Middle East

Amos Perlmutter, a professor of political science at American University and veteran Israel watcher who was the author of more than a dozen books on Middle Eastern affairs, died of complications from cancer on Tuesday at George Washington University Hospital. He was 69.

Middle Eastern leaders have listened to President Obama say that he intends to achieve the peace deal that has eluded so many of his predecessors. Now they're about to find out just how hard he'll push to get it. Obama today holds his first White House meeting with Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative who has pointedly stopped short of accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, which is the goal of the president and most other world leaders.

A rare storm dumped more than 2 feet of snow on parts of the Middle East, breaking power lines in Lebanon, collapsing a wall near a holy site in Jerusalem and delaying talks between Israelis and Palestinians. At least one person was killed. In Amman, the Jordanian capital, snowmen lined the streets and children sledded on plastic tubs and bowls. Parts of Jordan received as much as 2 1/2 feet of snow, and more was reported in Lebanon and Syria.

Two years after the terrible events of Sept. 11, violence has reached new levels of pain and futility in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the killing goes on in liberated Iraq. As the death and destruction continue, some 100 million young people throughout the Middle East have little or no gainful work, their meager prospects making them potential legions of terrorism and hate.

They toured the Western Wall, ate falafel, met other students from different countries. Four Santa Ana teenagers spoke Friday about an unusual field trip to Israel, where they experienced firsthand the culture of the Middle East and studied the region's politics. The two-week trip, called "Children of the Dream," was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting racism.

Israel's highly publicized inauguration of a new settlement on the occupied Golan Heights in Syria on Monday, just hours after the Mideast peace conference adjourned in Madrid, brought cheers from Israeli hard-liners and a rebuke from Secretary of State James A. Baker III. The settlement represents another of those in-your-face gestures aimed at cementing Israel's territorial claims, even if that means embarrassing Israel's closest ally.

To Americans deluged by news of primary elections, it may come as a surprise that historic change is going on elsewhere--including in places where peace and prosperity depend directly on U.S. leadership in the world. "We are seeing the emergence of a common market of the Middle East," says Benjamin Gaon, president of Koor Industries Ltd.

With the Middle East heating up again, Orange County residents are turning their interest to the many developments in recent weeks in that region. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami earlier this month wanted to "create a crack in the wall" between his country and the United States. Then President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat reported small gains in the peace process.

The wind is blowing again across the marsh grass of Middle East politics. Patterns form and disappear deceptively. Only by intuition and experience can one tell where there is solid ground or quagmire. Beneath it all lies the bedrock of Israel and the Islamic movement.

Making his first foray into Middle East diplomacy, Gov. Gray Davis spent an extraordinary day meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday, promising stronger economic ties with California if Middle East peace talks produce an accord. The U.S. State Department encouraged Davis to visit Arafat. He is the first California governor to meet with the Palestinian Authority president.