Word: settlements
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...unclear who first invented the toilet. Early contenders for the honor are the Scots and the Greeks. Skara Brae, a Neolithic settlement on the Scottish mainland dating back to 3,000 B.C., features stone huts equipped with drains extending from recesses in their walls - a feature that historians believe were for residents' bathroom needs. The Palace of Knossos on Crete, built around 1,700 B.C., features definite latrines: large, earthenware pans connected to a water supply that ran through terra-cotta pipes. Europeans had nothing of comparable sophistication until well into the 16th century...
...crisis for the Palestinian security forces could come a lot sooner than Dayton's two-year deadline if Abbas steps down. Abbas is threatening to walk because he says Israel is not serious about achieving a two-state solution, citing as Exhibit A its refusal to halt all settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But his departure could cause the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. As chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat explained, Abbas "sees no state coming ... so he really doesn't think there is a need to be President or have an Authority. This...
...raising expectations, the Administration has unfortunately weakened President Abbas," says Elliott Abrams, who coordinated Middle East policy at the National Security Council for President George W. Bush. "They drew him out onto a limb by demanding that Israel observe a 100% settlement freeze, and then retreated from that limb themselves, leaving him out there." (See pictures of life in the settlements...
...Abrams and other Middle East hands believe that no Israeli leader could have accepted the settlement-freeze demand, which Obama also made a centerpiece of his outreach to the Muslim world in his Cairo speech last April. Accepting Washington's demand would have brought down Netanyahu's government, says Abrams. Nor were the Arabs ready to reach out to Israel. "[The Administration] made it worse by not having a very good learning curve," says Abrams. "It was already clear last spring that Netanyahu was not going to accept the settlement freeze, and in June, when Obama visited Saudi Arabia...
...Levy, an Israeli peace negotiator at Camp David now based at Washington's New America Foundation, says the reason the Obama Administration fared badly is that the underlying assumptions of the peace process are no longer valid. "The political factors that make it impossible for Netanyahu to accept the settlement freeze also make it highly unlikely that he could conclude a deal acceptable to the Palestinians," says Levy. "And the reasons for Abbas not being able to negotiate without conditions underscore just how limited his own room for maneuver and compromise has become. The Oslo Accords expired 10 years...