Word: palestinians
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Negotiators from the P.L.O., Israel and the U.S. met to try to devise a way to resume the formal Palestinian-Israeli peace talks halted by the Hebron mosque massacre. One major sticking point was resolved when Israel agreed to allow armed international observers and Palestinian police in Hebron...
...events. Two soldiers on duty at the mosque admitted they had opened fire in the direction of the fleeing worshippers, though they said they did not hit anyone. Their statements directly contradicted the army's contention that soldiers fired only in the air and lent weight to claims by Palestinian eyewitnesses that soldiers were responsible for at least one of the 29 deaths. Then the same soldiers cast doubts on the army's conclusion that Goldstein acted on his own. They testified that Goldstein entered the mosque carrying an M-16 rifle, not the Israeli-made Glilon (a shortened Galil...
Army commanders said they never issued directives covering a case like Goldstein's because they never imagined a Jew would commit such a crime. But for months, the entire country watched fanatical settlers publicly threaten violence to sabotage the promised onset of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Officers of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, told the commission that they had warned the military numerous times that radical settlers were likely to commit extreme acts...
While the massacre at the mosque was indeed tragic and inexcusable, it cannot be used as an indication that Israel is not negotiating in good faith. Just as Arafat cannot control the Hamas or any number of other radical Palestinian groups, so Rabin cannot be responsible for the act of one deranged American-Jew. Calling off the talks because of this incident would grant the murderer's ultimate wish. It is wrong--and offensive--to suggest that either community wishes for an extended period of hostility...
...moves denounced by the P.L.O. as merely "cosmetic," Israel vowed to crack down on extremist Jewish settlers in the occupied territories (but arrested only a handful) and released nearly 1,000 Palestinian detainees. Meanwhile, during rioting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the Hebron mosque massacre, Israeli soldiers killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded dozens of others...