Word: palestinians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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President Barack Obama's Middle East peace plan faces a key hurdle on Tuesday, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas convenes the first conference in two decades of his Fatah movement. The conference, to be held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem under heavy Palestinian Authority security, is seen as critical to restoring Abbas' waning political legitimacy and authority. But early signs suggest that the conference will, if anything, weaken the Palestinian leader's ability to follow Washington's script...
...prevailing view within Fatah is that Abbas has achieved precious little for his negotiation efforts and that this has been a prime factor in weakening Fatah in the face of the challenge by its more militant rival, Hamas. The Islamists trounced Fatah in the last democratic elections for the Palestinian parliament in 2006, and many fear that a candidate backed by Hamas would likely beat Abbas in presidential elections currently scheduled for early next year. Much of the Fatah rank and file and even many in the leadership believe that the only way the movement can be saved...
...fall of the Berlin wall 20 years ago, I pray that I will see the day that the world manages to force Israel to demolish the wall of hate it has erected illegally. That wall and Israel's illegal settlements are making a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict virtually impossible. You recollect that President Reagan famously urged Moscow to "tear down this wall." It is high time for President Obama and Western leaders to say exactly those same words to Israel - and to impose sanctions if it doesn't comply. Samir Hawa, Prangins, Switzerland...
...National Security Adviser Jones and White House Iran strategist Ross, meanwhile, arrived in Jerusalem for their own talks early in the week. Jones has standing on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, having served as George W. Bush's Middle East envoy, and Ross is the architect of the Administration's strategy for dealing with Iran. The U.S. has been pushing for the resumption of final-status talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which stalled early in 2001, and Ross and Jones are reinforcing Mitchell's efforts to broker an Israeli settlement freeze in exchange for Arab goodwill gestures. The Israelis...
...absence of divine intervention, resolution of the settlement conflict will have to depend on human effort. Itay Zar and Sharon Katz are profoundly unlike each other, but Palestinians revile them equally. To the Arabs, Israeli settlements have sliced and diced up territory that once belonged to them, taking scarce resources like water and requiring special checkpoints that make their daily lives a misery. Down the hillside a few miles from the Katz home, Naim Sarras, 49, a Christian Palestinian farmer, vehemently disputes the claim that Arabs arrived only in the 1970s. He displays a long row of grapevines with thick...