Suppose for a second that Israel strikes a cease-fire deal with Yasser Arafat. Would the Palestinian Authority president be able to deliver? Arafat himself may not know for sure, as the extent of control he retains over the many military factions he has created or allowed to flourish in his territory is unclear.
In Israel, there is nothing like an attempt at national unity to stir up a national controversy. The latest such controversy is a 10-article document called \”The Kinneret Covenant,\” designed to find common denominators among different segments in Israeli society — religious and secular Jews, Sephardic and Ashkenazic Israelis, right and left.
The flimsiest of cease-fires continued in name only last week, as Israelis absorbed two brutal terror attacks and struck back at the Palestinians Authority.
Israeli officials once again are debating whether Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is losing control over his own people.
Israeli security sources are warily considering the possibility that Hezbollah militants in Lebanon will expand their operations into Israel.
For the first time in the history of the state, Arabs in Israel stood up for a moment of silence — commemorating Al Nakba — Arabic for \”the catastrophe,\” which is what Palestinians call the 1948 creation of the State of Israel.
Israel doesn\’t understand the Palestinians, lamented a former official who has spent years trying to do so, and this is why Israel doesn\’t know how to deal with them.
The speaker was Ami Ayalon, until recently the head of the Shin Bet security service, which fights an ongoing war against Palestinian terrorism.
As the United States and other Western powers try to reduce Israeli-Palestinian tensions, Iran moved this week to fan the flames.
Only in Israel would a government minister refrain from singing the national anthem.
As the violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enters its second month, there is a growing fear that it will escalate and embroil the entire region.