Text by Robert Rosenberg
Photo of the Day by BauBau
Paintings by Silvia Rosenberg

Today's Situation

On again, off again

13:30 Monday, February 02, 2004

aariv reported this morning that contacts have resumed between the offices of the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers to hammer out plans for a meeting between Ariel Sharon and Ahmed Qureia, who have met in the past, but never as prime ministers, as a prerequisite for Sharon meeting President Bush for their ninth meeting.

Haaretz reports: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he has "given an order to plan for the evacuation of 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip." Sharon, who made his remarks Monday in an interview with Haaretz columnist Yoel Marcus, added that, "It is my intention to carry out an evacuation - sorry, a relocation - of settlements that cause us problems and of places that we will not hold onto anyway in a final settlement, like the Gaza settlements." Sharon, who is likely to go public with his plan later Monday, also mentioned the problematic nature of evacuating settlements in Gaza. "We are talking of a population of 7,500 people. It's not a simple matter. We are talking of thousands of square kilometers of hothouses, factories and packing plants. People there who are third-generation. The first thing is to ask their agreement, to reach an agreement with the residents. To move thousands of dunams of hothouses, educational institutions, thousands and thousands of vehicles, it's not a quick matter, especially if it s done under fire." "I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza," Sharon added. Asked whether he intended presenting his plan to President George Bush during his visit to Washington later this month, Sharon said: "Absolutely. It has to be done with American agreement and support. We need their support." The prime minister said he had not yet discussed the issue of financing the evacuation with the Americans. "But we will have to discuss (it) with them."

All three sides (Israeli, Palestiian and U.S.) need such a meeting. Sharon needs it as part of his efforts to win an audience with President Bush in Washington, which wants to present the disengagement idea but won’t get unless he proves he is dismantling outposts (which he isn’t doing) and moves the route of the separation fence to the Green Line (which is ‘sort of’ happening, according to Uzi Dayan, the former National Security Chief who is the main lobbyist for the fence). A meeting with Qurei’, which the Americans have been pressing for, could offset Sharon failures to comply with Israel’s obligations in the first stage of the roadmap – removing the outposts.

Qurei’ needs the meeting to prove that he is doing something, anything, to try to advance the stalled political process, and more importantly, to create the impression that the Palestinian Authority is still functioning. There is a growing perception that the PA has ceased to function at its most basic level – providing law and order – and there are growing numbers of people inside the PA calling for the remains of the Palestinian self-government to thrown in the towel. A Qurei’ meeting with Sharon might not lead to a breakthrough, but could give Washington some much needed bit of good news on the Middle East front.

s of mid-day, only Maariv’s web site was reporting on the renewed contacts between the PMO in Jerusalem and the one in Ramallah, contacts that were cut off last week in the wake of the Jerusalem suicide bombing, so it was difficult to say if the meeting is on for this week, as Maariv claimed. Meanwhile, the IDF was operating in the Bethlehem area, making arrests, after a rare weekend raid into Jericho to arrest suspects, and in Rafah last night.

Its competitor, Yedioth Ahronoth, meanwhile, blared that the defense establishment was already preparing the legal work necessary to prevent Mordecahi Vanunu, the nuclear arms whistle blower jailed 18 years ago on an espionage and treason conviction, from traveling the world or publishing his views freely, once he is released from prison in late April. The Vanunu issue was brought up yesterday by Eitan Haber, the military affairs columnist for Yedioth (and the former spokesman for Yitzhak Rabin), and judging from today’s headline, seems to be an issue Yedioth will promote in the coming weeks leading to Vanunu’s release.

One subject all the papers agreed on this morning was that the police would probably be questioning Sharon later this week about his relationship with David Appel. The questions would be about Sharon’s efforts, as National Infrastructures Minister, on behalf of Appel’s real estate ventures in the Lod area. Police Criminal Investigations Department Commander Moshe Mizrahi, who is constantly under attack from certain political circles, mostly in the Likud and Avigdor Lieberman, made a rare public speech over the weekend warning that white collar crime is a strategic threat to Israel. He and State Attorney Edna Arbel, who has been acting attorney general until this week, appear to be determined to prosecute Sharon or at least his son Gilad, on the bribery charges already filed against Appel. The new attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, has scheduled a staff meeting this week to discuss the state of the evidence in the outstanding investigations against Sharon. Last night, Channel 10 broadcast an interview with Sharon’s son MK Omri Sharon in which the freshman MK said he is absolutely confident his father will serve out his full term and that there is nothing to any of the suspicions against his father and brother, Gilad. Omri, it should be noted, is believed a suspect in the so-called Cyril Kern affair, which involves illegal foreign donations to Sharon election campaigns in 1999 and 2000, which Omri ran for his father.

nother ongoing investigation, that of Elhanan Tennenbaum, held for three years and three months by the Hezbollah and released last week, has been slapped with a gag order, preventing any reporting on what he is telling his police, Shin Bet, and army interrogators. It is known that Sharon has ordered the authorities to treat him delicately and that he is cooperating, meaning answering questions willingly. The media, which was so eager to claim only a few months ago that he went to Lebanon plotting a major drug deal, is now portraying him as a victim. Nobody is yet taking seriously his claim, made to Hezbollah TV interviewers, that he went to Beirut on his own seeking information about what happened to Ron Arad and hoping that he could use that information to claim a reward from the Israelis.

There is a report this morning, however, that the German mediator who negotiated the deal between Israel and Hezbollah, brought a piece of bone to Israel to examine to see if it might belong to Arad. Apparently the bone is not Arad’s, but there does seem to be movement on the ‘second stage’ of the prisoner exchange deal. A senior Iranian official was in Beirut this weekend, saying that Iran expects to hear what happened to its four diplomats 20 years ago in Beirut. It claims Israel as the four. Israel has long said the four were probably the victim of rogue Christian troops during the Lebanese civil war. But just as Israel is awaiting information from Hezbollah (meaning, say Israeli commentators, Iran) on the missing aviator Arad, so Iran is expecting to get information from Israel on its diplomats. And in Germany, France, and England, there are Iranian hit men in prisons waiting (whether they know it or not) for enough information to be swapped through the Germans that the various jailed Iranians in Europe end up in a trade that brings home Arad’s remains.

But the big news this morning in Israel was the ongoing strikes at the local authority level to protest that the government has cut back on subsidies to local authorities, and therefore the towns have been unable to pay their own workers. Lots of recriminatory remarks were traded between mayors and treasury officials. And even Sharon, who has been very careful about not intervening in economic affairs, leaving it to Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has ordered a meeting between treasury and local authorities’ representatives.

And in Egypt, Health Minister Danny Naveh met with Azzam Azzam, convicted and jailed seven years ago in Egypt as an Israeli spy. Egypt has firmly rejected Israeli please to release Azzam. Naveh is also planning a meeting with Jonathan Pollard, another convicted and imprisoned spy, in the U.S.

Previously

Going places acrylics on paper, 50x70 by Silvia Rosenberg

Recommended articles

January 15, 2004 A Palestinian refusenik writes an open letter to the Jewish people by Palestinian-American Ray Hanania, who mourns the loss of sense of humor on both sides of the conflict.

January 6, 2004 Death of a Road Map : Ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy has finally said what has long been obvious - the Quartet Roadmap for peace is all but dead. Actually, Ariel Sharon said the same thing in his speech to the Likud party convention, though it may have sounded as though he was saying the opposite.

Previously recommended articles at Ariga.

Recommended books

[an error occurred while processing this directive] in Frosties, the anthology of quotations

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