Ariel Sharon has called on religious leaders to make it easier to become a Jew to revive the immigration that provides a buffer to the burgeoning Arab population. The prime minister’s remarks follow a call by one of his own Cabinet for a ban on immigration by secular Jews.
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/ 26 December 2002
Israel and the United States are to launch a joint project to protect civil aviation from missile attacks, Israeli public radio reported on Wednesday.
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/ 25 December 2002
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday he had information that Iraq recently transferred weapons of mass destruction to Syria while Iraq expressed confidence it will come clear after UN inspections.
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/ 26 November 2002
Israel’s Labour Party hauled itself back into the peace camp this week by electing a dovish former army general to lead it in the 2003 general election. An exit poll gave Amram Mitzna, the mayor of the coastal city of Haifa, 57% of the vote.
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/ 12 November 2002
The race to decide who will be Israel’s next prime minister will be decided long before the average voter gets near a ballot box next February. The opinion polls consistently put Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud Party ahead.
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/ 1 November 2002
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was seeking the backing of the far right to keep him in power this week after the Labour Party walked out of his national unity government and lifted the constraints on one of the most hardline prime ministers in the country’s history.
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/ 28 October 2002
Israel signalled this week that in deference to Washington’s campaign against Iraq it will hold back from its usual tough response after Monday’s suicide bombing that killed 14 people. But it swiftly made life harder for Palestinians with a ban on drilling for water.
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/ 11 October 2002
The former head of Israel’s intelligence service held secret talks with a senior Palestinian official six weeks ago in an attempt to curb the violence of the past two years. Israeli and Palestinian officials confirmed that the meeting took place in Qatar, but each side saw it differently.
The bombers of Hamas struck at the heart of student life on Wednesday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 70 in a lunchtime attack on a crowded university cafeteria. The Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University had remained a rare preserve of co-existence.
Sixteen people were killed and dozens wounded early on Tuesday in a bomb attack on a rush-hour Israeli bus in southern Jerusalem.
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/ 13 January 2002
ISRAEL on Sunday took a further step away from a threatened military offensive on the Gaza Strip while welcoming a new peace call by three Arab leaders as a positive sign that could revive talks.
Some 200 Jewish settlers refused on Monday morning to abandon a wildcat settlement ordered dismantled by Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer six days ago, public radio said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has unveiled a peace plan calling for the centralisation of Palestinian security forces immediately followed by the establishment of a Palestinian state
Israel warned it will press ahead with daily raids on Palestinian areas after four Israelis were killed in the West Bank.
When Israeli soldiers track and kill a Palestinian militant, the army calls it ”focused prevention.” When Palestinian suicide bombers strike, their backers cheer ”heroic martyrdom operations.”
Israeli tanks were surrounding Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office building in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Friday after a suicide bomber blew up a bus in downtown Tel Aviv, killing five other people and wounding dozens.
Nael Azmi Abu Hilail had more than enough time to see those he was about to kill after he boarded the number 20 bus at the bottom of Mexico Street.
A powerful car bomb exploded next to a bus, engulfing it in flames during the morning rush hour on Wednesday. At least 18 people were killed and more than 37 injured, police and rescue workers said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was set for a day of political horse-trading on Friday in his bid to form a new government, and avoid snap polls, after the centre-left Labour party walked out of the coalition in a row over the budget.
The Israeli army began calling up reservists under emergency procedures on Sunday as it continued its partial occupation of the West Bank, a military source told public radio.
A Palestinian attacker blew himself up outside a nightclub in Tel Aviv early on Friday in the fourth suicide attack since Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Yasser Arafat was ”finished”, in his latest jab at the Palestinian leader, besieged by the army in his Ramallah office.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the army to ease restrictions on Palestinians amid increasing signs of popular resistance to Israel’s five-week occupation of major West Bank towns.
A bomb tore apart a packed bus in northern Israel during the morning rush hour on Sunday, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than two dozen.
Tough-talking new foreign minister Binyamin Netanyahu was to be sworn in on Wednesday as Israel prepares for early elections which the right is tipped to win, while in the Gaza Strip an armed Palestinian kills two Jewish settlers before being shot dead.
Israel and the Palestinians were set on Thursday to hold security talks to discuss a phased Israeli withdrawal from some occupied areas.
Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli motorist early on Thursday as Israel’s foreign minister warned that civilians would likely ”pay dearly” for the airstrike that killed a top Palestinian militant and 14 other people.
Israel said it was ready to make peace following US President George Bush’s Middle East policy speech on Monday, but only once the Palestinians stamp out ”terrorism” and start reforming their
leadership.
Mohammed Kashir’s intended objective yesterday was, by one definition in the shifting standards of the war for Palestine, a ”legitimate target”.
The latest Palestinian suicide bombing threatened on Tuesday to reignite the cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel mulled its response to the attack which left at least 14 people dead and blew a hole in US hopes to revive the peace process.
Israeli armed forces seized more Palestinian areas on Thursday, after a second suicide bomb attack on Jerusalem in two days killed six Israelis including a five-year-old girl.
Israeli cabinet secretary Gideon Saar declined to rule out the army storming Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office on Saturday as he made clear the Jewish state’s determination to capture some 20 security commanders holed up with him.