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A Poor Wager

(Washington Post) Editorial - Mr. Sharon's decisive loss of the referendum Sunday within the right-wing Likud Party on his plan to withdraw Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip may have crippled the initiative - or, at least, Mr. Sharon's ability to implement it. Mr. Sharon is the second consecutive Israeli leader, after Ehud Barak, to embark on a bold but ill-prepared initiative to achieve a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both men sought to avoid the hard work of building a consensus at home; both sought to use a U.S. president's leverage as a substitute for forging understandings with the Palestinians. Mr. Barak persuaded President Bill Clinton to hold the failed Camp David summit, which was followed by more than three years of bloodshed and the collapse of the Oslo track of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
2004-05-03 00:00:00
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