Monday-Friday mid-day reports from Israel by Robert Rosenberg
Images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)
Travel warnings
Monday, November 17, 2003
Fear the fear, painting by Silvia Rosenberg
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left this morning for Rome, where he'll be feted by his best friend in Europe, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, with whom Sharon has few differences. The Istanbul terror attack over the weekend – Turkish sources quoted by the Israeli press today say the evidence is pointing toward confirmation of the al Qaida claim of responsibility– gives Sharon an opening for his favorite subject, terrorism.
But the issue of anti-Semitism – classic Right wing anti-Semitism, the new Muslim anti-Semitism, and what Israeli officials refer to as extreme Leftist anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism – will also likely be on the agenda, particularly after a recent Italian public opinion poll revealing that some 17 percent of Italians would like to see Jews ‘disappear' from their country. Berlusconi, who has been caught making his own anti-Semitic comments, of course will deny there is any anti-Semitism in his country, and will downplay the significance of anti-Sharon sentiments, as well.
But the Israeli foreign ministry this morning released a list of more than 20 countries around the world where it warns that Israeli travelers– and in some countries, Jewish residents – should take care because of rising anti-Semitism combined with anti-Israeli sentiment. Meanwhile, Mossad chief Meir Dagan, in a rare appearance by a Mossad chief at the full plenum of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, denied there was any Israeli warning sent to Turkey about a specific threat. Not since the early 1980s have Mossad chiefs appeared in the full plenum, because of leaks. Instead, they reported to the smaller, highly sensitive subcommittee on secret services. Dagan also told the committee today that a nuclear Iran would be the most dangerous existential threat to Israel since the state was founded.
His Roman holiday until Wednesday will give Sharon a reprieve from mounting problems at on his agenda at home. Topping the list is a proliferation of reports from both the diplomatic correspondents based in Israel and the Washington-based Israeli correspondents that the Bush administration is rapidly running pout of patience with Sharon and his government. The administration has the satellite pictures, let alone nightly Israeli TV pictures showing extensive settlement expansion projects underway in the territories, so it's unlikely that Sharon's announcement yesterday that Israel has removed 43 outposts since the Aqaba summit, made much of an impression on them.
Nor, after months of pleading with Israel to ease conditions for the Palestinians, did Shaul Mofaz's list of promises for abatements for the Palestinians help. Indeed, the Americans can't help but be wondering now if Mofaz even understood that despite the soft tones and polite manner of speech, he was being given a dressing down last week in Washington, since the defense minister claims the officials he saw agreed with him on every issue.
It's not that the Americans seem particularly concerned about the fate of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It's just that they hoped Sharon would be more considerate of President Bush's difficulties going into an election campaign – and Sharon could be helpful by easing tensions with the Palestinians. Indeed, perhaps the somewhat optimistic statements made by both Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei' to Newsweek are a reflection of Sharon understanding what Mofaz apparently did not – that the Americans want something positive to happen on the Israeli-Palestinian front to ease some of the pressure from the Iraqi front.
Qurei' also needs to do something to please the Americans – get the armed factions under control. He was getting help today from Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was in Ramallah for meetings with Qurei' and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. According to an Israel Radio report, Suleiman had an agreement for a cease-fire from the Hamas in his pocket and was seeing Arafat to make sure the PA leader doesn't interfere. If indeed Hamas has agreed to a cease-fire, it is only on condition that Israel will also take part and reversing the policy he has followed since taking office, Sharon is now indicating he is ready to try a cease-fire – but with the PA, not Hamas, per se. In other words, even if a cease-fire does go into motion, the odds are against it lasting past the first terror attack inside the Green Line or the first Israeli preemptive assassination of a suspected ‘ticking bomb' or arrest of a wanted Hamas man.
Another deal that might not work out as both sides want is the prisoner exchange with the Hezbollah. The Israeli press was quoting a Lebanese press report said Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah told the German mediator that the deal won't go through if Israel doesn't release Samir Kuntar, jailed for life in 1979 for the slaying of three members of a Nahariya family during a seaborne attack that year.
Israel has announced it would not release Kuntar, but Nasrallah apparently has already promised Kuntar's family that he would be freed in the deal. The expectation was for Nasrallah to speak about the issue publicly tonight at an iftar dinner, the meal breaking the end of the daily Ramadan fast. Speculation and conventional wisdom was that both Nasrallah and Sharon need the deal too much for domestic political reasons to let it collapse, but both have ‘climbed the tree' pretty high and with each passing day it is becoming more difficult to see how to resolve the Kuntar issue without one or the other side appearing weak.
And Club Med found an Israeli partner and announced it was renewing its activities in Israel next spring after shutting down operations two years ago because of a dearth of tourists.
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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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