violence, including a December 2 suicide bombing in Haifa that kills fifteen bus
passengers.
December 5:After a meeting in Bonn, Germany, leaders of Afghanistan’s various polit-
ical and ethnic factions agree on a plan for a transitional government leading to a
permanent government. They select Hamid Karzai, a leader of the Pashtun ethnic
group, as the first interim leader.
December 17:Responding to pressure from European countries and the United States,
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat calls for an end to armed attacks, including suicide
bombings, against Israelis.
December 21:Hamas announces that it will suspend its attacks in response to Arafat’s
request to do so.
2002
January 18:As part of its continuing crackdown against the Palestinians, the Israeli
military establishes a blockade around the Palestinian Authority’s Ramallah com-
pound, confining Yasir Arafat to it. He will remain there almost continuously
until he becomes ill in late 2004 and is allowed to travel to France for medical
treatment.
January 29:In his State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush says that
Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, along with “their terrorist allies,” constitute an “axis
of evil” that is “arming to threaten the peace of the world.”
March 27:A Palestinian suicide bomber kills twenty-nine people and wounds more
than 100 during a Passover observance at a hotel in Netanya, in northern Israel.
March 28:Meeting in Beirut, Arab leaders endorse a peace plan, authored by Crown
Prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, calling for the exchange of land for peace between
Israel and the Arab states.
March 29:Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield, a major military occupation of
Palestinian cities and refugee camps.
April 9:Israeli troops engage in a fierce battle with Palestinian militants in Jenin. Thir-
teen Israeli soldiers are killed when they enter a building booby-trapped with bombs.
The Israelis then bulldoze parts of the town. Palestinian officials allege an Israeli
“massacre,” but this claim will be refuted by subsequent investigations that reveal
slightly more than 50 Palestinian deaths.
June 24:President Bush endorses the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but he
demands that the Palestinians replace Arafat as their leader.
June 30:A loya jirga,a council of Afghan notables, selects Hamid Karzai to continue
as head of state.
August 26:Vice President Dick Cheney says “there is no doubt” that Iraq has rebuilt
its illegal weapons program, is working to build nuclear weapons, and has ties to
terrorist groups.
September 8:Long-feuding Iraqi Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani
meet for the first time in two years and agree to reestablish the Kurdish National
Assembly, which had been disbanded in 1994.
September 12:In a speech to the UN General Assembly, President Bush demands that
the UN enforce its many resolutions requiring Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass
destruction and says that if the United Nations fails to act against the “gathering
danger” of Iraq, the United States will.
688 CHRONOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST, 1914–2007