Word: palestinians
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have been set off by age-old hatreds between Israel and its Arab enemies, what we're seeing today is not simply a replay of hackneyed set pieces in the Middle East. With new governments in place in the three key nodes of the crisis--Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority--and fighters within the radical Islamist groups--Hamas and Hizballah--eager to assert their agendas, the region is going through a period of dramatic and in some ways radical change. The volatility has added new fuel to the motivations and ambitions that have defined why they fight. And that...
...understand why the Arab militants of Hamas and Hizballah are picking a fight with Israel now, you might start with an election. In January, Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, won the Palestinian general vote. The Hamas political leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, who fashions himself a relative moderate, became Prime Minister, and set about trying to prove Hamas could govern. Boycotted financially and politically by the U.S. and the E.U., Haniya in late June hammered out an agreement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on a unified platform that would implicitly recognize Israel if it would withdraw...
Hizballah too hopes to profit from aggression. Israel holds only three Lebanese prisoners, but the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, grandly noted that he also was making the release of Palestinian detainees a condition for freeing his Israeli captives, which would bring him and his group glory, both in the Arab world and Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps. And following the abduction with a rain of rockets on Israeli towns and villages may have bolstered the group's ability to intimidate Lebanon's government and force it to ignore the U.N. Security Council's demands that Hizballah's fighters...
...provoked by the hostage taking, Olmert's government is also trying to settle other scores. Palestinian militants have been regularly firing homemade Qassam rockets, a Hamas specialty, into Israel from Gaza--some 200 in June and 100 so far in July. Hizballah has occasionally also lobbed rockets across the border since the Israeli pullout. And Israel has watched in dismay as Hizballah has built border fortifications, sometimes 30 feet from Israeli outposts and stockpiled with what Israel estimates to be 13,000 rockets, including upgraded ones that can reach at least as far as the cities of Haifa and Tiberias...
...against the radicals when their actions prompted Israeli reprisals that punished the population. Now, though, Gazans place the blame for scores of deaths and deteriorating conditions squarely on Israel. Their anger and the prospect of an eventual prisoner exchange are strengthening the militants, which will make it harder for Palestinian Prime Minister Haniya to defend his agreement with Abbas if the current siege ends...