Word: truceful
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...others near shops in West Jerusalem, only a day after a similar attack on a bus killed seven. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned the attacks. After Zinni met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and then met Arafat separately, talks resumed, but without resolution. More talks were planned. If a truce is agreed, Arafat may be able to attend the Arab summit in Beirut this week, when a peace plan backed by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states will be discussed...
...outside Jerusalem), U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni continues work to bridge the gap between Israeli and Palestinian versions of a cease-fire plan. It doesn't appear to be getting any narrower. The Palestinians are in no hurry to close a deal - they even called off a new round of truce talks scheduled for Monday night. Yasser Arafat and his aides appear to believe that the U.S. and Ariel Sharon currently need a cease-fire a lot more than he does, and he's going to set a substantial political price on that truce. Palestinian leaders believe the current cease-fire...
...discrepancy highlights the different political requirements of the leaders on each side. A truce is desirable as an end in itself for Sharon, whose popularity has plummeted because of his inability to restore security. But his Palestinian counterparts see little value in a cease-fire for its own sake; its only value to them is as a stepping stone to negotiating Palestinian statehood and Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank and Gaza. Sharon needs to show progress on security; Arafat needs to show progress on ending the occupation...
...There's nothing new in this standoff over truce terms. The Mitchell Report, on which the current U.S. cease-fire efforts are partly based, noted: "Israeli leaders do not wish to be perceived as 'rewarding violence.' Palestinian leaders do not wish to be perceived as 'rewarding occupation.' Nevertheless, if the cycle of violence is to be broken and the search for peace resumed, there needs to be a new bilateral relationship incorporating both security cooperation and negotiations...
...been focused in the West Bank and Gaza and carried out by Fatah militants, have created a major domestic political crisis for Sharon. The Israeli leader is under mounting pressure from his right flank to take more decisive military action against the Palestinian Authority. Whether through escalation or a truce, Sharon needs desperately to calm the situation. So does the Bush administration, which has belatedly discovered the extent to which Israeli-Palestinian violence prevents Arab allies from supporting a war to unseat Saddam Hussein. Arafat will have seen, over the past two weeks, how the wider U.S. agenda created pressure...