Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Stavolta si merita il Nobel

Molte cose si muovono, finalmente.
E se stavolta Yasser Arafat meritasse davvero il Nobel per la pace,
stavolta per essere uscito di scena?
Tb
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=511377&contra
ssID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Last Update: 08/12/2004 23:11
 Background/ New Mideast or mirage: Did Arafat die for peace?
 
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
The grim wisecrack percolating in Israel holds that Peace Prize laureate
Yasser Arafat now deserves a second Nobel at least as much as he did the
first - this time, for having died.
 The observation, it appears, stems only in part from antipathy to the
Palestinian leader. What has given it particular currency is a sudden
momentum toward diplomacy, in a flurry of developments that, until the
Palestinian leaders' death last month, seemed near-impossibilities.
It remains entirely unclear whether the phenomenon points to a New
Middle East or to the next in a long parade of mirages.
But if, after years of glacial diplomacy, the mere appearance of
movement can be construed as event, a late Tuesday report by Egypt's
official Middle East News Agency stood out as a landmark, even in a week
of shocking reversals.
According to MENA, "High-level sources confirmed an important
understanding -- reaching the point of an agreement in principle -- has
been completed between Egypt, Israel, the Palestinians and several
active international parties, America and Europe, regarding a
comprehensive settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle."
The report highlighted contacts toward a bilateral cease-fire, stirring
immediate buzz among surprised Israelis and Palestinians. 
 Official down-plays from Jerusalem and Ramallah were not long in
coming, but were followed almost immediately by a new ray of hope.
"There are a few correct elements, but it's a little premature to say
there's an agreement," remarked a senior official in the Prime Minister
Office. 
He added that Israel "will respond positively if on the other side there
will be arrangements for a cease-fire, a cessation of hostilities."
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Wednesday that the two
sides had reached an agreement to hold elections for a successor to the
late PA chairman using the same procedures that were in place for the
last Palestinian ballot.
"We received assurances that the elections of the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza Strip will take place as they did in 1996," Erekat
said. "I am satisfied with that. I am happy."
Also on Wednesday, a spokesman from the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Israel
Tikochinsky, this week appeared on Egyptian television for the first
time in years.
A week of the unexpected
The report capped a week of developments which, having defied
prediction, proceeded to defy belief.
Last Thursday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shocked Israel and much
of the Arab world by telling Palestinians that Ariel Sharon was their
best chance for peace.
If the Palestinians "can't achieve progress in the time of the current
prime minister, it will be very difficult to make any progress in
peace," Mubarak said in a reference Sharon, whom he had long seemed to
dismiss as a hawkish impediment to diplomatic progress.
Soon thereafter, Syrian President Bashar Assad reversed more than a
decade of cold war with the Palestinians, inviting the triumvirate of
top Palestinian officials to historic talks in Damascus.
It was the first such summit since Arafat enraged Assad's father and
predecessor Hafez, when the Palestinian leader signed the 1993 Oslo
accord with Israel. 
Egypt also took a major step, releasing Israeli Druze Azzam Azzam on
Sunday, more than eight years after jailing him on espionage charges.
A moderation of tone
The new tone was also evident in comments by a number of central figures
on the Israeli-Palestinian divide.
"For our part, we are making a beginning, we have turned a new leaf, we
are trying to do our part in this process," Palestinian West Bank
security chief Jibril Rajoub said this week, in a rare appearance on
Israel's state-owned national radio.
Rajoub turned aside an interviewer's question regarding a connection
between the death of Arafat and the change in atmosphere, especially
with respect to Egyptian involvement in as an ardent mediator between
Israel and the Palestinians.
"Let's just say that there is an opportunity," Rajoub said in the
knowing Hebrew he learned while jailed by Israel. "It's not important
what happened here and what happened there.
"There is now a chance, there is now an opportunity, there are now
changes among everyone. I hope that the good people, the peace camps
both on the Israeli and Palestinian sides, will understand that a new
situation exists, and that it prevails everywhere."
In Israel, particularly in the core crucible of Sharon's Likud, there
was a groundswell of sentiment allowing that Arafat's death had created
circumstances conducive to rethinking, and new initiatives between the
sides.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was expansive on the role of the
Egyptians, who in the coming months are to train Palestinian security
forces in an effort to restore calm to the territories. 
Shalom said that Israel has been coordinating the disengagement -
originally touted as a unilateral step - with Cairo for the last 12
months.
"Over the past year, the Egyptians not only turned into a much more
dominant factor than they were before Saddam Hussein's leave-taking, but
a much more positive factor than they were.
"This strategic change in Egypt may reflect itself in other nations of
the Arab world, which until now had refrained from developing relations
with Israel, in part because of Saddam Hussein, in part because of the
cold-shoulder that Egypt showed Israel heretofore."
Egypt has further signaled that it may soon return its ambassador to Tel
Aviv, years after recalling the envoy as a gesture of protest over
Israeli military policies in the Intifada.
The step could lead a number of Arab states in North Africa and the Gulf
to restore and boost relations with Israel, Shalom said, suggesting that
at some point in the future, diplomatic relations with a democratic Iraq
were a distinct possibility.
Optimism, amid a fragile calm
A deadly Hamas bomb and rifle ambush of an IDF patrol in the Gaza Strip
Tuesday underscored the fragility of the relative calm that has thus far
obtained in the post-Arafat era.
Analysts have also cautioned that as soon as real negotiations begin,
the issues could prove harder to resolve than ever before.
For the present, however, the period has been characterized by a
newfound optimism in Israel. 
A Peace Index poll released on Tuesday found that following the death of
Arafat, some 70% of Israelis public is more optimistic about the chances
of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
There has also been an increase in the number of Israelis who support
talks toward such an accord, from two-thirds to three-fourths.
Perhaps most significantly, among Likud voters the parallel rise in
support for peace talks has been even more striking, from 60 percent to
a current 75 percent. 
-- 
Alcuni di noi hanno storie di merda che fanno male. 
(il primo kiwi con tastiera incorporata)

 stavolta per essere uscito di scena?
ahahahahaahha illuso Mubarak è un morto che cammina e con lui tutta la
leadership araba dalla Siria alla Giordania... il futuro è al qaeda

 leadership araba dalla Siria alla Giordania... il futuro è al qaeda
Da quale galera esci? Forse non ti facevano leggere i giornali? Ma ora 
lo puoi fare. Leggerti anche gli articoli postati oggi nel NG...
Am.

 stavolta per essere uscito di scena?
No comment.
Namib

 wrote:

Non ti piace la ripetizione? Hai ragione: cattivo editing.
E se stavolta Yasser Arafat meritasse davvero il Nobel per la pace, ma
per essere uscito di scena?
Tb
(crederai mica che arafat fosse un fattore di pace, vero? saresti più o
meno l'unico, anche nel campo filopastinese)
Non posso che riconsigliare l'interessantissima analisi di Haaretz:
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=511377&contra
ssID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y


 (il primo kiwi con tastiera incorporata)
Toni? Beccati 'sta vignetta:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1349582,00.html
Am.