The Situation

Text by Robert Rosenberg, images by Silvia Rosenberg (unless otherwise noted)

A nerve wracked country

Thursday, December 11, 2003

Voyages to Promised Lands, Take off, acrylic on paper

round 12:45 p.m., a bomb went off on Tel Aviv's busy downtown Yehuda Levy street, half a block from Allenby, a main downtown commercial strip. The Israel Radio crime reporter was in the neighborhood and listeners could hear her running up the street as she looked for the scene of the bombing. She had heard the explosion from wherever she was in the area, and chased on the sirens on foot, broadcasting through her cellular, speculating on the way it was a suicide bomber at the popular Aroma café (the last suicide bombing was in October at Haifa's Maxim restaurant). But then she added that considering the neighborhood, the bomb might be the latest attack in a gangland war that has already killed more than two dozen underworld figures during the past year. She might have also mentioned that it could also have been a kitchen explosion at the cafe -- there have been two such propane gas explosions this past year in the city.

Reaching the cafe, she found the target was the foreign currency cash changing shop down the street from Aroma. And police she found there said judging by the target, and the type of bomb, the lack of a suicide's body and the lack of shrapnel (terror bombs are usually packed with nuts and bolts as shrapnel), it was a criminal matter, a booby trap assassination attempt on the number one criminal kingpin in the country, Ze’ev Rosenstein. He was lightly injured, not killed. Just last week he was released after being held for a week by police, suspected of hiring a gunman to kill a pair of competitors in the East European gambling industry more than a year ago. All the casualties -- 3 dead, 20 wounded -- were innocent bystanders, esxcept Rosenstein, slightly wounded on his hand and leg. There were also innocent casualties in Gaza today.

Four armed Palestinians were killed when IDF troops surrounded the home of an Islamic Jihad activist and the gunmen inside opened fire. Seventeen other Palestinians were wounded in the morning-long arrest turned into battle. The IDF had no immediate confirmation of Palestinian claims that two of the wounded were children and that one was a Palestinian medic treating another wounded person.

therwise, the rhetorical froth continued over alleged plans by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to announce next week a series of unilateral steps that might include settlements being moved (presumably meaning removed from their isolated positions deep inside Palestinian territory) in order to shorten Israel’s security lines. The settlers Yesha Council Executive announced late last night it had Likud ministers on its side in their campaign ‘to bring down any prime minister who takes down a settlement.’ More sober views warned that despite Ehud Olmert’s passionate attack in the Knesset yesterday on Right wing opponents of his 80/20 urgent unilateral withdrawal plan, which is supported by 54 percent of Israelis with views on the issue, it’s not at all clear that’s what Sharon has in mind; and it is highly unlikely that anyone in the world except Ariel Sharon knows what he really has in mind right now.

Last night, for example, he was meeting with his legal advisors and his sons on the Supreme Court decision forcing Gilad to hand over banking and corporate documents – and videotapes and papers that already prove there has been somewhat of a cover-up. Until this morning, Israelis who care about the story thought it was only $1.5 million that was transferred in and out of the country to ‘pay back’ illegal foreign contributions made to Sharon’s primaries race in the Likud in 1999. This morning, it turned out more than $3 million was transferred in and out of an Austrian bank, BAWAG (Bank fur Arbeit und Wirtschaft), which has investments in the Jericho casino and by the end of all the transferring back and forth, Gilad Sharon was left with an extra $1.5 million in his bank account.

Only two Likud ministers – Tzachi Hanegbi and Uzi Landau – have attacked Olmert and implicitly Sharon. Hanegbi says Olmert ‘lost his nerve,’ Landau says the country has lost its nerve and says he has 15 supporters among the faction MKs he’s convened for Sunday. And in the West Bank, Israeli police raided pirate radio stations in the Hebron apartment block suburb of Kiryat Arba, and another in Gush Etzion’s Bat Ayin, arresting one person and confiscating equipment.

On the diplomatic front, Foreign Minister Sivan Shalom continued what he’s billing as a diplomatic blitz, and was to meet with the pope today, while in New York, the PLO was trying a move to strip Israel of its credentials at the United Nations. The French decision on Islamic veils to include skullcaps and large crosses was bound to create some controversy in Israel later on.

Meanwhile, Yedioth’s morning headline pointed out that some 16,500 Israelis working for local authorities have not been paid salaries for November and in many cases more months. The government was forced to give the Jerusalem municipality some NIS 200 million so it could pay some urgent bills in exchange for a promised financial restructuring of its 2004 budget, and another round of talks between Netanyahu, Peretz ended without agreement as the low-level strikes continued in government agencies and ministries.

Recommended articles:

FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCYALYPSE On November 14, 2003, in a dramatic development, four former Shin Bet chiefs call on the political leadership to make peace with the Palestinians. Read the full interview.

Sharon’s policy is bringing us to the brink of existential abyss a speech by Victoria Buch to the Peace Coalition weekly vigil outside the Prime Minister's Residence, November 29, 2003

The Weathervanes Are Turning Uri Avnery analyzes the changes that led to Ehud Olmert saying Israel must quit the West Bank and Gaza.

Also recommended

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