Word: shamir
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...latest attempt at unity is faltering after seven months, as the country's two major parties bump heads over the future course of a peace plan that calls for elections in the occupied territories. Bowing to pressures from hard-liners within his Likud bloc, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir two weeks ago saddled the proposal with conditions that are anathema to the Palestinians. Labor Party leaders responded last week by voting to quit the government. The move, yet to be ratified by the party's 1,300-member Central Committee, threatens not only to wreck the coalition but also to kill...
Arguing that the basic proposal was still intact, Shamir called Labor's impending withdrawal "misguided." Labor leader Shimon Peres countered that "there is no reason to remain in the government," but invited Shamir to "retract" the appended conditions, which include barring East Jerusalem's 140,000 Palestinian residents from participating in the elections. The Bush Administration signaled its irritation by reviving talk of an international peace conference, an option repellent to Shamir. In a New York Times interview, Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called the Likud stipulations a "deadly blow," but he did not torpedo the plan...
...Shamir tried unconvincingly to put a positive gloss on events. "These matters contain nothing new," he said of the amendments. "We did not alter one iota of the peace initiative." Yet Shamir's labored efforts at spin control could neither disguise the fact that he had sacrificed his fledgling peace plan to his own political survival nor hide the painful truth that as long as that is his primary aim, Shamir will be vulnerable to right-wing pressure...
...shattered diplomacy and a growing domestic political crisis were swiftly overshadowed by the violence endemic to the divided Holy Land. Only 18 hours after Shamir's announcement, an Arab fundamentalist from Gaza whose family had been wounded by Israeli soldiers grabbed the wheel of an Israeli bus as it traveled along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. Shouting "Allah Akbar!" (("God is great!")), he sent the bus hurtling down a 495-ft. ravine. The fiery plunge killed 14 people and wounded an additional 27. It was the worst single attack against Israelis since the start of the uprising. "This...
...outrage mounted, Israelis seemed all but to forget their political woes. The violent act sent a chilling reminder to all that the road to peace is mined with dangers -- and for the moment provided Shamir with a temporary respite from the fallout of his political pusillanimity...