Monday-Friday mid-day reports from Israel by Robert Rosenberg
Images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)
Just talking
Monday, November 24, 2003
Look at your demons, from the Goddess series, acrylic and pencils on paper by Silvia Rosenberg
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was going into a meeting with his Likud party’s Knesset faction today where he will be attacked by mostly junior MKs who will charge he is abandoning Likud ideology if it is really true that he is working on a plan that includes unilateral withdrawals from isolated territories. But it seemed today that only a handful of officials from the settlement movement, the junior politicians in the Likud faction, and perhaps a few inexperienced political and diplomatic reporters were holding their breath over a much reported, extremely vague ‘Sharon plan.’
The plan has variously been reported as including shutting down a few isolated settlements in the West Bank, evacuating some ‘illegal outposts,’ removing the civilians from the Gaza settlements but keeping Israeli military control over the settlement areas there, and possibly releasing several hundred, instead of a few hundred, Palestinian security prisoners. Sharon is keeping the plan very vague, and as more than one commentator pointed out today, ever since running the first time for prime minister, Sharon has been making verbal promises for peace and security that never came true, and has made seemingly dramatic gestures to the Palestinians – like offering a state and accepting the roadmap – that somehow never turned into practical steps.
In short, the prevailing wisdom now is that Sharon’s hints about an Israeli initiative is meant to win him a few more months of respite from American pressure (Haaretz reports today that Elliot Abrams, the top White House official for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council, met with Sharon in Rome last week demanding to know when Sharon would begin easing conditions for Palestinians and removing outposts. Sharon reportedly told Abrams about his plans to announce an initiative but, said the newspaper, did not specify any of the details of the initiative.). But it’s not only American pressure. Polls today show that a majority of Israeli and Palestinians support the Geneva initiative. Other polls show Sharon’s popularity slipping. And meanwhile, his (unspoken) designated heir, Ehud Olmert and his closest political ally in the government, Shinui leader Yosef Lapid, are both talking about unilateral steps, including Gaza settlement withdrawals.
Indeed, the Likud faction session today, closed to the press by whip MK Gideon Sa’ar who feared the public might hear invective hurled at Sharon by the Rightist flank in the party, will play directly into Sharon’s hands. Sa’ar said a closed door session would enable free speech in the session. Sharon, in any case, can welcome the invective: He’ll be able to tell the Americans, ‘see how difficult it is for me to be flexible,’ and at the same time, show the general public that he is trying to move ahead but the hawks are holding him back. That’s what happened when the Likud Central Committee voted against a Palestinian state after he announced he was ready for one. It worked so well that Sharon, who during the 1970s and 1980s led the settlement effort to make sure no Palestinian state was ever established (and in the 1990s, called for the outposts to be grabbed on every hilltop), was positioned as the center of the political map. Labor, in any case, announced it would back Sharon moves toward peace, not talk – and meanwhile, Labor gathered 40 signatures from the opposition petitioning the prime minister to report to the full plenum on the ‘initiative.’
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei’ meanwhile was also making things easier for Sharon, by toughening Palestinian positions on what Israel must do for a cease-fire to work. He told Al Jezeera Israel has to dismantle the separation fence wherever it moves east of the Green Line, remove all outposts, lift checkpoints between cities and towns, freeze all construction in settlements, remove the fencing going up around Jerusalem, and withdraw troops to pre-intifada positions. Sharon will rebuff the demands – but if Qurei’ manages over the coming days of talks in Cairo about a cease-fire to actually hammer one down with the help of the Egyptians, Sharon might find the Americans on the Palestinian side in at least some of those issues, and particularly the fence, outposts and checkpoints. In any case, the meeting between them, much discussed in recent weeks, has still not been set. Qurei’ is saying bluntly he won’t go to a meeting that is not well-prepared, with agreements and decisions made in advance, and earlier Israeli ministers’ eagerness for meetings with their counterparts seems to have receded.
On another front, the top item for the chatter this morning was the finance ministry’s leak of a document about drastically limiting by law the right to strike, just as TV news programs were showing last night that a wildcat strike at the airport was preventing a few thousand Israelis from leaving the country on schedule. The strike was over at midnight. But the impact of the leaked document reverberated this morning. Like the Likud faction session today, a meeting between Netanyahu and Histadrut Chairman Amir Peretz was also underway behind closed doors – and a leak from inside said the atmosphere was ‘very tense.’ Said one official, on behalf of Netanyahu (who stayed away from the radio this morning), ‘this government won a four-year electoral mandate to run the country … the unions did not get a mandate to get in the way of that.’ Israel Radio’s legal affairs commentator Moshe Negbi slammed the treasury proposal for limiting the right to strike, and predicted that even if passed by the Knesset, the High Court would likely be forced to rule it illegal. But the Knesset did pass a first reading today of a private members’ bill that would require public sector strikes to be suspended for at least two days every five days, so the public can get needed services.
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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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