Monday-Friday mid-day reports from Israel by Robert Rosenberg
Images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)
The Right’s plan
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Look at your demons, from the Goddess series, acrylic and pencils on paper by Silvia Rosenberg
The Yesha Council leadership is working on a political plan to end the conflict with the Palestinians by annexing the territories, giving the vote to those Palestinians who want it and then changing the electoral system to a district-based system that is gerrymandered ‘to guarantee a Jewish majority.’ Needless to say the plan is under attack from the Left.
Industry Minister Ehud Olmert meanwhile has agreed to a longstanding European Union demand that products and merchandise from the settlements be marked as such, or otherwise all Israeli produce will be hit by customs entering EU countries, which seven years ago, in the wake of Oslo, dropped most tariffs and customs duties on Israeli products. It has been longstanding Israeli policy to rebuff any EU demand for identifying the origin of goods, but the EU has stuck to its position on the issue, making very clear the distinction it makes between the state of Israel inside the Green Line and the occupied territories.
Olmert tried to assuage horrified Rightists – and according to Israel Radio, the foreign ministry officials who have been fighting the issue for years – by saying that all that will happen is that every Israeli export to Europe will include the name of the city, town or settlement, where it was manufactured or grown, followed by Israel as the country of origin. The settler leadership like Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman immediately began lobbying for the government to subsidize all the tariffs and customs duties that get slapped on products and produce from the territories. Past estimates have said those costs could be as much as $150 million a year. Nachman also promised Israel Radio that ‘there are enough lovers of Israel around the world who will make sure to buy items made in Yesha.’
While Nachman was blaming ‘anti-Semites’ and ‘Leftists’ for the tariffs issue with the EU, a German researcher hired by the EU to conduct an in-depth poll of anti-Semitic attitudes in Europe, said the officials who asked for the poll decided to shelve it because the poll apparently revealed most of the anti-Semitic acts were perpetrated by Muslims and Palestinians. European Parliamentarian Daniel Cohn-Bendit of the Greens, famous as radical student leader in the 1960s and in Israel today as part of a European Parliament fact finding delegation told Israel Radio that shelving the poll was ‘completely crazy … they didn't want to continue bcause they were afraid to offend a certain Muslim opinion in Europe,’ he told Israel Radio. ‘This is a completely crazy and wrong approach.’ He admitted, ‘There is a danger of anti-Semitism in Europe, there is a danger of racism in Europe -- both -- and we must confront this reality, and we can't now postpone the debate on this,’ he said, adding that the press is nonetheless exaggerating the issue. ‘We are not on the eve of a Holocaust,’ he said, chiding the Israel Radio broadcaster for asking whether Cohn-Bendit, a Jew, felt safe in Europe.
Meanwhile, those expecting a quick meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei’ should not hold their breaths. Now the talk is only after December 1, when the Geneva accords are signed in a ceremony in Switzerland. Bill Clinton is said considering attending and Colin Powell, who has already praised the Ayalon-Nusseibeh effort, is said considering inviting Geneva accords authors Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabo. By early December there might also be some form of intra-Palestinian cease-fire plan worked out, for Qurei to take to Sharon. And between now and then, Sharon will have several opportunities to speak about the undefined and vague ‘unilateral initiative’ that he floated recently. While his aides are hinting it’s a plan to withdraw from isolated settlements, including Netzarim, he has not said anything about it -- yet.
In other developments, 10 Jordanians were being released to Jordan today, as a goodwill gesture to King Abdullah, said Israeli authorities; the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv said Israelis seeking visas to the U.S. will be fingerprinted (by photo-optics, not ink); and in Washington, Dov Weisglass was to meet Condoleezza Rice today, trying to persuade the White House not to cut the loan guarantees for Israeli spending in the territories.
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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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