Sharon sent the army into West Bank cities and barred thousands of Palestinians from
traveling to their jobs in Israel. In December, the army surrounded the Palestinian
Authority compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, effectively imprisoning Pales-
tinian leader Yasir Arafat.
The Bush administration took two modest steps to bring the situation under con-
trol, but both proved to be short-term and ineffective. In mid-June, CIA director
George Tenet negotiated a cease-fire that calmed the violence for a few days, but it
never went fully into effect. On November 26, retired marine general Anthony C.
Zinni—the former head of the U.S. Central Command, covering the Middle East—
visited the region as the envoy of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Upon Zinni’s arrival,
fresh violence broke out, and the envoy was called home for “consultations” after fewer
than three weeks on the ground.
President Bush in June 2002 called on Palestinians to elect a “new leadership” in
place of Arafat, and he officially endorsed, for the first time, the creation of a Pales-
tinian state. Further international moves to encourage resumption of an Israeli-
Palestinian peace process were delayed until after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003
(The Roadmap, p. 298).
Following are excerpts from the final report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding
Committee, chaired by former U.S. senator George Mitchell. The panel submitted
its report to President George W. Bush on April 30, 2001, and it was released pub-
licly on May 21, 2001. The panel’s other members consisted of former U.S. sena-
tor Warren B. Rudman, former Turkish prime minister Suleyman Demirel, Nor-
wegian foreign minister Thorbjoern Jagland, and Javier Solana, the high
representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union.DOCUMENT
Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding
Committee Final Report
MAY21, 2001INTRODUCTION
... After our first meeting, held before we visited the region, we urged an end to all
violence. Our meetings and our observations during our subsequent visits to the region
have intensified our convictions in this regard. Whatever the source, violence will not
solve the problems of the region. It will only make them worse. Death and destruc-
tion will not bring peace, but will deepen the hatred and harden the resolve on both
sides. There is only one way to peace, justice, and security in the Middle East, and
that is through negotiation.
Despite their long history and close proximity, some Israelis and Palestinians seem
not to fully appreciate each other’s problems and concerns. Some Israelis appear not
to comprehend the humiliation and frustration that Palestinians must endure every
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS 289