Word: westing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Throughout this period West Germany's allies paid facile allegiance to the goal of reunification, treating with abandon the fact that this simple dream involved some nightmarish complexities. It was an easy wish to proclaim, since it did not seem that the gods would ever grant it. Now, amid the widespread Western joy over last week's freedom dance at the Brandenburg Gate, comes a more sobering realization: the postwar division of both Germany and Europe seems to be tumbling toward the ash heap of history faster than preparations are being made for whatever new order might arise...
...foundation of the old European order was the formal creation of two Germanys in 1949 and the decision by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer a few years later to tether West Germany to the Atlantic Alliance. For the Soviet Union, which subjugated East Germany as a satellite and buffer, this meant that any war with the West would occur on German rather than Russian soil. For the other Europeans, it meant a respite from the problem of German militarism. For the U.S., it made possible the creation of a strong NATO alliance to lead the struggle for containing the Soviets...
Enshrined in the constitution that established West Germany was the goal of reunification, but even conservative leaders there were privately saying as recently as six months ago that this was a theoretical aim, not an immediate one. In January East German leader Erich Honecker said he could envision the 100-mile barbed barrier around West Berlin that was the grotesque symbol of ) Germany's division remaining in place for another century. Few would have challenged that prediction...
Jordan's new Parliament is the first to reflect Hussein's decision last year to sever the country's administrative and legal links to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Half the members of the previous Parliament had theoretically represented the West Bank; all members of the new Parliament are residents of the East Bank...
Hussein's change of policy posed a dilemma for Jordanians of Palestinian origin. Most of them wanted to vote, but by doing so some feared they might be adding fuel to the argument of right-wing Israelis that Jordan, rather than the West Bank, should be viewed as the true Palestinian homeland...