Word: ramallah
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...tanks rumbled into Ramallah as dawn broke and thunder rolled on Good Friday. Yasser Arafat knew they were coming after him. Barricaded in a windowless two-room office, he could only sit and rant as much of the Israeli force entering Ramallah--100 armored personnel carriers, 60 tanks and 2,500 soldiers--encircled his compound, their gun barrels swinging into position for a vengeful assault. Arafat worked the phones, dialing diplomats around the world, beseeching them for help. Sources inside Arafat's office told TIME that Arafat warned of a bloody battle between his forces and the Israeli army, hoping...
...extent to which Sharon has personalized the showdown means that if Arafat simply manages to survive the siege of Ramallah, he'll proclaim it as vindication of his defiance - an outcome intolerable to Sharon. The Bush administration will also want to avoid appearing to reward Arafat's refusal to act against terrorists, but at the same time it wants to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and broker a cease-fire. That will be extremely difficult to achieve without Arafat's political authority, and that may be why Bush's comments on Arafat sounded like a final warning. Still...
...security chiefs, his Labor Party coalition partners and the Bush administration that ousting the Palestinian leader would exacerbate rather than resolve Israel's security crisis, which has seen 41 people killed in the past week. But on Tuesday the Prime Minister urged that European diplomats fly Arafat out of Ramallah on a one-way ticket - a statement that prompted Secretary of State Colin Powell to insist that Arafat had an important role to play in any peace effort, and he should not be forced into exile. Powell once again urged Arafat to do more against terrorism, and said he expected...
...Some of Israel's military operations in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Jenin also appear to have targeted the Palestinian Authority's own security structures - a number of policemen have been reported killed, and hundreds more arrested...
...hardly surprising, then, that while Israelis are mostly united behind the current operation, a number of commentators across the Israeli political spectrum have demanded that Sharon explain his endgame. Because if the road from Ramallah doesn't lead to a quick resumption of negotiations with Arafat and his Authority, it may well be that there is no road out of Ramallah for quite some time to come...