Just after 10 p.m. local time, phones rang, beepers went off and dinner parties were interrupted by aides handing messages to senior Israeli officials. Secretary of State James Baker had just emerged from his meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva and announced that the talks had failed. That was good news to members of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's government, who dreaded a deal linking the gulf crisis with Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But their sense of relief did not last long. Appearing before reporters about an hour later, Aziz was asked whether Iraq would...
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