Sunday, September 27, 1998

After a 2d round of separate mtgs. (see 9/26), Secy. Albright holds unexpected mtg. with PM Netanyahu and Arafat together to discuss FRD. Arafat to tone down his speech to the UNGA to "improve the atmosphere for peace-making." (IDF Radio 9/27 in WNC 9/29; NYT, WP, WT 9/28; MEI, PR 10/2)

100s of Israeli border police descend on Umm al-Fahm, nr. Haifa, to break up 3-wk.-old sit-in by Israeli Arab residents protesting an IDF confiscation of 62 acres of the town's olive groves for a firing range. After 10 hrs. of clashes in which more than 100 (maybe as many as 500) Israeli Arabs, 15 police are injured, the IDF agrees to allow residents to harvest the groves for another 6 mos. (JTV 9/27 in WNC 9/29; HA [Internet], MM, NYT, WP, WT 9/28; JT 9/29 in WNC 9/30; MEI, PR 10/2; MM 10/5, 10/6; JP 10/10) (see 7/5)

The family of Alisa Flatow--awarded (3/11) $247.5 m. by a U.S. court in a case that found Iran liable in Flatow's death in an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Israel in 4/95--lobbies Capitol Hill to pressure the U.S. government to give them 12 Iranian properties (including the fmr. embassy building), other frozen assets to defray the settlement. (WP 9/27, MM 10/12; see also MM 9/18)