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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 146-149 Facts for Your File: A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations
Compiled by Janet McMahonOct. 1: Israel released Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, whom it had imprisoned since 1989, flying him before dawn to Jordan in exchange for the release of the Mossad agents who failed in their Sept. 26 attempt to assassinate Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in Amman. *As NATO-led peacekeeping troops seized control of four key television transmitters in Serb-controlled Bosnia, NATO defense ministers meeting in the Netherlands agreed that the peacekeeping troops would be needed beyond the scheduled June 1998 cut-off date. Oct. 2: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who had been under intense Israeli pressure to crack down on Hamas militants, flew to Amman where, accompanied by Jordan's King Hussein, he greeted Sheikh Yassin. In a further ramification of Israel's botched Amman assassination attempt, Canada recalled its ambassador to Israel in protest of the Mossad agents' use of forged Canadian passports. *U.N. officials said Iraq had refused weapons inspectors access to three sites in the past week. Oct. 3: The U.S. ordered the aircraft carrier Nimitz to the Persian Gulf ahead of schedule following Iranian air attacks on opposition forces based in Iraq. *To avoid a trade war with the European Union over the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, the Clinton administration decided not to impose sanctions on the French firm Total for signing a $2 billion natural gas agreement with Iran. Oct. 4: More than 100 Algerians were killed in a 48-hour period in attacks on several villages outside the capital, including Blida, a stronghold of the Armed Islamic Group. Newspapers close to the government made no mention of the killings. *Four Iraqi gunmen attacked the headquarters of the U.N.'s World Health Organization in Baghdad. Oct. 5: Amid reports that additional Palestinian prisoners would be released, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued its first statement on the botched assassination attempt in Amman, defending its "obligation...to protect the lives of its citizens and to fight terror without compromise." Oct. 6: Recently released Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin returned home to Gaza to a hero's welcome. Oct. 7: Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said that suicide attacks could be suspended if Israelis "stop their attacks on [Palestinian] civilians, land confiscation, house demolitions, and release the prisoners and detainees," adding that an overall truce would require that Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and dismantle its Jews-only settlements. *The new head of the U.N.'s weapons monitoring program, Australian Richard Butler, reported that Iraq continued to withhold information and data requested by U.N. weapons inspectors. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that U.S. jet fighters would increase their patrols over Iraq's southern "no-fly" zone following the penetration of the zone by Iraqi jets several times during the previous week. Oct. 8: Jordan's King Hussein said he had informed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu 48 hours before Israel's failed assassination attempt of an Hamas political leader in Amman that Hamas might be ready to establish a dialog with the Jewish state. Netanyahu adviser David Bar-Ilan said the letter did not reach the prime minister until the day after the attack. *Palestinian President Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met for the first time in eight months, reportedly to discuss the possible resumption of peace negotiations, in an encounter brokered by U.S. mediator Dennis Ross. At the White House, President Bill Clinton and visiting Israeli President Ezer Weizman discussed the stalled peace process. *Secretary of State Madeleine Albright released a list of 30 designated terrorist organizations for which, under a 1996 law, fund-raising and other support is illegal, and members of which are barred from the U.S. The list includes two Israeli Jewish organizations, Kach and Kahane Chai, and 13 Islamic groups representing Palestinian, Algerian, Pakistani, Lebanese, Egyptian and Iranian movements. Oct. 10: Without referring to its recent assassination attempt in Amman, Israel apologized to Canada for any "misuse" of Canadian passports. *In a sermon broadcast the day before Iranian naval exercises were to begin, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Iran had tested anti-aircraft missiles with a range of 156 miles and criticized Washington's "confused policies" toward Iran, including sending to the Persian Gulf a seven-ship Navy battle group led by the aircraft carrier Nimitz, scheduled to arrive on the second day of Iranian naval maneuvers. *Judge Emmet Sullivan said that, due to lack of evidence, he would drop conspiracy charges against Saudi dissident Hani al-Sayegh, who backed out of a plea bargain agreement to cooperate in the investigation of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Dhahran. Oct. 12: Meeting at a secret location, Israeli investigators began a government inquiry into the failed assassaination attempt on Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal. *Israel's Atomic Energy Commission said it would challenge a Supreme Court ruling that the Dimona nuclear reactor, whose nuclear weapons activities were revealed by imprisoned technician Mordechai Vanunu, had at least three radioactive leaks and posed a danger to employees, including one who died of cancer, and accusing the plant management of "showing contempt for human life." *Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev dismissed the reformist government of Premier Akezhan Kazhegeldin, naming as his replacement Nurlan Balgimbayev, a state oil company head who in the past called for slowing privatization. Oct. 13: As Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin addressed by telephone a Nablus rally celebrating Yassin's release as a result of Israel's failed assassination attempt on Meshal, Israel released nine more Arab prisoners, all non-Hamas Jordanian citizens jailed for security reasons. They were flown by helicopter to Jordan. *Nine Egyptian police officers and two Coptic Christians were killed by suspected Islamic militants in two separate incidents in the southern province of Minya. *While assuring the World Court that the two Libyans accused of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie would receive a fair trial in his country, Scotland's highest justice, Lord Hardie, offered to conduct the trial in the presence of international observers. Oct. 14: Despite U.S. Secretary of State Albright's call for a "time out" during her September visit, Israel resumed its policy of demolishing Palestinian homes, bulldozing two West Bank homes built without a permit. *Turkish planes reported to be carrying live ammunition flew over Cyprus in retaliation for Greek participation in war games on the divided island. The incident followed Greek charges that Turkey had violated its airspace over the weekend and harassed a transport plane carrying Defense Minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos to Cyprus the previous day. Oct. 15: Iran said it was using new unmanned stealth aircraft to monitor U.S. warships, which it accused of spying on its war games in the Persian Gulf. *The Swiss government announced it had blocked $13.7 million held in accounts belonging to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, her husband and mother at seven Geneva banks. Oct. 16: Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon warned that Baghdad would stop cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors if the Security Council imposed further sanctions on Iraq. Oct. 17: Responding to U.S. criticism of his upcoming visit to Libya, South African President Nelson Mandela said, "Libya... supported us during our struggle when others were working with the apartheid regime. Now they [the U.S.] have the arrogance to dictate to us where we should go." *Less than two weeks before President Jiang Zemin's first U.S. visit, China agreed to stop sending anti-ship cruise missiles to Iran and, in principle, to halt its nuclear assistance to Tehran. Oct. 18: Saying Algiers had no intention of resuming negotiations with the Islamic Salvation Front, whose expected victory caused the government to cancel elections in 1992, Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf ruled out any foreign role in resolving the resulting conflict. Oct. 19: As U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross began a new shuttle mission to the area, Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin declared a halt to attacks on Israel, providing Israel stop its collective punishment of Palestinians. Netanyahu adviser David Bar-Ilan welcomed the "change of tone," but said Yassin's proposal had too many strings attached. *Reversing an earlier finding, Israeli Attorney General Eliakim Rubenstein decided to seek the extradition of Samuel Sheinbein, the 17-year-old Maryland youth who fled to Israel after the murder and dismemberment of 19-year-old Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr., on the basis that Sheinbein "is not an Israeli citizen" and therefore is subject to extradition. Oct. 20: In the face of strong Russian and French objections, the U.S. was reportedly backing away from its call for new sanctions against Iraq. *Saying he was ashamed "as a Jew and as an Israeli" at his country's treatment of Palestinians, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres inaugurated in Tel Aviv the private Peres Center for Peace. Oct. 21: Palestinian President Arafat met with Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai in a U.S.-brokered attempt to finalize agreement on a Palestinian airport in Gaza. *A spokesman for Rep. Bob Livingston said the Louisiana Republican, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, would support Israel's annual $1.2 billion economic aid package following Israel's finding in favor of the extradition of murder suspect Samuel Sheinbein. Oct. 22: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu caused a furor among Israeli Jews when a live microphone caught his remark during a synagogue service that "the people on the left have forgotten what it means to be Jewish." *In an impassioned speech to students at Gaza's Islamic University, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin called for continuing the struggle for Palestinian rights, saying, "I want to proclaim loudly to the world that we are not fighting Jews because they are Jews! We are fighting them because they assaulted us, they killed us, they took our land, our homes, our children, our women, they scattered us...We want our rights. We don't want more." *Traveling by car from the Tunisian border to Tripoli in observance of U.N. sanctions, South African President Mandela greeted Libyan Col. Muammar Qaddafi with a hug, later saying that his government supported the Organization for African Unity's call for a trial in a neutral third country of the two Libyans suspected of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Oct. 23: With Russia, France, China, Egypt and Kenya abstaining from voting on the watered-down resolution, the Security Council threatened to impose travel restrictions on Iraqi officials if U.N. weapons inspections continue to be blocked. *A Pentagon report found no evidence "to support the theory that any individuals or organization participated in a conspiracy to destroy or conceal the [missing Gulf war chemical weapons] logs." *Tensions between Greece and Turkey continued to escalate as each accused the other of responsibility for a near collision between naval ships in the Aegean Sea. *Voter turnout was low for Algerian municipal elections, won by the main pro-government party, with opposition leaders questioning the fairness of the voting. Oct. 25: Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinians marching throughout the West Bank for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Oct. 26: Over U.S. objections, Israel released Alan Goodman, the American-born Israeli sentenced to life in prison for killing a Palestinian guard during a 1982 shooting spree on the Dome of the Rock while on leave from Israeli army basic training. Goodman, who holds dual citizenship, was paroled on condition that he leave for the U.S. and remain outside Israel for the rest of his term, commuted to 24 years. *On the second anniversary of the murder in Malta of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shiqaqi, Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli position in occupied southern Lebanon, wounding two Israeli soldiers. Israeli planes attacked suspected Hezbollah positions in retaliation, following an earlier attack on suspected Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command positions in the southern Lebanese coastal town of Naameh. Oct. 27: Heckled by opposition lawmakers, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke at the opening of the Knesset's winter session, vowing to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and hold on to the occupied Golan Heights. *Iraq's parliament recommended suspending ties with U.N. weapons inspectors following the recent Security Council resolution threatening additional sanctions. Oct. 28: Israeli Reform and Conservative Jewish leaders agreed to a three-month suspension of legal action seeking formal recognition of their movements. *Convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard, serving a life sentence for espionage in the U.S. on behalf of Israel, complained about Israel's success in obtaining the quick release of its Mossad hitmen from Jordan while failing to secure his release for 13 years. "Clearly this Meshal affair shows that the [Israeli] government knows how to get its agents out," Pollard said. *Israeli warplanes attacked targets south of Beirut for the fifth time in 12 days. *Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash threatened to cut off ties with Greek Cypriots and strengthen ties with Turkey if the Greek Cypriot government resumes talks on joining the European Union. Oct. 29: Baghdad ordered all Americans working on U.N. weapons inspection teams to leave the country within a week and demanded a halt to American U-2 reconnaissance flights over Iraq. *Hebron's main Shuhada Street was partially reopened three years after Israel closed it to Palestinians, following Jewish settler Dr. Baruch Goldstein's murder of 29 Palestinians praying in the Ibrahimi mosque. *On his second visit to Libya in a week, causing speculation that he might mediate the dispute over the trial of Pan Am Flight 103 suspects, South African President Mandela bestowed his country's highest award on Col. Muammar Qaddafi. Oct. 30: Hours after the U.N. Security Council warned the government of Saddam Hussain not to carry out its threat to bar Americans from U.N. inspection teams, Iraq stopped three American weapons inspectors from entering the country. *In the largest protest since 1992, when the government canceled national parliamentary elections, some 30,000 demonstrators marched through Algiers protesting alleged fraud in the previous week's municipal voting. Oct. 31: Chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler said his teams, including Americans, would resume their work in Iraq. *As high-level talks between Israelis and Palestinians were scheduled to resume in Washington, the military wing of Hamas warned Israel that it had "one last chance" to free Palestinian prisoners or face a "big operation." Nov. 1: Iraq reiterated that no American weapons inspectors would be allowed in the country. Nov. 2: As Greece and Turkey each conducted war games in the Aegean, leaders of the Balkan countries, with the exception of Croatia and Slovenia, opened a three-day economic summit on Crete. Nov. 3: As Israelis lined up for gas masks and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a special three-man team to Baghdad to mediate the growing crisis with Iraq, Iraqi authorities prevented inspection teams which included Americans from searching for weapons and threatened to shoot down U-2 reconnaissance planes. *U.S.-sponsored negotiations on a Palestinian airport, seaport, industrial zone and travel corridor, attended by Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy and Palestinian representative Mahmoud Abbas—but without Palestinian specialists in the areas to be discussed—convened in the office of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. *The murder trial of Mir Aimal Kasi, accused of killing two CIA employees and wounding two others in a shooting spree outside the CIA's Langley, VA headquarters, opened in Fairfax County, VA. Nov. 4: At the urging of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraq postponed for at least three days its expulsion of American weapons inspectors. *President Bill Clinton issued an excutive order banning all U.S. investment in and most bilateral trade with Sudan, listed by the State Department as a government which sponsors terrorism. *At a White House meeting, congressional leaders agreed to an extension of the June 1998 deadline for withdrawal of U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia. *Defense Secretary William Cohen revealed that the U.S. had purchased 21 MiG-29 fighter jets from the Moldavian Republic to prevent their sale to Iran. *Israel's Mossad chief, Danny Yatom, told investigators that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu played a direct role in the decision to try to assassinate Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in Amman. *An Israeli court ruled against Gen. Ariel Sharon in the former defense minister's libel suit against the Israeli daily Ha'aretz for publishing an article stating that he had lied to then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin about the extent of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. *Tribal leaders loyal to Jordan's King Hussein won a majority in national parliamentary elections characterized by a light voter turnout and boycotted by the opposition Islamic Action Front as well as by eight secular political parties. Nov. 5: Chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler said Iraq may be using the current crisis and resulting interruption of inspections to build missiles out of range of surveillance cameras and to tamper with the cameras themselves. In Washington, Defense Secretary Cohen said the U.S. had not ruled out the use of force against Iraq. *Palestinian and Israeli negotiators ended four days of talks in Washington without reaching agreement on the key issues of Israeli settlements and troop withdrawal. *Sudan halted all banking transactions with the U.S. in retaliation for newly imposed sanctions. Nov. 7: Iraqi officials told a special U.N. negotiating team that it would not change its stance on U.S. weapons inspectors and U-2 flights. *The U.N. renewed for 60 days its ban on international air travel to and from Libya. *Peace talks aimed at ending the 14-year civil war between the Sudanese government and southern rebels ended in failure in Nairobi. Nov. 9: Joining Russia, Pakistan and Jordan, Iran ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the production and possession of nerve gas weapons and mandates international inspections. In Riyadh, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi met with King Fahd in an effort to improve relations between the two countries. *The House Ethics Committee dismissed a complaint against Rep. Earl Hilliard (D-AL) for traveling to Libya, finding that he did not use his passport or violate other laws. Nov. 10: At the United Nations, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz attacked the U.S. presence on weapons inspections teams and called for security-sensitive sites to be off-limits to inspectors, while the U.S. called for a ban on travel by Iraqi officials. In Iraq, American U-2 reconnaissance planes resumed their flights without incident, as several hundred families marched to presidential palaces, where they vowed to act as human shields against possible attack. *Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, burning Israeli and American flags, rallied in support of Iraq. *Pakistani Mir Aimal Kasi was convicted of killing two CIA employees in 1993. *The U.S. removed Syria and Lebanon from its list of countries involved in drug production and smuggling. *Danish and other NATO peacekeeping troops seized a Bosnian Serb special police station in Doboj on the eve of local elections. Nov. 11: In what was seen as possible retaliation for the conviction of Mir Aimal Kasi, three Americans and two Pakistanis were ambushed and killed by gunmen in Karachi, Pakistan. *Joining such U.S. allies as Saudi Arabia and Morocco, President Hosni Mubarak announced that Egypt would not send a delegation to the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Middle East and North Africa economic summit in Doha, Qatar. *As hundreds of Orthodox Jews celebrated in the newly walled-off site of Rachel's Tomb in Hebron, Israeli soldiers firing rubber-coated bullets at nearby stone-throwing demonstrators shot 8-year-old Ali Jawarish in the head at close range, leaving him brain dead. *The U.N. Committee Against Torture, meeting in Geneva, said the situation of Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners "continued to deteriorate" since its last meeting in May, when it expressed concern over Israel's torture of Palestinian prisoners, and gave Israel until May to submit a report on its practices which had been due Sept. 1 for consideration at the current meeting. *Responding to a near mutiny by party members, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu backed down from a proposal to abolish Likud election primaries, thereby infuriating colleagues who had supported his plan. *In Nicosia, U.S. presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke met for four hours with Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas, but failed to make progress. Nov. 12: The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to ban international travel by Iraqi officials and to delay its review of existing sanctions until Baghdad cooperates with U.N. weapons inspection teams including Americans. *While denying that it constituted a snub of Binyamin Netanyahu, the White House said President Clinton had no plans to meet with the Israeli leader during his upcoming visit to the U.S. *A federal jury in New York convicted Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil of the bombing of the World Trade Center. Nov. 13: The U.N. recalled its arms inspectors from Iraq after Baghdad expelled six American weapons inspectors. Osama Baz, political adviser to Egyptian President Mubarak, advised the U.S. to drop "certain hints that the goal is not to topple the regime [of Saddam Hussain] but to persuade the Iraqi regime to change its policy in certain areas." *A previously unknown Pakistani group, the Aimal Secret Committee, claimed responsibility for the murder of four American oil workers in Karachi and threatened to kill more U.S. citizens if Mir Aimal Kasi is sentenced to death. *President Yasser Arafat said Palestinians would declare statehood in 1999 following the five-year interim autonomy period, regardless of the status of negotiations with Israel. *For the third time this year, the U.N. General Assembly voted 139-3 (again the U.S., Israel and Micronesia) to condemn Israel's construction of the Jews-only Har Homa settlement in Arab East Jerusalem. *In what was considered a slap at the U.S., Israel announced that Foreign Minister David Levy would not attend the Middle East economic conference in Doha, but that Industry and Trade Minister Natan Sharansky would instead lead the Israeli delegation. *A secret report released in Israel revealed that a Shin Bet undercover agent failed to inform his superiors about threats by Yigal Amir to assassinate Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Nov. 14: President Clinton, ordering a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, said sanctions against Iraq would remain in place as long as Saddam Hussain remains in office. *After deliberating for several hours, a Fairfax County, VA jury recommended the death penalty for Mir Aimal Kasi. *Saying "it is time for us to move on the peace process," U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met in London with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, then flew to Geneva for a meeting the next day with Palestinian President Arafat. *As Russia arrested and deported an Iranian diplomat on charges of arms spying, 11 EU envoys returned to their posts in Tehran, more than six months after being withdrawn in a dispute between Iran and Germany, which had ruled that Iranian leaders had ordered the execution at a Berlin restaurant of three Kurdish dissident leaders. *In Morocco's first round of voting to elect a lower house of parliament, pro-government and opposition candidates won virtually the same number of seats. Nov. 16: As the Iraq News Agency reported that President Saddam Hussain told a cabinet meeting that he was not seeking a confrontation with the U.S., Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Aziz proposed that American weapons inspectors be allowed to return to Iraq if the inspection teams included a broader representation of nationalities. *At the opening in Doha, Qatar of the fourth U.S.-sponsored Middle East and North Africa economic summit, boycotted by many Arab U.S. allies, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright blamed Israel for the Palestinians' "dire" economic situation. The secretary then made whirlwind visits to the Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to discuss the Iraq crisis. *Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, speaking in Indianapolis to the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations, called for unity between his government and American Jews. *Violent protests broke out following the funeral of Ali Jawarish, the 8-year-old boy shot in the head by an Israeli soldier and whose parents donated the dead child's organs to the Israeli organs bank. *Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was elected head of La Francophonie, an organization of 49 French-speaking nations. Nov. 17: In Luxor, six Egyptian militants dressed as police massacred 62 people, including 60 foreign tourists—none of whom were American—visiting Hatshepsut's Temple in the Valley of the Queens. *Baghdad rejected a U.S. proposal to consider increasing humanitarian aid to Iraq if American weapons inspectors were readmitted to the country. *Jordan's King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met in London in an effort to repair relations damaged by Israel's assassination attempt on Khaled Meshal in Amman. Nov. 18: President Clinton ordered additional U.S. aircraft to the Persian Gulf. *The radical Gamaa al-Islamiyya claimed responsibilty for the previous day's attack in Luxor, saying it had been an attempt to take hostages to trade for the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, imprisoned in the U.S. for conspiring to blow up several New York landmarks. *The trial of five people charged with the 1986 nightclub bombing that killed two American soldiers and resulted in a retaliatory U.S. air strike on Libya opened in Berlin. *The economic summit in Doha ended with a demand that Israel exchange land for peace and lift its economic restrictions on Palestinians. *In Washington, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed oil agreements with U.S. companies at a State Department ceremony and was warned against cooperating with Iran. Nov. 19: Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov annouced that Iraq had accepted a Russian plan to end the crisis over the American presence on U.N. weapons inspections teams. *Pakistan's Supreme Court charged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with contempt of court for comments he made critical of the judiciary. Nov. 20: Two Jewish yeshiva students were shot in Jerusalem's Old City. Nov. 21: As U.N. weapons inspections teams returned to work in Iraq, the U.N. special commission in charge of the inspections rejected a Russian request to relax sanctions on Iraq. *Palestinian President Arafat ended a visit to New Delhi by agreeing to mediate the Indian-Pakistani dispute on Kashmir. Nov. 22: As thousands of tourists cancelled plans to visit Egypt following the massacre in Luxor, Egypt's new interior minister, Maj. Gen. Habib Adli, told parliament that armed forces would help police protect tourist sites. Nov. 23: Iraq insisted that U.N. weapons inspectors avoid searching sensitive sites such as presidential palaces. *In weekend elections, voters in Banja Luka, the largest Serbian town in Bosnia and the base of Western-backed Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, rejected former President Radovan Karadzic in favor of Plavsic. Karadzic's hard-line Serbian Democratic Party was expected to fare better in other Bosnian Serb jurisdictions, although it failed to win a majority of parliamentary seats. Nov. 26: Iraq offered to allow foreign experts and diplomats, but not U.N. weapons inspectors, to visit presidential palaces and other off-limit sites. *Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that "the entire Jewish state feels humiliated" by President Clinton's refusal to meet with him during Netanyahu's visit to the U.S. the previous week. Nov. 27: Palestinian officials rejected a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to withdraw from an estimated 6 to 8 percent of occupied West Bank territory in one redeployment rather than the three called for in the Palestinian self-rule agreement, in exchange for an increased Palestinian crackdown on terrorism. *Saying "Turkey is not a satellite or servant of the United States," Turkey's highest-ranking judge, Yekta Gungor Ozden, a militant secularist, accused the U.S. of trying to influence the court's decision on whether to ban the Islamist Welfare Party. *Yemeni tribesmen released American oil executive Steve Carpenter, who had been kidnapped Oct. 30 near the capital Sana'a. Nov. 29: Some 40 people were injured near the
newly opened Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem during clashes between Israeli
soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators de- *Iraq said it accepted "in principle" the extension of the U.N. oil-for-food agreement. *OPEC ministers meeting in Jakarta agreed to raise
the oil production ceiling from 25 million to 27.5 million barrels Nov. 30: On the 50th anniversary of the U.N.
resolution partitioning Palestine and creating Israel, the Israeli
cabinet agreed to implement one troop withdrawal from |