Dr. Arik, Pathologist
Monday, October 27, 2003
Tropical landscape, acrylics on paper, 100x70 by Silvia Rosenberg
As Ramadan began, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz accepted recommendations from top army commanders to ease conditions in the territories – but the hardline Mofaz also retroactively legitimized several of the hitherto ‘illegal’ outposts in the West Bank. A few thousand Palestinians will be allowed to resume work inside Israel and some of the closures around towns and villages will be lifted. The same thing happened a little more than a month ago – and then the Maxim massacre took place in Haifa, and all the closures and other restrictions were reinstated.
The killing of three soldiers – including two female soldiers – in Netzarim on Friday, continued to take up a lot of media attention. Yesterday, Shinui ministers, the only ‘doves’ in the government, came under fire from Right wing ministers for proposing at the weekly government session that the ministers discuss the strategy of holding onto the tiny settlement between Gaza City and the main refugee camps of the center of Gaza. Today, the debate continued, especially after the Israel Radio report that the defense ministry had retroactively ‘koshered’ some of the illegal outposts, making them eligible for government grants. Mostly, the decision institutionalizes IDF protection for the handfuls of settlers living at each of the hilltop positions. Justice Minister Yosef Lapid, buying into Mofaz’s argument (‘we won’t leave Gaza under terror’) proposed on Israel Radio that ‘if there are a few months of quiet, we quit Netzarim.’ He was immediately attacked by settlement leaders.
While Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sticks to his ‘medical strategy’ – counting on Yasser Arafat’s declining health to improve thee situation ‘in another few months,’ as he recently told the Knesset (prompting Yedioth columnist Nahum Barnea to call Sharon, 'Dr. Arik, Pathologist'), Ahmed Qurei’, the prime minister of an emergency Palestinian government is working on resurrecting a truce with the Hamas and said this morning that he wants to engage Sharon in dialogue – but only if Israel ceases its military operations in the territories.
Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantisi, considered the most militant in the leadership under Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was quoted by Israel Radio as denying the Hamas was interested in any cease-fire – but later reports quoted Ismail Heniye, Yassin’s secretary and closest aide, as saying Hamas was interested in dialogue with the PA minister.
Qurei’ is scheduled to resign on November 4, but current assessments now in Ramallah are that he and his compact government will stay on in office, under pressure from Arafat, the Europeans and the Americans.
Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Histadrut labor federation chairman Amir Peretz were going into a meeting this morning, but it was clear going into it that the political environment was not conducive to them striking any deal that will halt preparations for a general strike next week. Meanwhile, civil servants already on strike stepped up their sanctions: the computers in Netanyahu’s office stopped working, and in the Prime Minister’s Office, switchboard operators stopped answering the phones.
Israelis go to the polls tomorrow to elect new local authority city and town councils and mayors. The elections are being closely watched by the professionals, not the public, which doesn’t appear to be very excited about the races – only about 50 percent of the public is even considering going to vote. The professionals – politicians and journalists – will study the results like tea leaves, trying to determine whether there has been a change in public support for the ruling party, the Likud. An indication of the strength of the peace camp will be evident on Saturday night, when the eighth annual memorial on the day of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination is held at city hall plaza in Tel Aviv.
And Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein has okayed the police interrogating Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about the ‘Greek Island’ affair and foreign monies his sons accepted to pay back illegal foreign donations to Sharon’s 1999 election campaign. The police suspect the foreign monies and the donations are from the same sources – international businessmen with economic interests in Israel and close ties with Sharon. Today’s press said the interrogation would take place in Sharon’s office – and is tentatively slated for Wednesday.
Ariga Recommends
 Death as a Way of Life David Grossman's collection of essays, starting in 1993, on the arc of the peace process from its optimistic begbeginnings the disaster known as the intifada. Highly recommended reading for anyone wanting to know what life is like in a land caught up in a spiraling madness in which people are taught terror and counter-terror, which have grown so interwoven that it has become impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends, is preferable to generosity of spirit, and compromise resulting from dialogue.
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