Palestinian gunmen shot dead an Israeli motorist near Ramallah on Monday in what security sources believe may have been the latest attack traceable to Force 17, an elite commando unit that guards PLO chief Yasser Arafat.
Trailing badly going into the final week of the election, the campaign of incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak stooped to new lows, as activists had to be restrained on Tuesday from distributing fake call-up orders for IDF duty meant to scare voters against rival Likud candidate Ariel Sharon.
Following the very sort of zig-zag pattern that has brought him into such disfavor with Israeli voters, Prime Minister Ehud Barak has reversed course and said he is now open to a possible meeting with PLO chief Yasser Arafat before the Israeli election next Tuesday.
There has been a marked increase in Palestinian attacks following the premature break-up of peace talks in Taba on Saturday evening, while the IDF managed to intercept an armed Palestinian squad infiltrating from Lebanon, leaving two terrorists dead.
The week-long Taba peace talks concluded on Saturday with an upbeat assessment from Israeli negotiators – backed up by a joint statement with the Palestinians – that the two sides were “closer than ever” to a final agreement, and just needed a little more time to close the deal.
In a welcome development, the United Kingdom will hold its first-ever Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday, the 56th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz, but the event is not without controversy.
This past weekend, the last open hotel in the town of Nazareth, an important place of Christian pilgrimage, closed its door, a sign of the sagging fortunes of the tourism business in Israel since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada.
In his first official communication with new US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared that handing over the Temple Mount to the Palestinians would be an act of “betrayal.”
In a decision reflecting its left-of-center political bent, Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a series of five petitions asking that resigned Prime Minister Ehud Barak be barred from continuing fateful peace negotiations with the Palestinians in Taba so close to an election.
In a decisive showdown in the Sinai on Monday, key regional and world leaders will goad Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO chief Yasser Arafat to meet face-to-face to discuss terms for ending the lethal Palestinian uprising over the past two weeks. There appears to be little reason for optimism that a truce can be concluded quickly, or that the Oslo peace process can be revived anytime soon.
A new political tempest erupted in Israel after it was learned that representatives of Likud prime ministerial candidate Ariel Sharon secretly met in Vienna on Thursday with a key economic adviser to PLO chief Yasser Arafat, raising the ire of Prime Minister Ehud Barak and even members of Sharon’s own Knesset faction caught off guard by the meeting.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed on Tuesday the Bush Administration will not appoint a new Middle East peace envoy to replace Dennis Ross, signaling that America will play a less active role in the peace process than in the past. US President George W. Bush also plans to begin the “process” of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as promised in the recent campaign.
In the latest instance of Israelis being brutally murdered in Palestinian areas, masked Arab gunmen grabbed two owners of a Tel Aviv restaurant who were shopping in Tulkarm on Tuesday and executed them on the edge of town.
The campaign of front-runner Ariel Sharon hit a few bumps in Israeli high schools in recent days, but among the country’s adult electorate, he still looks on course to survive his opponents scare tactics and complete a remarkable political comeback.
Israel has frozen cooperation with the Mitchell Committee appointed to investigate the causes of the current violence, following an unauthorized visit by the committee’s technical team to the Temple Mount last week.
Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares’ associations with high ranking US Republican officials continue to raise suspicions, especially after a donation of $100,000 was made under his name to the inaugural fund for newly-installed US President George W. Bush.
JERUSALEM, Israel, 11 October 2000 (Newsroom) — With more than 90 deaths and the destruction of synagogues and mosques, observers increasingly are describing the recent strife between Palestinians and Israelis as a religious war.
The unofficial three-way race for prime minister is also a three-way rumor mill, as conspiracy charges swirled in recent days between the rival camps of Labor nominee Ehud Barak, Likud’s Ariel Sharon and virtual candidate Shimon Peres.
In a serious replay of past “archaeological crimes,” the Muslim Waqf on the Temple Mount has once again recklessly dug in areas rich with ancient artifacts, this time on the raised platform around the Dome of the Rock, and Israelis are upset that Prime Minister Ehud Barak refuses to stop it.
Hamas staged a roadside bombing in Gaza on Monday that harkened back to the IDF’s long fight against Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, while the Arab woman believed to be part of a Fatah terrorist cell that lured Jewish teenager Ofir Rahum to his death in an ambush near Ramallah last Wednesday has been captured by Israeli security forces.