Word: ramallah
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MIDDLE EAST Arafat Emerges, Defiant, amid the Rubble Israel lifted its siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, but tensions remained high outside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. Playing down the damage to his compound, Arafat angrily denounced the Israelis for a "big crime" against a "sacred place" after fighting and fire broke out at the church, where Israel was demanding the surrender of dozens of Palestinian fighters. He also condemned Israel's assault on the Jenin refugee camp, the deaths of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and infrastructure damage. The Palestinian leader later toured Ramallah...
With Yasser Arafat re-leased from his month-long confinement in Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set to visit Washington for talks this week with President Bush, the Middle East crisis is on the verge of a new round of diplomatic struggle. Israeli officials tell Time that Sharon, hoping to pre-empt U.S. and Saudi initiatives, will make a new concession on Palestinian statehood, conditioned on "serious, concrete and continued steps against terrorism" by Arafat. Israeli officials say the concession will involve a new map for a potential Palestinian state. U.S. officials say they won't know...
...part, Arafat is enjoying the freedom he gained when the Israelis ended their siege of his Ramallah compound. His supporters are enjoying it too. In Bethlehem, where Palestinian gunmen, civilian officials and priests at the Church of the Nativity have been under siege almost as long as Arafat, gunmen in the church thought Arafat's freedom would lead to their own release and started firing their rifles into the air in glee, sources inside the church tell Time. Israeli soldiers outside thought the shooting was directed at them and launched flares, which set fire to the roof of the church...
...reject any prospect of Palestinian sovereignty between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean - in other words, to essentially rule out a political settlement. At a moment when President Bush needs Sharon to offer the Palestinians more than he ever has done, he's already under fire for the Ramallah deal and his very political survival may require recalcitrance...
...waters right now. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has scrapped the mission in the face of Israel's refusal to accept its terms. But some Israeli officials claim President Bush offered Sharon support in its dealings with the U.N. over Jenin as an incentive to lift the siege of Ramallah. Israeli officials fear that the Security Council may now call for a more far-reaching inquiry, which could leave the U.S. in a delicate diplomatic situation. It certainly won't help Washington's international standing to use its veto against a resolution designed to enforce a fact-finding mission initiated...