Palestinian Territories

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Yitzhak Rabin described yesterday his plans for a new era in relations with the Palestinians who have lived under Israeli control for 25 years.He said he supports general elections in the occupied territories, and he promised to reach an agreement within one year "to let Palestinians run all of their daily activities."That would be a marked change in government policies that now keep severe authoritarian controls over almost every aspect of the lives of 1.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

HEBRON, West Bank -- Yehuda Shaul stopped abruptly in the middle of a litter-strewn park in this West Bank city to point to a Palestinian school that he and other members of the Israeli army once commandeered so they could shoot at Palestinian gunmen. Shaul operated a grenade machine gun, a lethal though highly inaccurate weapon. "Anything hit within a radius of 8 meters is killed. Anybody within 16 meters will be injured," he said. "When I first learned of my mission, I freaked out." But the young soldier did as he was told, firing as many 100 rounds per night into a crush of Palestinian homes, not knowing whom he might have wounded or killed.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- To look a cancer patient in the eyes and tell her, `I am out of medicine' - this is the most difficult thing I have ever done as a physician," Dr. Isa Janina, medical director of the Palestinian Government Hospital in Bethlehem, told me. "Because both she and I know that this means she will die." Yet, for more than six months, physicians all over the West Bank and Gaza have been saying these words to their patients. The Palestinian health care system is in a crisis that is deepening daily, a crisis that is undermining not only patients' well-being but also U.S. interests in the region.

MASKIOT, West Bank -- It took thousands of Israeli soldiers and police armed with riot gear and bulldozers to pull Yosi Hazut and hundreds of his neighbors from their hard-line Jewish settlement of Shirat Hayam during Israel's tumultuous and expensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Now Hazut and other former Gaza settlers want to build again in the Palestinian territories. This time they plan to construct a settlement in the cinnamon- colored hills of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.

ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon may think it's not in his interest to withdraw Israeli tanks and troops from the major Palestinian cities of the West Bank. And he may feel emboldened by several factors: He has the support of his citizens, Israel's influential friends in Congress are speaking out on its behalf, and Wednesday's suicide bombing in Israel's north reinforced his reasons for his war on terror. Even President Bush's spokesman seemed to give Mr. Sharon a pass yesterday on complying with the president's insistence that Israel withdraw "without delay" from the Palestinian territories.

THE RELATIVE calm that has pervaded Israel and the Palestinian territories this summer masked an undercurrent of violence. The 90-day cease-fire adopted by the Palestinian militant groups of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in June included a caveat: Any attack by the Israeli military would be returned. Although it benefited greatly from the cessation of violence, Israel considered the cease-fire an agreement between the militants and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

UNITED NATIONS -- After weeks of negotiation, the United States joined other members of the United Nations Security Council yesterday in adopting a resolution that called the occupied West Bank "Palestinian territories" and criticized Israel for its recent deportation of four Palestinians.The new council resolution and a statement made by Yemen's chief delegate, Abdallah Saleh al-Ashtal, in his turn as president of the council also included several features that drew an immediate, heated response from Israel.

JERUSALEM -- Two Israeli newspapers published details yesterday of what they said was a U.S. plan that would restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.Neither U.S. nor Israeli officials would confirm the authenticity of the reported plan, but they did say an agreement could be reached in days.The plan, as reported by Haaretz and Maariv, retains the withdrawal from 13 percent of the land on the West Bank that the Palestinians and the Clinton administration have insisted on as a minimum for a resumption of talks.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- With President Clinton standing among them, the Palestinian leaders voted yesterday to reaffirm the revocation of clauses in their charter that called for Israel's destruction, a move aimed at restoring the Middle East peace process.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who conditioned further progress in the peace process on the vote by the Palestinians, said he was satisfied with the action.Clinton, Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were to hold a summit today at the Gaza-Israel border, to consolidate the events of the president's three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas is taking his job seriously -- believe it. He's shown that by forging the beginnings of a cease-fire agreement with the Islamic militant group Hamas, deploying Palestinian security forces in parts of Gaza and, most remarkably, demolishing illegal houses in Gaza City. The latter is a first for a Palestinian leader. Israel is responding just as seriously: It has taken the extraordinary step of ceasing its targeted assassinations of militants. If each side upholds its commitments, a real shift in Israeli-Palestinian relations may be under way. And what welcome news that would be, after four years of diplomatic silence and a barrage of suicide bombings, mortar attacks and army reprisals.

Any cessation of violence between Israel and the Palestinian territories is worth applauding because of the lives saved. But what would make the present cease-fire different from the rest would be serious talks between the two governments and substantive changes in the daily lives of their people. Two things come immediately to mind: stopping the daily rocket attacks from northern Gaza into Israel and restoring funds to the Palestinian Authority so it can pay its workers and ease the economic deprivation of many Palestinians.

WASHINGTON -- When elections lifted reformers to power in Lebanon early last year, Bush administration officials hailed it as a showcase example of the "Arab spring" that they saw sweeping through the region. Now, with the Lebanese government teetering on the verge of collapse, U.S. officials are braced for another - and, some say, final - blow to the administration's campaign for its vision of reform in the Middle East. The assassination Tuesday of Pierre Gemayel, a Cabinet minister and scion of one of the countries' leading Maronite Christian families, has renewed fears of civil war and raised suspicion that Syria is again asserting itself in the affairs of its restive neighbor.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- To look a cancer patient in the eyes and tell her, `I am out of medicine' - this is the most difficult thing I have ever done as a physician," Dr. Isa Janina, medical director of the Palestinian Government Hospital in Bethlehem, told me. "Because both she and I know that this means she will die." Yet, for more than six months, physicians all over the West Bank and Gaza have been saying these words to their patients. The Palestinian health care system is in a crisis that is deepening daily, a crisis that is undermining not only patients' well-being but also U.S. interests in the region.

THere isn't enough anesthetic to support surgical needs. Health care workers haven't been paid in two months. Relatives of the sick threaten hospital staff with guns in a desperate bid for care. This isn't a scene from Iraq. It's what's happening at the Palestinian-run hospital in Gaza City, as described recently by The Sun's John Murphy. Conditions at Shifa Hospital and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories have deteriorated to such an extent that the U.S. has been compelled to ease its ban on aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

When Palestinians go to the polls tomorrow, their strong inclination may be to reject parliamentary candidates from the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority. They have plenty of reasons to vote against Fatah and its members: The party has presided over an inept, corruption-plagued government that has not delivered on basic services or a Palestinian state. But Palestinians have to realize that a vote for Fatah's main opposition, the Islamic militant group, Hamas, may address immediate concerns at the expense of long-term goals: freedom from occupation and the establishment of their own country.

JERUSALEM -- After months of fruitless negotiations, Israel and the Palestinian Authority reached a landmark agreement yesterday that promises to vastly improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians, opening the Gaza Strip to the outside world and allowing for freer movement of goods and people in and out of the Palestinian territories. The accord marks a significant breakthrough between the two parties, which have been at odds over Gaza's future since Israel's withdrawal of its forces and settlements two months ago. Worried about an influx of arms and militants, Israel had been reluctant to surrender its control over the comings and goings of the territory's 1.3 million people and the products they buy and sell.

THere isn't enough anesthetic to support surgical needs. Health care workers haven't been paid in two months. Relatives of the sick threaten hospital staff with guns in a desperate bid for care. This isn't a scene from Iraq. It's what's happening at the Palestinian-run hospital in Gaza City, as described recently by The Sun's John Murphy. Conditions at Shifa Hospital and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories have deteriorated to such an extent that the U.S. has been compelled to ease its ban on aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Any cessation of violence between Israel and the Palestinian territories is worth applauding because of the lives saved. But what would make the present cease-fire different from the rest would be serious talks between the two governments and substantive changes in the daily lives of their people. Two things come immediately to mind: stopping the daily rocket attacks from northern Gaza into Israel and restoring funds to the Palestinian Authority so it can pay its workers and ease the economic deprivation of many Palestinians.

WASHINGTON - Governments in the Palestinian territories, Israel and around the world agree that the long-sought goal of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement will require the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Yet nation-building, as witnessed in Iraq, is a complex task that is made harder without detailed planning. A Palestinian state faces many obstacles: a doubling of population over the next 10 years; a government legacy of corruption and failure to provide basic services; a collapsed economy; 60 percent unemployment; and the presence of armed groups opposed to peaceful coexistence with Israel.

PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas is taking his job seriously -- believe it. He's shown that by forging the beginnings of a cease-fire agreement with the Islamic militant group Hamas, deploying Palestinian security forces in parts of Gaza and, most remarkably, demolishing illegal houses in Gaza City. The latter is a first for a Palestinian leader. Israel is responding just as seriously: It has taken the extraordinary step of ceasing its targeted assassinations of militants. If each side upholds its commitments, a real shift in Israeli-Palestinian relations may be under way. And what welcome news that would be, after four years of diplomatic silence and a barrage of suicide bombings, mortar attacks and army reprisals.