Taba (an Egyptian Red Sea resort town in the Sinai Peninsula) was the site for a series of talks in January 2001 between Israelis and Palestinians, after the failure of the Camp David II Summit and the outbreak of the Second Intifada. Differences were considerably narrowed in the talks, but no final agreement was produced. The negotiations were a last attempt to salvage a peace settlement before Israeli elections in February, in which Ariel Sharon of the Likud party was expected to (and did) win a resounding victory, replacing Ehud Barak of the Labor party as Prime Minister. Some have considered the Taba Talks as the best model for an eventual Settlement. See "Deconstructing the Taba Talks," Foundation for Middle East Peace, March-April 2001; and "The Moratinos Non-Paper" UNISPAL, January 2001.
(Arabic for "organization") The militant wing of Fatah. Founded in 1995 by Yasser Arafat as a way of securing support from more militant elements of the Palestinian population. Its leadership structure is independent of Fatah, with Marwan Barghouti as its head. Tanzim's strategies include bombings and shootings, usually high profile, to pressure Israel into negotiations for a future Palestinian state. Most active during the Second Intifada against Israeli troops, the group calls for an independent Palestinian state but does not call for the destruction of the State of Israel. See "Fatah Tanzim," Global Security.org, November 9, 2007.
Also known as "targeted killings." A premeditated killing of an individual by a state or military actor outside of a judicial system and off the battlefield. Though the tactic was employed by Israel since the 1970s, its use of targeted assassinations of "wanted" men in the Occupied Palestinian Territories increased greatly during and since the Second Intifada. 425 Palestinians were killed in this manner between 2000-2011, including 174 civilian bystanders, amounting to 41% of those killed. The most infamous series of Israel's targeted assassinations abroad took place following the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics. More recently and more locally, Israel has dropped bombs to kill leaders of Palestinian militant organizations, including Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in 2004, Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in 2005 and Mohammed Nimnim of the Army of Islam in 2010. Palestinian militant groups have also used targeted assassinations, although far less frequently. The tactic is criticized for the level of civilian casualties it can produce and also for the lack of due process in bringing the accused to justice. See "Israel's 'targeted Killings," BBC, April 17, 2004. See also "Extra-Judicial Executions as Israeli Government Policy," Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, August 2008.
Located in the Old City of Jerusalem, the site is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. In Judaism, the Temple Mount, known as Har HaBayit in Hebrew, refers to the area where the First and Second Jewish Temples are believed to have once resided. The location is revered by Jews as the holiest site in Judaism, together with the Western Wall beside it, which is considered the last remnant of the Second Temple. For Muslims, the area of is known as the Haram al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) and is what makes Jerusalem the third holiest city in Islam after Mecca and Medina. The Haram al-Sharif includes the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Al-Aqsa mosque. Sovereignty over Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount and related holy sites has become a major point of contention in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. While Israel maintains sovereignty over the site, the Islamic Waqf runs it on a day-to-day basis. On September 28, 2000 Ariel Sharon (then Israel's opposition leader and head of the Likud party) made an inflammatory walk on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif with 1,000 armed police, declaring permanent Israeli sovereignty over the site. This provocation is largely credited with being the spark that started the Second Intifada. In recent years, Jewish extremist groups have been on the rise, such as the Temple Mount Faithful, who seek to rebuild the Third Temple, calling for the "liberation of the Temple Mount from Arab/Islamic occupation." Due to these groups and to increased restriction of Muslim prayer at the site, Palestinians fear that that Israel intends to take over Haram al-Sharif. Tensions and clashes at the site rose again in late 2014, when the compound was closed by Israel for the first time since the start of the Second Intifada after a Palestinian murdered Yehuda Glick, an American-Israeli activist with the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation. See "The Politics of Prayer at the Temple Mount," Ruth Margalit, New York Times, Nov 5, 2014.\
Palestinian political party. Founded in 2005 by Hanan Ashrawi and Salam Fayyad, the Third Way independent list was established in order to provide an alternative to the dominant Palestinian political parties Hamas and Fatah. Created before the 2006 Parliamentary elections, the list wanted to attract voters who were fed up with Fatah's corruption and infighting, but did not agree with Hamas's vision of an Islamist society. In the 2006 elections, the Third Way won two of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. See "Palestinian 'third way' rises," Ilene Prusher, Christian Science Monitor, Dec 13, 2005.
A two-state solution refers to the notion of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state alongside a sovereign Israeli state. Though the first two-state proposal was made in 1937 in the Peel Commission Report, the Two-State Solution became the most accepted framework in Palestinian-Israeli peace talks since the Oslo Process began in 1993. Key disputed issues for a two-state solution include: borders and control over them; the status of East Jerusalem; the type of economic relations between Palestine and its neighbors; Palestinian refugees seeking repatriation to Israel and/or Palestine or compensation by Israel; access to natural resources; the contiguity of land; whether or not Palestine will be de-militarized, other defense matters and air space; access to and control over Jerusalem's holy sites; Jewish Israeli settlements. Many who used to support the Two-State Solution now deem it to be impossible due to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and other examples of increased Israeli control of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There is a common debate around a Two-State versus a One-State solution, and, if one state, what the nature of that state would be. There are proponents of a one-state Greater Israel, and proponents of a Palestinian and/or Islamist state on all of historic Palestine, but most of those who define themselves as "one-staters" speak of a state for all its citizens, with full equality between its Israeli and Palestinian citizens. See "Large Israeli and Palestinian Majorities Indicate Readiness for Two-State Solution Based on 1967 Borders," WorldPublicOpinion.org, Dec 9, 2002; and "One- or two-state solution? The answer is both (or neither)," Noam Sheizaf, +972mag, September 2, 2014.