The Situation

'Leftists' at work

Friday, October 10, 2003

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

In a marathon overnight session, and backed by a Labor Court verdict, Shimon Peres brokered a deal between Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Histadrut Chairman Amir Peretz that ended the expensive longshoremen's strike this morning and gave the sides a month to negotiate a deal that would allow a peaceful transformation of the ports into three competing state companies.

On another front, senior Labor Party leaders, including former Knesset Speaker Avrum Burg and former chairman Amram Miztna, were on their way to Jordan to meet with Yossi Beilin and former chief of staff Amnon Lipkin Shahak, among others, and sign a draft peace agreement with Palestinian officials Yasser Abed Rabo, Nabil Kassis, Hisham Abdel Rizak and Fares Kadura.

The draft paper, based on the Clinton framework, the Taba talks and the original Beilin-Abu Mazin plan, has the backing of both Marwan Barghouti and Yasser Arafat. But according to YNet, which broke the original story about the draft peace deal being hammered out in Switzerland, the Labor Party's former leader Ehud Barak, who still has plans to return to politics, attacked the Labor MKs' participation as 'irresponsible and damaging to the state,' saying that the draft would not win backing from the party institutions if it was brought to them. According to reports on the draft, it offers some creative solutions to past sticking points, including the right of return issue. Presumably, the signing ceremony will be covered by the Israeli press and those who support it will present it to the public, as Mitzna said yesterday evening, 'as proof there is a partner on the other side.' The criticism by Barak and Ephraim Sneh, for example, of the draft is that it will become a new starting point for new demands by the Palestinians if and when real peace negotiations take place.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meanwhile reverted to his old form of attacking the Left for all Israel's problems this week, accusing 'political interests' for being behind the strike at the ports, and 'Labor and the Left' for themselves reverting to old form, 'going behind the back of an elected government to cooperate with Palestinians at a time of war.'

Amir Peretz, who is back in the Labor Party after two elections in which he was on his own and won two to three seats each vote, bluntly stated this morning in Israel Radio that indeed, he was aiming to bring down the Sharon government, which he said had failed on every front: 'Peace, security, economics, social issues -- and all they can do is attack the Histadrut and the workers. Well, it won't work.'

In Rafah, a major IDF operation was meanwhile underway, with troops searching for at least 13 tunnels used by Palestinian smugglers to bring in arms as well as drugs and consumer items from Egypt. Most of the tunnels are controlled by members of a single clan and tribe members have put up stiff resistance to Palestinian Authority efforts to shut down the tunnels in the past. Five Palestinians (including a 12-year-old) were killed this morning and at least two dozen were wounded, with no Israeli casualties reported. The army said the operation would last as long as it takes to find all 13 tunnels, which means at least through the weekend.

Meanwhile, Yedioth Ahronoth this morning quoted three unnamed Iranian sources as saying that Ron Arad was spotted as recently as three years ago in a secret Iranian prison outside Tehran. According to the newspaper, Arad was seen 'sitting in a wheelchair, very thin, with sad eyes, and seeming to be staring into space.' The paper emphasized it had no way of backing up the claims made by the three, all exiles from the Tehran regime. This morning, Sharon was reportedly calling into session the a new, informal inner cabinet dubbed the Forum of Five – Sharon, Mofaz, Shalom, Lapid and Olmert – to present the current status of the prisoner exchange negotiations with the Hezbollah.

Sharon wants to go ahead with the deal, which is growing increasingly unpopular because of the way it frees many Palestinians to get back three bodies of dead soldiers and only one live Israeli – Elhanan Tannenbaum -- and not Arad. That Tannenbaum apparently was lured into Hezbollah captivity through his own greed as a businessman also has soured many Israelis on the deal. The details might become known next week when the gag order on what is known about his capture is finally lifted (unless the Supreme Court slams it shut again).

One bit of good news for the Israel was the signing this morning in India of a three-way deal in which Russia would provide a plane outfitted with Israeli avionics and onboard radar systems, to India. Pakistan warned the $1 billion 'Phalcon' deal will upset the delicate military balance between it and India. In the 1990s, the U.S. scotched a similar deal with China for the Phalcon system, arguing it would upset the balance of forces between China and Taiwan. In recent years India has pulled past Turkey to become Israel's largest customer for defense exports.

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