Word: shamir
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Even as tough a character as Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir could have been excused for wavering under the pressure last week. Instead of concentrating its ire on Iraq, the U.S. joined in a United Nations condemnation of Israel, intensifying fears that the gulf crisis may ultimately be linked to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. All the talk of a peace deal in Kuwait sent another shudder through Shamir's government, leading many members to conclude that they may not get to see Baghdad burn after all. To make matters worse, Israeli officials had to watch...
None of that, however, softened Shamir's defiance. He managed to widen the U.S.-Israeli rift by shrugging off a personal letter from President Bush asking him to accept a U.N. investigation of the Temple Mount riot, in which Israeli police killed 20 Palestinians. Bush advised Shamir to get out of the headlines and let the spotlight return to Iraq. When Shamir refused to budge, the U.S. supported a unanimous Security Council resolution "deploring" Israel's intransigence, the second U.N. condemnation of Israel in just 12 days. Keeping up his barrage of harsh talk, Secretary of State James Baker called...
...vote, which was intended both to punish Shamir and to mollify the Arab states aligned with the U.S. against Iraq, offered the strongest indication yet that the gulf crisis may gradually forge a new U.S. approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Frosty stares and stiff messages between Washington and Jerusalem are hardly rarities. But the gulf crisis is fundamentally altering American interests and alliances, strengthening ties to Arab states that will expect more evenhandedness from Washington in return. Officials in Jerusalem and Washington -- one side in fear, the other in hope -- are privately predicting that if Bush prevails against Iraq...
...same province under the control of the Ottoman Turks, they should be rejoined now. For their part, many Likud leaders believe that since the West Bank was ruled by Israelites in biblical times, not one square inch should be traded away as part of an Arab-Israeli settlement. Yitzhak Shamir's talk of "Greater Israel" is as ominous for the prospects of there ever being real and lasting peace in the region as Saddam's militant nostalgia for Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian empire...
...billions of dollars in U.S. weapons pour into Arab arsenals and Israel's role as a strategic ally appears diminished, many in Shamir's government are beginning to suspect that the new order emerging in the Middle East may not be entirely to their liking, even if Saddam is eliminated. Hard-liners are especially concerned that a triumphant U.S. may decide to compensate its Arab allies by pressuring Israel into peace talks with the Palestinians...