Word: plo
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...political credentials weren't based only on his family background. He was jailed by the Israelis several times, and that earned him tremendous respect among Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank. He was not a leader who fought the battle from Tunis (headquarters of Yasser Arafat and the PLO until the Oslo Accord allowed them to return to Ramallah and Gaza). He remained behind and expressed his national feeling on the ground, and went to jail for it. And one of the more important things about his legacy, also, was that his name was never mentioned in connection with...
...generation of Palestinians who waged the first intifada from 1987 into the early 1990s had watched with considerable skepticism as Arafat brought the PLO exile apparatus back from Tunis, installed them as the pashas of the West Bank and Gaza towns handed over to him under Oslo, and promised to negotiate away the Israeli occupation and in its place put a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. By last year, the peace process had delivered precious little of what Arafat had promised his people it would bring. And as he approached his moment of truth at Camp David...
...administration has been holding back on an invitation as a means of pressuring the Palestinian leader to rein in militants operating from his territory. But the Bush administration remained equally cold to Peres's suggestion that it declare Arafat's Fatah movement a terrorist organization, thereby forcing the PLO to close its diplomatic offices in Washington and cutting off funds raised...
...Other elements of the Oslo accord designed to build trust were also ignored. The original PLO charter calling for the destruction of the State of Israel was never amended in writing. Terrorists who were required to be arrested and disarmed by the PA, have instead actually partnered with them in recent months. New Palestinian textbooks for grade school children released last September, which were supposed to reverse the cycle of hate, are designed to ensure its continuance. Unlike Israel's revised history curriculum that now examines portions of the recent past through Palestinian eyes, the books issued...
...which creates additional pressure on Arafat not to compromise on this issue. The growing challenge to the Palestinian leader's authority in the West Bank and Gaza also militates against compromise; Arafat is well aware that signing away the refugees' claims would all but invite them to reconstitute the PLO in exile with the backing of more hostile states such as Iraq, Syria and Libya, and to further challenge Arafat?s authority in his own backyard. And after three months of bloodletting, the Palestinian leader knows such challengers may find a receptive audience. All of which militates against him accepting...