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The Middle East Essay Research Paper International (стр. 2 из 2)

Wye River Conference

From October 15th to the 24th last year, Clinton’s negotiating team sat down with Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian Liberation Organization leader and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu at Maryland. The Wye Agreement was called for:

1. Israel had agreed to an American compromise proposal aimed at breaking a 19-month deadlock over interim Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank. Under the U.S. plan.

2. Israel would turn over an additional 13 percent of West Bank land, of which 3 percent would be a “nature preserve” that barred construction. An additional 14.2 percent will pass under full Palestinian control. That would bring roughly 40 percent of the territory under full or partial Palestinian control.

3. Arafat will also get an economic circulatory system: a two-year-old airport in Gaza will be allowed to open and Israel will establish two “safe passage” corridors between the West Bank and Gaza.14

The talks were intense, a marathon of violent mood swings and numbing restatements of position. They were scheduled to last four days, and went more than twice that long. The 60 core negotiators–20 per side–had been there for a week, and were plainly sick of each other. Two of the most often-heard refrains, recounts one negotiator, were “I can’t do it,” and “I won’t do it.” The night before, the Israelis had threatened to walk out, and Clinton had told his team, “It’s now or never. We’re going to get an agreement today, or we’re not going to get an agreement.”15

When it all seems hopeless, Clinton marshaled a secret weapon, King Hussein. For the second time in a week, the ailing monarch had flown to Maryland. He was driven to Wye, where he issued what Clinton later called a “stern instruction.” Hussein “reminded them all of the larger purpose of what they were doing,” recalls a senior U.S. official. ” ‘You can’t afford for this to fail, you owe this to future generations, you owe this to your children.’ You could hear a pin drop. That lifted people up, and gave everybody some impetus–which lasted for an hour or so.”14

When the agreement is finally signed, the world praises Bill Clinton for the spectacular performance and outcome of this productive summit. A tremulous Yasir Arafat called the president “a great leader of the world.” Clinton is “a warrior for peace,” gushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hours after the U.S. president successfully called his bluff over a last-minute demand for release of imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard. “I mean, he doesn’t stop,” Netanyahu said. “He has this ability to maintain a tireless pace and to nudge and prod and suggest.”15

In conclusion, one must agree that Israel is an interesting and fascinating part of the globe in which so much beliefs and strong ideology has been passed down for centuries. Personally, I see so many miracles that occur on a day to day basis in Israel that I can never find Israel dull or tedious. Empire rise and fall, but Israel manages to survive since the biblical times and establish statehood in present day is an incredible feat. There has been times in this research when I believed that Israel would get wiped out by the united Arab Nations or the PLO, but somehow a foreign aid comes along and pulls Israel from annihilation. I also believe that Israel has God on their side. The same God guided the Jews from Egypt to Cannan and finally establishes Statehood for them will be with every fighting Israeli solder and every Israeli politician now and forever.