Word: squelch
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...greet Ronald McDonald when he moves to town. Many see the corporate juggernaut as a symbol of American economic and cultural chauvinism, and European nations in particular have viewed American-style fast food as an insult to their cherished national cuisines. Bermuda banned all fast-food restaurants to squelch a McDonald's planned for the island. A French farmer, Jose Bove, became something of a national hero in 1999 after he and a band of activists destroyed a McDonald's under construction to protest globalization and "bad food." The next year, a bomb detonated in a French McDonald's, killing...
...Palestinian side, furor over the report battered the already weak government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, after he initially heeded pressure from the U.S. to squelch U.N. discussion of the report. The Obama Administration was mindful of Israel's concerns and reluctant to allow the Goldstone probe to distract from its efforts to restart the peace process. Under a firestorm of criticism, not least from within his own Fatah party, Abbas reversed himself and pressed for U.N. discussion of Goldstone. (See pictures of the 2009 conflict in Gaza...
...waiting for Obama to deliver on those expectations. And they have been disappointed by the President's backing down from the demand that Israeli halt all settlement activity on territory conquered in 1967. That disappointment was compounded last week when Washington leaned on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to squelch efforts to get the Security Council to act on a U.N. report that accused Israel (and Hamas) of committing war crimes during January's fighting in Gaza. Indeed, Israel is openly resisting Obama's efforts to restart final-status peace talks on the key conflict issues, such as the borders...
...from the U.S. and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly warned that his government would not negotiate peace if the Goldstone findings were pursued, insisting that they undermined Israel's "right to defend itself." Some accounts in the region suggested that Washington had prevailed on Abbas to squelch the U.N. probe; others alleged that Abbas had been blackmailed into doing so by Israelis who threatened to release tapes that purportedly show senior Palestinian Authority figures enthusiastically backing the Israeli operation in Gaza, in the hopes that it would "finish Hamas." (Israeli officials dispute that suggestion.) What is clear...
...unless Administration background checkers failed to find what they needed to know about Sotomayor's history, those spoiling for a battle are not going to get one. Most Republicans will squelch their first instinct to go to the mattresses and instead follow the President's pathway: avoid a fight...