Word: rabins
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...symbolism surrounding Bill Clinton's witness-for-peace visit to the Middle East was almost too perfect. At the desert border crossing where he met Jordan's King Hussein and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to co-sign their treaty of friendship, the table was set up on an asphalt strip in the middle of a minefield. An area had been paved and fenced in specifically for the ceremony. "Walk 15 yards beyond that barbed wire," a U.S. Secret Service agent warned onlookers, "and you won't be coming back...
...trip began joyously with the moving ceremony formalizing peace between Israel and Jordan. Hussein and Rabin were notably warm to each other and to Clinton, and their heartfelt words bespoke an authentic friendship and respect. That heady afternoon built expectations of more good news; Israel especially hoped the President could find a way to speed up its glacial negotiations over the Golan Heights. But Clinton immediately ran up against Syria's President Hafez Assad...
...give the stalled negotiations a push forward. After his four hours of talks, Clinton claimed he had done that -- at least in private. "We've made some progress today," he said, "the details of which I'm not at liberty to discuss." Though evidence of such progress was scant, Rabin politely agreed there was some. Syrians and Israelis alike told Clinton they wanted peace and would work to achieve it. That was slightly promising and probably about the best Clinton could have hoped for his first time around...
...told Clinton, he said, that Syria was ready to establish "peaceful, normal relations with Israel in return for Israel's full withdrawal from the Golan," as spelled out in several U.N. Security Council resolutions. That sounds like a simple swap, but Israel has not agreed to withdraw completely. Rabin wants to pull back in stages over several years, testing in the process whether Syria's idea of peace includes diplomatic relations, open borders, free trade and tourism...
...Rabin, who has been at this task for so many years, summed it up best: "This is the essence of the peacemaking process. Be patient." That advice certainly applies to the U.S. as well. Assad looks on the peace process partly as a way to improve his relations with Washington and insists he will negotiate with Israel only through the U.S. The Israelis, though stirred by Clinton's vow to "stand with you now and always," would prefer direct talks. In their absence, Israel welcomes the U.S. as middleman. "There is," Clinton said aboard Air Force One, "a very high...