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Friday July 20, 2001

Mideast Report

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Knesset to pass legislation to rescind the Oslo accords.

Interviewed on a right-wing radio station this week, Netanyahu said the Oslo process is dead. He also said he regrets signing a January 1997 agreement that transferred parts of Hebron to Palestinian control.

Meanwhile, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told Newsweek magazine it "will take years" for "permanent peace" to exist between Israel and the Palestinians.

In his first interview since losing the February election to Ariel Sharon, Barak said that after the failure of the Camp David talks last year, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat "decided that only by turning to violence could he once again create world sympathy" for the Palestinian cause.

Human trafficking rampant in Holy Land

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel and 22 other countries do not meet the minimum standards for combating traffic in sex slaves and forced laborers, according to a State Department report.

"It is incomprehensible that trafficking in human beings should be taking place in the 21st century," Secretary of State Colin Powell said when he released the report on July 12.

Ranked in the lowest grouping, Israel is a destination in trafficking from former Soviet states, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. According to U.S. law, a country that does not comply with the minimum standards by 2003 will be subject to sanctions.

5,000 Israeli couples married in Cypress

JERUSALEM (JTA) --Some 5,000 Israeli couples were married in civil ceremonies in Cypress last year, exceeding the number of local residents who were wed there, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv reported.

The statistics were supplied by the organization "New Family," which recently launched a campaign to promote civil marriages in Israel.

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