Word: palestinians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When George W. Bush decided in late 2007 to make a final-year push for Middle East peace, he turned to retired Marine general James L. Jones for help. But after two months as Bush's Middle East envoy, Jones concluded that brokering a deal between Israel and the Palestinians inside of 12 months was, in his words, a "grandiose hope." So Jones turned his attention to the more modest goal of making peace in one city in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank...
Jones is equally blunt about how bad things have become in Gaza. After advocating for more realistic goals in the Middle East last year, Jones started a pilot project in the West Bank town of Jenin to organize training for Palestinian police and funding for development projects. Now he fears that his modest successes there may be undermined if the violence in Gaza continues. "I think they still believe" in peace, Jones says, but "I haven't asked that question since Gaza." It will be up to him and Obama to find the answers...
Barack Obama promised during his election campaign that he would pursue a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Day One of his presidency. The Gaza crisis has now turned that interest into an urgent requirement while making progress even more difficult. Nevertheless, in this crisis, as in the many other challenges the new President will face, there may also be an opportunity, which he can turn to his advantage...
...terms of a new truce will need to include: no rocket fire on Israeli civilians, no offensive Israeli operations, an international mechanism for enforcing a ban on smuggling offensive weapons, Palestinian Authority (PA) involvement in the control of open passages, and large-scale humanitarian and reconstruction assistance funneled through the PA rather than via Hamas...
...shocked Israeli and Western observers. Fatah's refusal to relinquish control following the election forced an explosive week-long showdown between western-backed Fatah forces and Hamas; the infighting culminated the expulsion of Fatah security forces from Gaza and a de facto divide of the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority between the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which remained under Fatah control...