854 Chapter 32 Shocks and Responses: 1992–Present
against convict labor in China or sweatshop workers
in Indonesia or Malaysia. Others complained that
the emphasis on worldwide economic growth was
generating an environmental calamity. International
protests against the World Trade Organization cul-
minated in the disruption of its 2000 meeting in
Seattle, when thousands of protesters went on a ram-
page, setting fires and looting stores.
Clinton’s record in foreign affairs was mixed. In
1993 he failed in an effort to assemble an interna-
tional force to prevent “ethnic cleansing” by Serbian
troops against Muslims in Bosnia, formerly part of
Yugoslavia. In 1999 critics predicted another debacle
when Clinton proposed a NATO effort to prevent
General Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia from
crushing the predominantly Muslim province of
Kosovo, which was attempting to secede. But after
several months of intense NATO bombing of Serbia,
Milosevic withdrew from Kosovo. Within a year, he
was forced out of office and into prison, awaiting trial
for war crimes before a UN tribunal.
Clinton labored, as had his predecessors in the
White House, to broker peace between Israel and
the Palestinians; like his predecessors, he failed. In
1993 Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli prime minister, and
Yassir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, signed an agreement preparing for a
Palestinian state. But extremists on both sides shat-
tered the fragile accord. In 1995 Rabin was assassi-
nated by a Jewish zealot. Palestinians, enraged by the
construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian terri-
tory, stepped up their campaign of suicide bombings.In 1993, Clinton succeeded in brokering a deal between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. It was
supposed to lead to the formation of a Palestinian state. The assassination of Rabin by a Jewish extremist shattered the agreement.