Word: plo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...PLO chairman Yasser Arafat's Palestinian National Authority arrested at least 35 suspected Muslim extremists after Israel threatened to halt talks over expanding Palestinian self-rule to the entire Gaza strip. Arafat's move came a day after gunmen from the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, killed an Israeli and wounded six others in drive-by shootings in Gaza. The extremists said Arafat's police were already confiscating weapons from Hamas members, a policy shift that TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer says is unprecedented and risky. While it may show the Israelis that Arafat is serious about peace, Beyer...
...fact, Arafat's death might have led to even worse problems. Feelings of desperation could have intensified the animosity between the Palestinians and Israelis during the stone-throwing Intifada. Sections of the PLO like Hamas, the organization that carried out s several terrorist missions in the waning days of the Intifada, would undoubtedly have scaled up their activities in order to become the dominant force among the Palestinians...
Just as Israeli governments, one after the other, operate as fragile coalitions of politicians with varied interests, so too does the PLO. Without Arafat's presence to hold thing s together, chaos and martial law would have become the order of the day. Despite the protestations of Israel's religious and political right, Arafat must be kept alive and at the head of the PLO at all costs, until a stable state has existed for several years...
However, economic support from contrastingly wealthy Muslim states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait has been scant. Even King Hussein of Jordan, a arguably the PLO's greatest ally in the past ten years, has not made a huge effort to aid the Palestinians. In the case of the prosperous oil states, this lack of assistance should not come as a surprise. Palestinians are the manual laborers, the servants, and in every way the second-class citizens of these kingdoms built on black gold...
Admittedly, Israel and the PLO don't have any oil to offer the superpowers. However, Israel still represents a strategic bankhead in the Middle East and would be have to be preserved in the event of a disintegration of relations. The large Jewish population in the U.S. further ensures that our government will still be concerned with Israel's affairs far into the future...