The Situation

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

Government okays prisoner exchange deal; Baby formula found dangerous

Monday, November 10, 2003

Scanned silver leaves digital image by Robert Rosenberg

A batch of German-made kosher vegetable-based baby formula distributed under the Remedia label, was found to be missing B1 vitamins, resulting in the hospitalization of at least 20 Israeli babies – and at least three deaths – this weekend started a panic that overshadows all the other news for the last three days, including the Israeli government’s approval – by an extreme narrow margin of 12-11 -- of a prisoner exchange deal with the Hezbollah. State Attorney Edna Arbel was convening a meeting this afternoon to discuss the legal steps that will likely have to be taken against the German manufacturer, the local Israeli distributor, and possible Health Ministry officials. A spokesman for the German company told an Israel Radio correspondent that the company was investigating its production process.

As predicted, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday won the kind of narrow margin he wanted to both get the deal and prove to the Israeli public – if not the world and particularly future potential kidnappers of Israelis – that Israel does not undertake such deals easily. And predictably, with the approval of the deal by the cabinet, it also announced it would not release Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese who killed 4 Israelis in 1979 during a sea-borne raid at Nahariya, after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced that as far as Hezbollah was concerned, Kuntar was the top name on the list of Arab prisoners – Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanian, Sudanese and Libyan – to be released.

There was official silence from Nasrallah after the official Israeli announcement, but today the Hezbollah said it would simply await the German mediator’s report on the Israeli decision. The prevailing wisdom was that the Hezbollah cannot afford the deal to collapse after so much media attention has been given to it. Minister Gideon Ezra told Israel Radio this morning that while it may appear that Nasrallah is making the deal with Israel to become an Arab world hero, ‘his first priority is domestic politics in Lebanon, where he is being asked with increasing pressure from Christian Lebanese and not only them, why Hezbollah keeps dragging the Israelis into conflict with Lebanese.’

Nor could Israel afford to let the deal collapse now. So much energy was devoted trying to keep civil a debate that verged more than once into what one commentator called a form of pornography, resulting from the fact that Ron Arad, the missing Israeli aviator, would not be included in the current deal, in effect pitting his family against the families of Elhanan Tannenbaum and the three presumed dead soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah in October 2000. One possible way around the Kuntar issue –based on the Israeli distinction between ‘terrorists with blood on their hands’ from attacks inside Israel to attacks on Lebanese soil – was for Israel to increase the number of prisoners to be released. Arad, by the way, is believed to be held by Iran, at least according to intelligence information that reached Israel in 2000.

On the terrorist front, it’s been a little more than a month since the last major terror attack inside Israel – the October 4 bombing of the Maxim restaurant. Judging from experience over the last three years, every day that goes by now without an attack, is a surprise, especially after the army lifted some of the restrictions it slammed down on Palestinian freedom of movement right after the Maxim attack.

An Umm el Fahm Israeli Arab was charged today in Haifa District Court with being an accessory to the Maxim attack because he drove the suicide bomber to the restaurant. According to the charge sheet, the man makes his living as a cab driver specializing in carrying passengers from the West Bank. He picked up the woman, and at her request took her to Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera, where she said she would visit her father, but when they reached the hospital, she asked him instead to take her to Haifa. At the entrance to Haifa, she said she was hungry and the driver had lunch with her, leaving her there at her request. When he paid his bill and went out to the parking lot, the restaurant blew up.

The process of building the fence meant to prevent suicide bombings came under bitter attack from State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg, who charged that while the government had authorized a route (that the U.S. opposes) for the fence there was no budget, nor any detailed operational plan for the fence construction. Goldberg told a Knesset committee examining a request by Meretz MK Ran Cohen for a judicial commission of inquiry to examine why the government has not built a fence on the border with the Green Line that ‘it is not clear if the government or the contractors are making the decisions about the fence.’

The fence proposed by the Defense Ministry for the Jerusalem area extends far to the east of Jerusalem, indeed all the way to Wadi Kelt, overlooking Jericho, and essentially cutting the West Bank in half, says an Haaretz report this morning. The U.S. is certain to oppose that route, the newspaper points out. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is supposed to go to Washington this week for meetings with Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and NSC chief Condoleezza Rice. He’s hoping for high-level talks about broad regional issues rather than the details of ways the army could ease conditions for the Palestinians and why the fence appears to be more about ‘acquiring land’ than security, as President Bush has said, especially after the army undertook high profile steps to lift a few checkpoints, but there’s little optimism on the Palestinian side that the steps will make much of a difference.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei’, in any case, is optimistic about his new government, after at least temporarily resolving the power struggle between him and Arafat over the security services, by essentially caving into Arafat, letting the PA Chairman take control over all the PA security services, by subjugating them to the authority of the National Security Council, where Arafat has a majority. A wild card on the council is Jibril Rajoub, an Arafat appointee, but also a former Israeli favorite, and one of the few leading PA officials who was against the armed intifada from the start. But during Operation Defensive Shield, Israeli troops targeted Rajoub’s headquarters – and his house – so while he continues to speak out in favor of a two state solution and reconciliation between the sides, the staunchly secular Rajoub also has accounts to settle.

Government sources are telling the press that Israel will engage the Qurei’ government, but there is no indication that Jerusalem intends to be any more forthcoming with him than it was with the short-lived government headed by his predecessor Mahmoud Abbas.

And finally, the first genuine winter storm struck the country, bringing driving rain, thunder and lightning – and occasional power outages and road flooding – from the Galilee all the way to the northern Negev. The rain was almost non-stop and was expected to last to Wednesday morning.

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