NewsHour Coverage
November 7, 1997:
Charles Krause investigates the political pressure facing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
November 5, 1997:
Charles Krause explores the political pressure facing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
November 3, 1997:
Israel's Prime Minister on the latest round of
Mideast peace talks.
October 7, 1997:
An assassination attempt
forces
the peace process to take another turn.
September 12, 1997:
Albright admits failure to mediate peace in the Middle
East.
September 9, 1997:
Jim Lehrer discusses former
American secretaries of state in light of Madeleine
Albright's trip to the Middle East.
September 4, 1997:
Suicide bombs in West Jerusalem put the peace process in
jeopardy.
April 4, 1997:
Middle East Forum: Mohammed Halaj and Amos Perlmutter answer your questions.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle-East.
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The Middle East peace process seems to have come to a grinding halt.
Negotiators from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are meeting in Washington, trying to lay the groundwork for the start of "final status" negotiations, but no progress has been reported thus far.
NewsHour correspondent Charles Krause is just back from Israel. He spent several weeks examining whether the Oslo peace process is dead, and trying to figure out why both sides seem to have given up on peace.
According to Charles's reports, there are several reasons. On the Israeli side, last year's election, which brought conservative Benjamin Netanyahu into power, reflected a growing concern on the part of the Israelis. Since 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed, nearly 150 Israelis have
been killed and more than 800 wounded by Palestinian suicide bombers. Continued terrorism has sapped the will of many Israeli residents.
On the Palestinian side, delayed promises have caused frustration and anger.
Israel has not allowed the Palestinians to
open a new airport that's already been built. The Israelis have also delayed
implementation of a safe passage agreement, another part of the Oslo Accords
that would allow Palestinians to travel freely between Gaza and the West Bank. Every time there is  a terrorist incident, border closings effect every-day life for most Palestinians. Gaza's per capita income has dropped by a third
since the peace process began, according to the United Nations. Today half-completed buildings provide
tangible evidence that economic development has stagnated and with it, support among Palestinians for the
peace process.
Zalmon Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and currently a foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, puts it this way:
The moment the first bomb exploded in a Jerusalem bus, and then a second bomb and a third bomb, people I think lost faith--Israelis anyway--lost faith in Oslo. And the Palestinians, too, if I may speak for them, were frustrated because they were promised all sorts of things which didn't realize, which couldn't be realized; economic betterment, political advancement, and so on.
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