Word: shimon
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...Rees: It depends on what you mean by a settlement freeze. A majority may be prepared to say no new settlements, but even Shimon Peres and the Labor Party are saying there should be natural expansion of existing settlements. So if you took a poll on whether there should be no further construction at all in existing settlements, it's unlikely that a majority would support that. The Israelis are looking for a Peres-style sleight of hand that allows them to tell the Americans and Palestinians that there's some form of settlement freeze while telling Israelis, particularly...
...Gaza City, which wounded 20 Palestinians. But Sharon is caught between his hard-line constituents' demands to raise an iron hand against the Palestinians and the outside world's pleas to pursue a diplomatic solution. Even as fresh blood soaked the soil of the disputed land, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was in Europe searching for a formula that could bring the enemies back to the negotiating table...
...when his plans go wrong. He used to blame those above him, like former Prime Minister Menahem Begin. Now that he's in power, he has people below him to blame. Ben Eliezer takes part of the heat on defense issues, diplomatic setbacks can be blamed on foreign minister Shimon Peres...
...prelude to talks. While Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, longtime champion of the settlement movement, rejects the idea of acceding to a settlement freeze, his government has moved to find a compromise. Initially, they suggested settlement expansion would be confined to "natural growth" of existing settlements; now Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has added the rider that no further Palestinian land would be seized and that any construction activity would occur within the boundaries of existing settlements. Even though Palestinian spokesmen rejected the Israeli compromise as "deceitful," the question of terms for a cease-fire is clearly now in play...
...Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is currently trying to find a way around that by saying Israel won't build new settlements, just build more structures within the borders of existing settlements. But the thing Palestinians don't trust about the Israeli idea of "natural growth" of these settlements is that it has often meant expanding a settlement's territory from one hill to the next. And when that happens, for the Palestinians that's another hill lost, and another set of valleys around that hill subject to all kinds of restrictions. So for the Palestinians, "natural growth...