Word: yasser
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Left. The formal agreements may be between Israel and Abbas, but Abbas has little independent political authority and has, instead, operated as an intermediary between the Israelis and Americans on the one hand, and on the other hand those Palestinians to whom they refuse to speak directly - PA president Yasser Arafat, Fatah militia leader Marwan Barghouti (currently on trial in Tel Aviv on terror charges), and the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Abbas and Dahlan pointedly refused to accept security responsibility in Gaza without the consent of the militants - in the form of a hudna, the Islamic term...
...Egyptian intelligence, Omar Suleiman, who dispatched assistants to the Gaza Strip to push the terrorist group into talks on a cease-fire with Israel. But those talks are dragging on, and Abbas continues to have his own problems. Last week his security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, met with Abbas' rival Yasser Arafat, a senior Palestinian official tells TIME, and assured him that "I am loyal to you. I am willing to implement your orders." Dahlan seems to be playing both sides of the Abbas-Arafat feud to protect his interests. It's another sign that Abbas' hold on power is weak...
Silvio Berlusconi likes to think big. At an emergency European Union meeting last year, held to draw up a response to Israel's siege of Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound, the Italian Prime Minister had other things on his mind. "I have a solution to the vision of Europe," said Berlusconi, who had just returned from Moscow after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We must make Russia a member of the E.U." The foreign ministers in the room were flabbergasted, according to a diplomat who was there, not only because Berlusconi was ignoring the issue at hand, but because...
...little more than the roadmap and the support of Israel and the U.S., he's unlikely to win a Palestinian civil war. Abbas has almost no independent political base, and his ability to deliver depends to a considerable degree on the extent to which he is able to win Yasser Arafat's backing - that may be the chief reason European and Arab diplomats have continued meeting with Arafat to win his support for implementing the "roadmap" despite Washington's official policy of ignoring the PA leader. And while U.S. officials have so far avoided a face-to-face meeting...
...impressed Sharon even before he became Prime Minister. To kill Hamas operatives, Dichter had his agents hide explosives in telephone booths and car-seat headrests; he pushed them to cut planning time for operations from months to mere hours. Dichter and Sharon share the same view of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat: he is useless as a partner to Israel. The Shin Bet chief recently recalled a meeting with Arafat in 1996, amid an earlier Hamas bombing campaign. Arafat asked Dichter how he could improve the situation. Dichter, who is fluent in Arabic, replied that Arafat should arrest Mohammed Deif, then...