Sharon destroys the peace process, much to your delight:
<<< Only a day before, the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, had announced that Hamas would be willing to agree to a cease-fire, including a halt to suicide bombings, in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the areas that had previously been under Palestinian administration under the Oslo agreements. This seemed to be dramatic, but understandably with such an apparently sharp turn of direction, somewhat suspicious. That is, until it was revealed in Yediot Akhronot, the major Israeli daily, by their military correspondent (whom no one would ever accuse of being a "peacenik" or Palestinian sympathizer), Alex Fishman, that this statement was made in conjunction with an agreement reached with the Tanzim militia. After a long period of work and negotiation between European diplomats and Palestinian military leaders, the Tanzim had composed a statement renouncing all violence against non-combatants, and had gotten some buy-in on this idea, tenuous though it may have been, from all of the other major paramilitary groups amongst the Palestinians, as the Hamas statement demonstrates. According to a report in Ha'aretz yesterday, the United States was also aware and at least somewhat involved in these talks. >>>
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