Ailing governments

Thursday, October 09, 2003

Maybe the bloody land belongs to the cows, acrylics on paper, 50x65, by Silvia Rosenberg

A YNet scoop said this morning that a group of unnamed 'senior politicians from the Left' have hammered out a final peace agreement with a similarly unnamed group of senior Palestinian Authority officials during negotiations that took place in Switzerland. According to the report, the deal more or less follows the lines of the Clinton Framework and the Beilin-Abu Mazin plan, and that Yasser Arafat was aware of the talks.

So, apparently, was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, because last night, during a meeting with Bat Yam Likud activists, he blasted 'the Left and the Labor Party ' for 'secretly negotiating' behind the government's back 'in coordination with the Palestinians.'

The sudden attack on Labor, which followed a similar Sharon charge yesterday morning that the strikes at the ports and government monasteries seem to him to be “motivated by political interests,' threw spanners in the conspiracy theories of those who reckon the current coalition crisis between the National Religious Party and Shinui is part of a Sharon plan to throw out the Right and bring Labor into his government.

The crisis over the breakup of the Religious Affairs Ministry is a storm in a teapot, likely to be resolved before the Sukkot holidays are over by the end of next week. Nobody was expecting the NRP, which has leveraged its hold on the Housing Ministry into massive construction efforts in the settlements, to suddenly give up that power. And no less an authority than Shiomon Peres said today that Labor would not join the Sharon government if the NRP and National Union were to quit.

Nonetheless, the crisis might be symptomatic of an ailing government that except for a strategy for economic Thatcherism led by Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not appear to have any purpose other than to postpone for as long as possible doing anything other than take defensive action against terrorism.

The government has still not decided whether it will offer any goodwill gestures to the new Palestinian government of Ahmed Qurei', due to be presented to the Palestinian Legislative council today (when the interior minister Nasser Yusuf is due to be sworn into the narrow, emergency cabinet). But with the U.S. indicating it had no plans to invite Qurei' to Washington to meet with U.S. administration officials – and the president – it's unlikely the Israeli government will be in a hurry to put on any display of friendship.

Maariv was reporting this morning that as opposed to previous reports claiming Arafat suffered mild heart attacks over the past two weeks, the Palestinian Authority chairman is suffering from severe stomach disorders, gastritis, that at his age (75) and under the circumstances he is living (under siege in a small apartment complex inside the Ramallah Muqata) could be fatal. According to the front page report, Arafat's doctors are worried the infection could spread to his liver. Some Israeli reports say that Arafat's hurry to name Qurei' as prime minister was to put an heir in place in case Arafat becomes incapacitated.

Israel Radio's weekly poll meanwhile found that a massive majority of Israelis – 71 percent – supported the decision to attack the camp in Syria and more than half – 56 percent – say they would support a similar attack on training camps of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Iran. Some 40 percent the latest events on the Lebanese border will result in escalation on that front, but slightly more Israelis – 48 percent – say there will not be an escalation. More than half – 55 percent – favor expelling Arafat, and a third are opposed. On the pressing economic issue of the day, 62 percent of the Israeli public supports privatization of the ports and 72 percent of the public oppose the longshoremen's strike. The strike goes on.

One interesting political note: a 5-2 High Court of Justice ruling turned down a petition by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel against the appointment of Tzachi Hanegbi as Public Security Minister on the grounds Hanegbi has been under suspicion of corruption in the past. Hanegbi has never actually faced charges in court.

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