Monday-Friday mid-day reports from Israel by Robert Rosenberg
Images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)
Four horsemen of the apocalypse
Friday, November 14, 2003
Scanned silver leaves digital image by Robert Rosenberg
Israel went into the weekend today with the echoes of a dramatic summit of four former Shin Bet chiefs, brought together by Yedioth Ahronoth, who all signed the Ami Ayalon-Sari Nusseibeh statement of principles and discussed the dire straits the country has found itself in, lacking, as all four agreed, a courageous political leadership ready to tell the public the truth.
And that truth, agreed Avraham Shalom, Yaacov Peri, Carmi Gillon and Ami Ayalon, is that Israel will have to withdraw to the Green Line, remove the settlements, and as Peri said this morning on Israel Radio, divide Jerusalem. The reason – it would be the best thing for the state’s security, at least as far as the four experts on Israeli security regard matters.
Their views, of course, prompted anger on the Right and even inspired former President Ezer Weizman to break a lengthy silence to go on Israel TV’s Channel One weekend new magazine tonight to speak out against what the promos for the program said was the Shin Bet chiefs’ gloomy perspective.
And it is a gloomy perspective. The four agree that Israel’s government has no strategy, only tactics. They long for a government that fights terror as if there’s no peace process and runs a peace process as if there’s no terror, the late Yitzhak Rabin’s strategy. They condemn a counter-terror policy that relies entirely on assassinations and checkpoints without any political process, and they agree that the lack of political leadership has led to initiatives like the Ayalon-Nusseibeh one, and Yossi Beilin’s Geneva accords. They call on the government to take both initiatives seriously – and propose unilateral action, such as a withdrawal from Gaza. The fence, they agree, will serve no purpose without being a political border, and on the Green Line.
With regard to the checkpoints, three years after the outbreak of the intifada, the army has finally began taking steps to make sure each checkpoint is manned by at least one soldier who speaks Arabic. But the move requires calling up reservists, who are growing increasingly impatient with callup orders.
In other developments, some 4,500 American Jewish activists began arriving in Israel for the 72nd General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities. It will be only the second time in the ‘GA’s’ history that it held its session in Israel, and the mood of the activists appears to be that they are coming to let Jerusalemites in particular know that they are not alone. The GA is expected to put about $15 million into the economy, mostly in the Jerusalem area, on wining, dining and shopping in the badly depressed city economy, which has been hard hit by terror over the last three years. Indeed, for the first time since the fall of 2000, Jerusalem hotels will be booked to capacity for the coming week.
On another front, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz left Washington for Texas to attend the rolling out ceremonies for the first of 100 specially outfitted F-16 fighter-bombers that will start jopining the Israeli Air Force in January. The planes cost some $4.5 billion. They’ve been outfitted with special fuel tanks giving them a range of some 1,500 kilometers around Israel. The message is clear, one former air forcer commander said on Channel Ten last night – our neighbors should know that if they have any thoughts about reaching us, they should know we can reach them. Inside that extended range are both Iran and Libya.
On the Palestinian front, Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei’ has laid down the law with his ministers today – putting an end to their newspaper interviews without his consent. It remains to be seen how long they obey, but one thing is certain, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon probably envies the PA premier’s determination to keep his ministers’ mouths shut. Last night, on Channel 10, Israeli viewers were treated to a scene of Housing Minister Effi Eitam shouting at Justice Minister Yosef Lapid that Lapid doesn’t understand anything about security. They were attending a police demonstration of riot control tactics, and Lapid kept asking chief of police Shlomo Aharonoshki to define the rules of engagement for the police to open fire on demonstrators, while Eitam kept shouting at Lapid, ‘Tommy, the whole idea is not to shoot at the demonstrators!’
On the economic front, a very low October CPI was due to be announced today and is expected to be a very low 0.2 percent; Haifa and Ashdod port workers were back on strike because less than a month after their last strike was resolved, the government Ports Authority began directing incoming ships to the first privately-owned port in the country, at the old Israel Shipyards, not far from Haifa port. The workers said the move violated the agreement from last month for sticking to the status quo until the beginning of 2004.
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There have been very few people in the last decade -- and perhaps longer -- who
managed to be heroic for all or almost all Israelis, religious, secular, Right,
Left, Jewish, Arab, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, new immigrant or fifth generation.
Too many issues divide too many people here. But Ilan Ramon, the somewhat baby-faced
air force colonel selected as the first Israeli to go into space on board the
American shuttle craft, was one of those heroes whose deed fired the imagination
of Israelis across every spectrum. Even the most cynical and skeptical had to admire
not only his ascension to that vaunted gallery of people who had the 'right stuff' to
go into space, but the grace with which he did so, the alomost childlike joy he
so generously gave of himself during those live broadcasts from space on board the shuttle,
and the faith in science and humanity that he expressed during his broadcasts.
And then the shuttle crashed, and with it, another hero was gone.
So much hope was pinned on Ramon's trip and in a way, the shuttle disaster tragedy
was more than the loss of an Israeli hero, but like the Rabin assassination,
the loss of the hope for heroes. Get the book. It's short, concise, informative and moving. (RBR)
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