat breathing room, there are no easy choices for him when it comes to handling the Islamic militants. Palestinian officials show no great appetite for complying with Israeli and American demands to swoop down on them. Last week in Jericho a senior official counseled Arafat, "We speak and act as if we are puppets manipulated by the Israelis, and the time has come to stop this apologetic policy." Yet Arafat, according to one of his associates, is terrified that the Islamists will carry out more bombings, prompting a dramatic response by Israel that...
...result may be a middle course. The Palestinian Authority made a handful of arrests last week, but Israeli intelligence is not convinced it means business. Says an Israeli official: "Our assessment is that Arafat will cooperate on a small scale, but he has no intention of confronting Hamas right...
Imagine the electric effect this would have on the Middle East--and the penetrating effect it would have on the Palestinians, moderate and radical alike. Such a stance would tell the Palestinian leadership that it finally had to choose. It could no longer wink at, make tacit alliances with, periodically unleash and generally use as blackmail the terrorists in their midst. It would finally have to choose between violence and peace...
...This action, which ends the 1996 ceasefire between Israel and Hizballah, may merely mean a return to business as usual. But it couldn't have come at a worse time. TIME's West Bank correspondent Jamil Hamad reports that resentment is brewing in Palestinian territory: "there is a prevailing feeling of despair, frustration and anger," says Hamad. By Sunday, even Dennis Ross may be powerless to prevent the pot boiling over...