Word: shamir
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...embarked on a program of "severe and substantial curtailments," greatly improving the chance that Washington will now grant at least part of the $10 billion in loan guarantees Israel has requested to help resettle Russian Jews. The U.S. had pointedly withheld that aid from Rabin's predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, whose government in the past two years built or began construction on 15,000 housing units...
...Middle East but no roiling of American Jewish attitudes, a nonpolicy virtually guaranteed to deliver a normal 30% of the Jewish vote to the G.O.P. But George Bush and Jim Baker were eager to succeed where their predecessors failed, and that meant confrontation -- with U.S. Jews and with Yitzhak Shamir, the intransigent Israeli Prime Minister whose life's mission was retaining the occupied territories. As Bush and Baker fought and beat the Israeli lobby in Washington, they were reviled for encouraging anti-Semitism and were called anti-Semites themselves. They took the heat and prevailed. Today Israel's new government...
...this, the Administration deserves considerable credit. "Shamir was the roadblock, and the loan guarantees were Bush's stick," says Ze'ev Chafets, an Israeli journalist who served as Menachem Begin's spokesman. "Had Bush caved in to American Jewish pressures, Shamir would have been strengthened immeasurably. He would probably still be in power, and we'd still be stalemated...
...electrifying maiden speech to the Knesset was intended to warm the atmosphere with the Palestinians. Differentiating himself from the intransigent Shamir, Rabin set a reasoned and pragmatic tone, inviting the Palestinian negotiators for an informal parley before the next formal session in Rome, in a month or two, and pledging to bargain continuously until agreement is reached. "Rabin believes that the expectations the Israeli public has of him are very high," says Gad Yaacobi, designated to become Israel's next U.N. ambassador. "He would like to fulfill them early on in his term so as not to erode his political...
...transfer of power to an interim government in the territories, then let working groups spell out the specifics. Palestinian negotiators would like this approach, and anticipate that Rabin's basic proposal for autonomy will be, in spokeswoman Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi's words, "much more comprehensive and serious" than Shamir's. But they are looking first for some tangible gestures to set the right tone: a complete brake on settlements and an end to harsh occupation rules...