The Situation

Monday-Friday mid-day reports from Israel by Robert Rosenberg
Images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)

In Rabin’s memory

Friday, October 31, 2003

Tropical landscape, acrylics on paper, 100x70 by Silvia Rosenberg

The vandalism shocked the political spectrum, though Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, the slain premier’s daughter, told Israel Radio she wasn’t surprised even though she had never encountered anything like it at the memorial – some black Golan basalt inlaid into the sidewalk -- so close to the date of the rally. She said that anti-democratic forces have never been properly dealt with since the assassination, and the educational system failed to integrate into the curriculum the kind of democratic values about accepting differences of opinion that should be taught.

In a way, the vandalism was just another stain in what has been a very messy week in Israel. A poverty report showing one out of five Israelis is living beneath a poverty line of less than $500 a month (nearly ten times the Palestinian poverty line of $2 a day; and more than half the Palestinians live under that line). The chief of staff admitted that the government’s policies contributed to the collapse of the Abu Mazin government, that the much touted separation fence will cost three times what the treasury estimated, because of a political route that will be a burden to the army, and most important, that the intense military pressure on the Palestinians only increases motivation for terrorism. And then there’s the negotiations between the Histadrut and the finance ministry meant to avert a general strike next week; but it is obvious to all that both Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Histadrut boss Amir Peretz each want the strike for their own reasons: Peretz to show he has power, Netanyahu to prove he is fighting the unions.

But the biggest stain was the police needing to spend seven hours questioning the prime minister about alleged bribery by a pontifically connected contractor and Ariel Sharon appeared to cooperate by answering every question, though he did not enlighten the police on any of their questions. The bribes were seemingly and allegedly paid through his son Gilad, and Sharon’s answer to most of the questions was ‘ask my son, I don’t know anything about his business.’ Everyone who knows the Sharon family finds that somewhat hard to believe, since Gilad Sharon’s business is managing his father’s beloved farm-estate, and the two sons and the father have lived together ron the farm since Lily Sharon passed away in the late 1990s.

In any case, the decision whether to prosecute Sharon now goes to State Attorney Edna Arbel and Criminal Investigations Department Chief Moshe Mizrahi – and they are under attack from Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, who this week charged Mizrahi with conducting a political investigation of Avigdor Lieberman, the Netanyahu aide turned businessman turned politician, and accused Arbel of being behind the Mizrahi probe. Mizrahi, for his part, accused Rubinstein of daring to suggest that Mizrahi had invented intelligence information indicating there is organized crime in Israel and of inventing informants against Lieberman.

Arbel, her deputy and the senior District Attorney in the country all backed Mizrahi. The crisis in the law enforcement agencies could not happen at a worse time, of course, since even if Sharon is not prosecuted on that bribery case – which also involves his deputy, Ehud Olmert, from the days when Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem – there’s still the so-called Cyril Kern affair, another case in which Sharon, through his sons, is suspected of taking (foreign) bribes, and his sons might be charged with money laundering.

The Sharon scandals overshadowed some interesting developments on the Palestinian front. Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon ideologue, expressed support for the Ayalon-Nusseibeh plan, an Israeli-Palestinian petition that has already been signed by more than 160,000 people. British Prime Minster Tony Blair approved of Yossi Beilin’s Geneva Accord – which panicked the government last week when it was announced. Symbolic ally, Israel Radio has begun referring to Ahmed Qurei’ by his name, and not by his nom de guerre, Abu Ala, after Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced he was preparing to meet with Palestinian Authority security officials (most likely Jibril Rajoub, said media insiders) while Sharon said there are contacts underway for a resumption of dialogue with the PA after Qurei’ is reconfirmed as PA prime minister next week.

And on the first Friday of Ramadan, there were reports that Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is now favoring a hudna/cease-fire to include Israel, while Israeli ‘goodwill gestures’ toward the Palestinians included allowing West Bankers – and even some Gazans -- over the ages of 45 to attend prayers at Al Aqsa. Police said about 100,000 Muslims prayed peacefully on the Haram al Sharif/Temple Mount. Most were Israeli Muslims, since it is extremely difficult for West Bankers and Gazans to even reach Jerusalem

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