Monday-Friday mid-day reports from Israel by Robert Rosenberg
Images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)
Istanbul, again
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Fear the fear, painting by Silvia Rosenberg
Istanbul, again
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Fear the fear, painting by Silvia Rosenberg
Up until 11:30 this morning, the issues on the agenda were how the government was trying to put a positive spin on President Bush's bluntest statement ever against Israeli policies in the territories and the UN Security Council unanimously adopting the roadmap -- against Israel's wishes.
But the morning blasts in Istanbul, coming five days after the Saturday car bombings outside two Istanbul synagogues, immediately distracted all the attention, not least because nearby Turkey is a major travel destination for Israelis -- some 300,000 Israelis visit Turkey every year.
Israel Radio dropped all its previously scheduled programming, Channels One and Two turned on live news broadcasts – though they could only carry images from CNN – and phone lines opened to Israeli consular officials in Istanbul. The Foreign Ministry opened an emergency hotline for Israelis worried about their family in Turkey. As of noon, no Israelis were counted among the casualties, but it was clearly early days in what was generally assumed to be another al Qaida attack.
The Bush speech and the UN vote were significant judging by how much effort was spent by the authorities denying their importance. Only two weeks ago Sharon explicitly asked Russia not to bring the roadmap to the UN Security Council and President Vladimir Putin nodded that he understood Israel's concerns. Sharon came home from Moscow seemingly convinced he had a good friend in Moscow. But on Monday, the Russians surprised Israel by bringing a draft resolution to the Security Council, and within 48 hours, the council had decided to express support for the roadmap, called on the parties to do what they committed to do, and promised to keep the issue on their agenda.
The Bush speech to Whitehall was more immediately worrisome. Sharon commented on it already in Rome, saying that it was no secret that Israel and the U.S. have their differences on certain issues, but the friendship was so great that no tensions were created by their disagreements, and 'there is certainly no pressure' on Israel from the U.S. A state-owned Channel One reporter who went to Rome with the prime minister explained to Israel Radio listeners this morning that in fact, while Bush made a tough statement on Israeli policies, the speech was delivered in Britain, not America, and was really aimed at helping Tony Blair. Maybe. What is clear is that the U.S. is losing patience with Israel's prevarications on removing outposts, and its insistence on going ahead with a winding 'separation fence' that essentially annexes about 15 percent of the West Bank – and includes about 300,000 Palestinians inside the fence area, when counting the Palestinians of the Jerusalem area.
Perhaps most frustrating to the Americans is the lack of clarity from Israel about the 'illegal outposts.' As Colin Powell said to Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom – 'the numbers don't add up.' He's right. The Prime Minister's Office, the defense ministry, the army, the Yesha Council and Peace Now all have different numbers, as do the U.S. satellites, which can not only count the trailers on the hilltops but have a high enough resolution to see what kind of hot water heaters are on their rooftops.
The obvious reason for the discrepancies is politics. One man's illegal outpost is another's settlement expansion and a third man's attempt to make sure the roadmap is never implemented.
It is not at all clear that the PMO, through Ze'ev Hever, one of Sharon's closest advisors, is not orchestrating the entire 'illegal' outpost effort. Hever is one of the original Gush Emunim founders, and has been de facto 'CEO' of the ouitpost movement ever since then-foreign minister Ariel Sharon returned from the Wye River Plantation negotiations with then-premier Netanyahu and called for settlers 'to grab every hilltop in Yesha' to prevent any further concessions to the Palestinians.
As MK Haim Ramon of Labor said yesterday in the Knesset when Minister Gideon Ezra was unable to come up with an accurate number of outposts that have been removed—or not – 'you can fool the people most of the time, but you can't fool the Americans all the time, and no matter what you may think of George Bush, he's made very clear that the last thing you want to do to him is try to fool him.'
In other developments, in response to a High Court petition by the Arad family demanding that captured Lebanese Amal officer Mustafa Dirani be prosecuted for criminal behavior toward captured aviator Ron Arad, the attorney general said that the prosecution would obstruct the prisoner exchange deal with the Hezbollah and therefore the state would not be prosecuting Dirani.
That clears one of many obstacles still remaining in the deal, not the least of which is the question of Samir Kuntar, the convicted murderer from a 1979 seaborne Lebanese-Palestinian attack at Nahariya, where Kuntar was one of four gunmen who killed three members of a family and a policeman, before being killed an captured. Israel apparently did commit to freeing all Lebanese citizens in its custody, seemingly having forgotten that Kuntar was a Lebanese citizen. Since he has 'blood on his hands' and killed inside Israel not Lebanon, Israel is now trying to avoid sending him back to Lebanon in the deal. It is not clear yet how the issue will be resolved.
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Ariga Recommends
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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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