Word: yasser
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...Monday in an urgent effort to arrange a cease-fire, and Israel's military withdrawal overnight from recently reoccupied Palestinian areas suggested the mission was making progress. But while the U.S. and Israel might be content with simply avoiding a repeat of the bloodbath of the past two weeks, Yasser Arafat needs more - a resumption of fast-track negotiations for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. And unlikely as it may have seemed a month ago, Arafat now holds the strategic cards...
...produced what could prove to be a corrective shock. After refusing for months to venture into the unpromising business of trucemaking, the Bush Administration said it would send special Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni to the region for just that purpose. Bowing to a crucial Israeli demand, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had his forces arrest the fifth and final suspect in the October killing of an Israeli Cabinet minister. And Sharon made his own concession. He did not take back his threat to "batter" the Palestinians--though he claimed to have meant not Palestinians generally but terrorists--but he said...
That grating sound echoing across the Middle East this week is the noise of U.S. Mideast policy being slammed out of reverse and into first gear. Having spent most of the past three months with its arms folded, blaming Israeli-Palestinian violence almost entirely on Yasser Arafat and sparing Ariel Sharon even pro-forma calls for restraint, the Bush administration has lately been scrambling to reinvent itself as an even-handed activist mediator. The President on Wednesday castigated Sharon's tactics, sponsored a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a Palestinian state and sent Marine General Anthony Zinni back...
...week for help in the fight against Saddam Hussein. Raising the ante ahead of Zinni's visit allows Sharon to paint the inevitable retreat from Palestinian areas recently reoccupied as a concession. More important, the Israelis believe - with good reason - that no matter what cease-fire agreement is reached, Yasser Arafat will be unable or unwilling to take down Hamas and Islamic Jihad, much less to disarm the militias linked to his own Fatah movement. The Israelis may be trying to get as much of the job done themselves before Washington requires a tamping down of hostilities...
...part, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat publicly supported Abdullah, though a senior official of the Palestinian Authority says that privately Arafat worries that the Saudi initiative is just meaningless talk. The consensus within the Authority, this source notes, is that Abdullah was less interested in helping the Palestinians than in improving Saudi Arabia's image...