Army Radio was reporting that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas are planning to meet next week (after Abbas canceled this week's meeting because if the internal political crisis in the Palestinian Authority between him and Yasser Arafat). The agenda for the meeting includes Palestinian prisoner releases -- pressure was mounting on Sharon to okay more than the 350 Fateh detainees he originally planned to let go -- and the transfer of more West Bank Palestinian cities to Palestinian Authority security control. According to Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, Hebron is likely the next city -- though the IDF will retain its security envelope for the tiny Jewish enclave in the heart of the ancient town.

Israel Radio said Palestinians prisoners who expressed support for the hudna cease-fire have started hunger strikes demanding the prisoner release be much broader. According to Palestinian Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan, there are at least 450 prisoners from before the Oslo accords, who should be released as part of the overall prisoner release scheme.

No less important for next week's meeting will be the fact that the White House has advanced its invitation to the end of this month instead of after President Bush's August vacation, and a similar invitation is going to Abbas, whose finance minister, Salam Fayyad is a Bush favorite and is getting $20 million for humanitarian investment in Gaza, with the hope it will be used in ways that shift at least some loyalties from the Hamas to the Palestinian Authority. Abu Mazin, deep in his power struggle with Yasser Arafat, has been postponing acceptance of foreign invitations since his appointment, as long as Arafat remains besieged in the Muqata.

The invitation to Sharon comes as the Americans step up their pressure on both sides. Roadmap Inspector John Wolf, the mid-level State Department bureaucrat acting as the president's envoy, is pressing Israel for a much more generous Palestinian prisoner release and a much more serious approach to removing illegal outposts. He is also pressing the Palestinians for more aggressive action against the remaining rogue armed factions that continue keeping the Shin Bet's daily count of terror alerts at the 20-a-day mark. But this week the most pressure is on Arafat and Abbas. The pressure on Arafat is coming from the Quartet -- Terje Larsen, the UN's Middle East envoy -- and judging by Arafat's use of that meeting to call Abbas a 'traitor,' the pressure is getting to Arafat. So far, Abbas seems to be handling the pressure on him quite elegantly, using the only weapon at his disposal -- the threat to resign, which nobody -- including Arafat -- wants to happen.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan met at the Erez Junction border crossing between Israel and Gaza last night, working on details of security cooperation and each reciting to the other their respective demands. Heading back into Gaza after the meeting, Dahlan's convoy encountered what his guards believed was an armed man, who was shot and then taken to hospital. Dahlan's office said it was a case of a misunderstanding. Some Israeli press reports this morning said it was a gun battle between some rogue Islamic Jihad gunmen and Dahlan's Preventive Security forces.

But as the cease-fire (which Israel originally opposed) takes hold, even if not yet totally to the satisfaction of the Israelis, domestic issues relating to the economic crunch dominated the morning news today. Another single mother, Ilana Azulay from Arad, has begun a march to Jerusalem -- pushing her 17-year-old wheelchair-bound son -- to protest the deep cuts in welfare for single parents. Vicki Knafu, who marched from Mitzpe Ramon, who met yesterday for an inconclusive session with Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was to meet today with a team of treasury officials. Knafu is now backed by a team of legal and financial professionals -- all single mothers -- who have prepared a program that postpones for at least six months the deep welfare cuts. The treasury fears that if it accepts that program, it will open floodgates for other changes to its reforms. Meanwhile, three government hospitals were threatening to shut their doors if their deficits aren't covered. Health Minister Danny Naveh, a former Netanyahu protege was seeking a meeting with the finance minister, to demand half a billion shekel to cover the ministry's overall deficit.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

High Noon

There was a certain degree of confusion this morning regarding the state of the hudna, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and Abu Mazin's intentions. Israel Radio started the day with a report quoting 'a very senior defense source,' meaning someone in Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's office, as saying that 'for the first time, the optimists outnumber the skeptics in the defense establishment regarding the chances that the armed conflict is over and the political process has begun.' The report mentioned that Mofaz would be meeting this afternoon or evening with Palestinian Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan, to launch the join security cooperation committee -- and to discuss the prisoner release issue. And the report said that in the wake of an American request, Israel is now considering freeing some Hamas and Islamic Jihad detainees from the civilian infrastructure of the Islamic organizations. As an example of the reasoning for the newfound optimism, the reporter quoted her source as saying that Tawfik Tiraqwi, the head of General Intelligence in the West Bank -- and long wanted by Israel as a plotter of terrorism during the intifada -- had cooperated with the IDF and Shin Bet in a number of arrests in the past week of Islamic Jihad activists who were planning terror attacks.

But the same broadcast quoted 'senior government sources' -- meaning someone in Prime Minister Sharon's office, as saying Military Intelligence had handed in a report saying the armed factions were using the cease-fire to rearm, enlist more suicide bombers, and consolidate both military and political strength.

And meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, the power struggle continued between Chairman Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Reports this morning said the struggle was over Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan's powers, how Abbas and Dahlan were ignoring the old guard in Fateh as he presses ahead with his reforms inside the Palestinian Authority, and over exactly who controls the Palestinian broadcasting authority -- Arafat or Abbas, through his information minister, Nabli Amru. There was a report that Marwan Barghouti, from his Israeli jail cell, issued a call backing Abbas and the ceasefire.

And while Abbas was refusing to withdraw his resignation from the Fateh central committee, where he came under attack from Arafat cronies, Fateh leaders were issuing statements of support for him and claming the entire Fateh was unanimous in wanting him to retract his resignation. However, he was insisting he wouldn't do so until there was a public statement from the central committee either backing him or making clear how they wanted him to negotiate with Israel. The Egyptians were continuing their efforts to defuse the internal crisis, after yesterday winning a reconfirmation from Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin that the organization was sticking to the cease-fire even though its 'patience is limited.'

But nobody is expecting a forthcoming collapse of the Abbas government in the near future or a sudden resumption of warfare. Indeed, today's tabloids turned their attention to the extraordinary story of Vicki Knafu, a single mother of three from the desert town of Mitzpe Ramon, who walked the 250 kilometers from her unemployment-struck town to Jerusalem, demanding to meet with Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to explain to him that his new economic program, cutting welfare payments by half in her case, means she can't support her family, especially since there's no work in her town. It took her five days to make the trip and now, camped outside the finance ministry, hundreds have joined her demands.

She was finally getting her meeting with Netanyahu today, after a two-day wait -- but she said she wouldn't be asking about her personal condition, rather about the estimated 100,000 single mothers who face the same problem she does. Reports said treasury officials were warning Netanyahu that if he surrenders to her demands, it would open a floodgate of demands from other sectors of the economy that are being battered by his Thatcherite welfare reforms.

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

The pressure is on

Mahmoud Abbas's power struggle in Fatah with Yasser Arafat, and Israel losing patience with the hudna because of the bombing in Kfar Yavitz and its tightfisted approach to the prisoner release issue, has brought American pressure to bear on both sides.

Reports said the U.S. was sending $20 millions in aid directly to the Palestinian Authority's coffers controlled by Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, in a break from past policy. There were reports of direct U.S. pressure on Israel to increase the number of Palestinian prisoners it will release and to take a more serious approach to outpost removals. As U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer told Israeli officials, 'By our count, a sum total of one outpost has been removed' so far.

So, like Mark Twain's death, reports of the collapse of the hudna and the Abbas government were premature. Military Intelligence chief Aharon Ze'evi told Channel One's Popolitika program last night that the cease-fire has to be 'given a chance,' despite the bomb in Kfar Yavitz that killed a grandmother. And Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Dahlan are going ahead with their planned meeting to kick off the formal bilateral security cooperating team.

On the same program, senior coalition partner Yosef 'Tommy' Lapid of Shinui said he favored a more generous prisoner release than the 350-400 so far proposed proposed by Israel, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners 'without blood on their hands.' Imanuel Rosen, on Channel Ten, was predicting last night that under American pressure, Israel would indeed release more prisoners - but all indications that releases would only come after a meeting between Sharon and Abbas. The meeting was slated for tomorrow, but postponed yesterday by Abbas because of his trouble with the Fatah and Arafat.

Although there is a consensus in the Israeli press that Abbas is weak, able only to rely on Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan and Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, it's the threesome's international support, particularly from Washington, which makes it unlikely the Abbas government is about to collapse. Abbas' gamble is that with U.S. help, he'll get some Israeli concessions quickly enough to prove to the Palestinian street that he can do the job. The two top issues on his agenda are the prisoners and checkpoints - in addition to the transfer of West Bank towns to Palestinian security responsibility.

PA advisor Sufian Abu Zaidah, speaking to Israel Radio, said about the crisis inside Fatah over Abbas' resignation from the movement's central committee: 'We have internal problems, like Sharon has in the Likud central committee, and in the Knesset; there are people here and there, who have great difficulty accepting this way of peace, a solution to the conflict on the basis of two states for two peoples ... Everyone who believes in the peace process has to help him. Part of your government understands it, part doesn't. But Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Mofaz apparently do understand.'

And right after the interview with Abu Zaidah, Israel Radio was reporting 'a top-level delegation from Fatah is meeting with Abu Mazen to ask him to withdraw his resignation from the central committee and to discuss the state of the negotiations with Israel.'

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

A Palestinian Sadat?

A mysterious explosion last night in a moshav farmhouse several hundred meters from the outskirts of Tul Karm, was determined this morning to be a 'work accident' by a young Palestinian who was blown up with the elderly resident of the house. A leaflet issued in the name of the Islamic Jihad, which ostensibly is signed to the cease-fire claimed the armed faction was responsible. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israel would not cease its dialogue with the Abu Mazen government.

Palestinian sources are saying that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas will not visit the Knesset as a private guest of the Shinui faction. Apparently Abbas would prefer to await an official invitation, for a Sadat-like visit to the Knesset, and only after much more progress is made in the political process, perhaps after the declaration of the Palestinian state with its provisional borders. Other Palestinian ministers, however, are likely to take up the invitation offered by Shinui's Yosef Lapid (in response to a request yesterday by Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs Hisham Abdel Razek), to try persuading Israeli politicians of the necessity of a much larger prisoner release for it to have an impact on the Palestinian street's attitude toward the Abbas government and the peace process.

The Right is not happy with the invitations issued by Shinui. Speaker Reuven Rivlin, of Likud, sounded happy he would not have to be Abbas' official host, and said he would refuse to meet with Dahlan. Further to the right National Union MK Uri Ariel told Israel Radio he and his colleagues were working on a plan to protest the Palestinian visits to the parliament.

Meanwhile, Abbas is slated to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tomorrow, and the main topic on the agenda will be the prisoner releases, with Abbas planning to press for releases of Hamas and Islamic Jihad detainees. One 'creative solution' for the Hamas release issue, as Channel One's Oded Granot reported last night, would be for the same criteria of 'no blood on their hands' applying to the Hamas and Jihad prisoners who would be released, and that the first batch of freed prisoners be administrative detainees.

While the prisoner releases created a minor crisis in the cabinet, a consensus appeared t be forming in the media that eventually most if not all the Palestinian prisoners would have to be released during the long process to peace. Some, such as Channel 10's Immanuel Rozen said American pressure on Israel could be expected to break the current crisis over the gap between what the Palestinians say they need now and what Israel is ready to offer now. The upcoming prisoner releases, with the first wave expected after tomorrow's meeting of the two premiers, has raised media speculation about a broader prisoner release that would include Egypt freeing Azzam Azzam, jailed eight years ago on what Israel called trumped up espionage charges, the Hezbollah freeing Israeli businessman (and reserve colonel) Elhanan Tannenbaum, apparently lured to Beirut in the early days of the intifada as well as the bodies of three soldiers grabbed by the Hezbollah around the same time on the Lebanese border; and perhaps most surprising of all, the Americans releasing Jonathan Pollard, in U.S. jails since the Reagan administration, for his espionage on behalf of Israel.

Egypt and Syria, which is highly influential over the Hezbollah) issued a joint statement yesterday calling for the roadmap to include Syria and Lebanon. There were no indications, however, from Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, or Washington that such a deal was in the offing. Nonetheless, Maariv reported that Egypt has told Israel that Cairo is sending an ambassador back to Tel Aviv. Haaretz reported earlier this week that Egypt and Jordan would be returning their ambassadors in September, on the third anniversary of the intifada, which prompted the withdrawal of the diplomats in 2000.

In another development, the High Court of Justice was holding hearings today on petitions regarding two key human rights issues in the territories: the legality of the IDF's 'targeted killing' or 'extra-judicial execution' policies, and the IDF's use of Palestinian civilians to call on armed wanted gunmen hiding in their neighborhoods to give themselves up. In today's preliminary hearing, Court President Justice Aharon Barak refused to issue a temporary injunction against the assassination policy -- but hinted the issue was serious enough to require a full panel of justices for the full hearing on the issue. And another outpost, Beit El East, was likely to be evacuated today. Media reports say that for every outpost that has been dismantled or evacuated, another two or three have gone up, usually consisting of not much more than a trailer or mobile home, and a few tents.

And yesterday's 18-year-old Gazan girl arrested by the Palestinian police as a suspected suicide bomber turned in by her parents, turned out to be suicidal over personal problems but not a potential bomber. Her parents simply wanted her found quickly.

July 7, 2003

Actions louder than words

Judging by the way the cabinet vote went on the prisoner release issue, the hurdles and obstacles ahead on the roadmap are truly insurmountable, especially with 'senior intelligence sources' telling journalists this morning that the Hamas is still making Qassam rockets even while the level of alerts has been cut in half and the PA is reducing incitement in the media.

But actions speak somewhat louder than words. The PA prevented two terror attacks -- including a suicide bombing by an 18-year-old girl in Gaza, whose parents called the PA police to turn her in.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom met with Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr to discuss the incitement issue, and Justice Minister Yosef Lapid was to meet with his Palestinian counterpart Abdel Karim Salah and Prisoner Affairs Minister Hisham Abdul Rizak today to discuss reestablishing legal relations and to discuss the prisoner release issues.

Israel Radio was reporting that the incitement had disappeared from Palestinian TV -- 'no pictures of shaheeds and praise for them, no pictures of riots and praise for the rioters, no burning Israeli flags or maps of Palestine from the sea to the river' -- but perhaps most important, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas are going ahead with their plans to meet this week, institutionalizing the communications between them.

Moreover, Sharon is slated to hold a meeting tomorrow on budgeting the next stages of the separation fence and there are already indications, said Yedioth Ahronoth this morning, that he will order a change in the fence's route, so it doesn't include East Jerusalem, nor the settlement bloc around Ariel, just as the Americans demand. Furthermore, little noticed in the formal decision by the cabinet yesterday was that it did not prevent Sharon deciding on more prisoner releases down the road, as the Palestinians insist.

The prisoner release issue did not preoccupy the press this morning. Israel's poor showing in international comparative achievement testing for junior high school pupils continues to bother columnists, while the main headlines were concerned about the 10 percent decline in real wages since last year -- and the looming budget deficit that now looks like it could reach as high as 6 percent (twice the target set by the economic package) while inflation remains below 1 percent a year. The Bank of Israel announced it would be tightening controls on the plague of the Israeli economy, the liberal overdraft policy granted by the banks to account holders. More than one -- third of Israeli households maintain an overdraft higher than their monthly income, and with interest rates very high -- currently the prime is 7.5 percent but overdraft rates go as high as 16 percent -- the bank is warning Israelis that overdrafts are going to become ever more expensive.

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