"Drug traffickers and arms dealers are exploiting the chaos at the Rafah border crossing to smuggle lethal and harmful items," said one official. "The Palestinians security forces have seized large amounts of drugs over the past few days."

QUARTER "SICK AND TIRED"
OF PALESTINIANS DRAGGING THEIR FEET (7/8/04)
THE MEDIA LINE has reported that envoys of the international Quartet, the mediators of the Road Map peace plan, said they are "sick and tired" of the Palestinians' slow progress in incorporating reforms.

Diplomats from the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia met with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei on July 7 in a bid to set the stalled peace process back in motion. They said the Palestinian Authority should act soon or risk losing international support and funding.

SHARON SAYS ISRAEL WILL
ACT ALONE IF THERE IS NO PALESTINIAN PARTNER (12/19)
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday that Israel would unilaterally disengage from the Palestinians, pulling back from some territory and relocating some Jewish communities, if Palestinians did not make moves toward peace in the coming months, HA'ARETZ reported. Sharon said that he would begin implementing the plan in a few months if it became evident the Palestinian Authority was not undertaking its commitments in the Road Map. He added that some elements in the plan - which he dubbed a security, not a political, measure - could begin even sooner.

Sharon called on the Palestinians to engage in negotiations and warned that his disengagement plan would "clearly" leave them with "much less" than what they could get via direct negotiations through the road map. "We are interested in conducting direct negotiations, but do not intend to hold Israeli society hostage in the hands of the Palestinians," the Prime Minister said.

ISRAEL REMAINS COMMITTED TO
PEACE PROCESS DESPITE RECENT ATTACKS (8/14)
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz, along with senior Israel Defense Forces officers and the Israeli Security Service have made a decision to remain committed to the peace process, despite Tuesday's twin homicide bombings, HA'ARETZ reported. The Israeli officials decided that the IDF would continue pinpointed actions against specific terrorist enclaves - particularly in Nablus and Jenin - but that efforts would be made to open up traffic routes in the West Bank and Gaza and make humanitarian gestures toward the Palestinian population. On the other hand, Israel will not hand over security control in other West Bank towns to the Palestinian Authority until the latter is dealing with the terrorist infrastructure in towns already under its jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the United States is trying to arrange that Sharon and Abbas meet soon so as to maintain the diplomatic momentum. Israel wishes to delay such a meeting until there is a guarantee it will have concrete results.

FOLLOWING SHARON -
ABBAS MEETING, IDF TO REDEPLOY FROM WEST BANK (5/30)
Following his meeting on Thursday with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that he would order the Israel Defense Forces to redeploy from the center of West Bank cities, HA'ARETZ reported. Sharon and Abbas held their second meeting in two weeks on Thursday night in Jerusalem to discuss the implementation of the road map to Middle East peace. The talks between the two leaders were described as "very positive" and resulted in the announcement by the Prime Minister's office that Israel would enforce a series of steps aiming to "ease the living conditions of the Palestinians, foster trade and encourage the Palestinian economy". The measures include: Lifting the closure of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip; granting permits to senior Palestinian officials allowing them to travel between the West Bank and Gaza; increasing the amount of tax money transferred to the PA by NIS 150 million a month; allowing 25,000 Palestinian laborers to work in Israel; easing restrictions on humanitarian organizations working in the West Bank and Gaza. In addition, Israel committed itself to undertaking a comprehensive review of its prisoner lists in order to examine which individuals could be released. A total of 100 detainees are slated to be left out of jail, including Khaled Abu Sukar, 68, the oldest and longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, and Tayseer Khaled, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's executive committee. Israel stressed that every prisoner would be required to sign a document obliging him or her to stay away from terror activities.

Meanwhile, the European Union insisted Thursday that the United States did not have sole ownership of the "road map," in an apparent bid to forestall any effort by Washington to sideline its partners. "This is not a problem to be solved by only one country, it is a problem to be solved by the cooperation of... members of the international community that have been engaged in this peace process for a long time," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said. "The road map is not the property of one country, it is the property of the Quartet," he told reporters. Solana was responding to a question on whether he was concerned that the Bush administration was under pressure from Congress and influential conservative advisers to relegate its Quartet partners - the EU, the United Nations and Russia - to the sidelines of the peace effort.

ISRAELI, PA OFFICIALS TO RESUME CEASE-FIRE TALKS (2/11)
High-level talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials aimed at implementing a cease-fire between the two sides are to resume Tuesday evening, with a meeting between Palestinian Authority Interior Minister Hani al-Hassan and Director General of the Prime Minister's Office Dov Weisglass, HA'ARETZ reported. The meeting follows a revelation that talks between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his advisors and high-ranking Palestinian officials took place both before and after Israel's January 28 elections. Security chief al-Hassan and Weisglass reportedly met at the home of U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer last Thursday for talks on reaching a truce. On Friday, Sharon himself met at his Negev ranch with Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei (aka Abu Ala). Last week, Weisglass met with Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad. These contacts aimed at reaching a phased truce agreement under which Palestinian police would initially be deployed in the West Bank towns of Tul Karm, Jenin, and Qalqilyah. In a second phase, the police would take up positions in Bethlehem and Gaza after IDF forces withdrew from these areas. The Israeli representatives to the talks promised that IDF forces would refrain from harming PA security forces installations, provided that the Palestinian security forces worked on preventing terrorists from carrying out terror attacks against Israel.

WHITE HOUSE DOCUMENT
BLAMES MIDEAST VIOLENCE ON PALESTINIANS (12/6)
A White House document obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, in effect blames the Palestinians for the violence which is now moving into its third year, charging that the Palestinian Authority and the PLO have not taken steps to stop terrorism, HA'ARTEZ reported. The failure to stop the violence has thrown into question the Palestinian Authority's acceptance of Israel, the 12-page report says. Still, U.S. President George W. Bush has decided not to impose sanctions, which could have included the downgrading or closing of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington. A memorandum that prefaces the report, dated Nov. 29 and signed by Bush, waives sanctions, saying they would be against U.S. security interests and that the United States "must maintain contacts with all sides." The memorandum was made public in Washington on Monday, but the remainder of the report was not. It was obtained by AP in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, US officials were upbeat on Wednesday about the prospect of delineating a new road map for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement after Tuesday's meeting of the Quartet in New York. "There's a growing consensus in the international community that Arafat is an obstacle to moving forward with the Quartet's work," one U.S. official said.

ARAFAT CALLS FOR ANOTHER MILLION MARTYRS (5/15)
CNN repeatedly aired Yasser Arafat on May 14 saying that he wants peace with his Jewish "cousins" in Israel while at the same time he was calling for "one million martyrs" to march on Jerusalem. Arafat made the call while addressing a crowd during his visit to PLO-controlled Shechem in his first foray outside of Ramallah in almost six months. Israel had confined Arafat to the city following a wave of PLO terrorism. During his Shechem visit, Arafat vowed to continue his battle towards the "liberation" of Jerusalem from Israeli control.

KASSAM ROCKETS HIT HOUSE
WOUNDING THREE ISRAELI CHILDREN (3/5)
Three Israeli children were wounded when Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip exploded next to a house in the Negev town of Sderot this afternoon, HAARETZ ON-LINE reported. A one-year-old baby was moderately wounded and two other children suffered light injuries. Magen David Adom said that the victims were being treated at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva. Police said that two or three rockets landed in Sderot, one next to the home and another in an open field.