Today's Situation

Friction and its reduction

Monday, March 08, 2004

Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon said bluntly over the weekend more such operations would be necessary in the future, leading up to ‘the disengagement.’ Nobody knows if that ‘unilateral withdrawal’ will take place, but there are consistent reports saying the White House, seemingly only political power of interest to the Israelis, does not want it before the November elections. Ya’alon said more terror activity could be expected because of the statements about unilateral disengagement and the bon ton in the army now is to continue striking at the ‘terrorist infrastructure’ so when the withdrawal takes place it is not perceived as Israeli weakness. Hamas spokesmen said their attacks would continue until the occupation is over.

‘In the past,’ Ami Ayalon went on during the radio interview, ‘Israeli security forces managed to conduct targeted operations, harming only those whom they intended to harm, while others remained untouched,’ he said, the intensity of his tone making clear his anger and disappointment. On the more general issue of Israel quitting Gaza, he said that the evacuation should total, including the Philadelphi route, the 100-300 meter wide corridor between Egypt and Rafah, which Israel has patrolled with Egyptian agreement since the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.

he latest speculation on the plan – as much by the politicians as the press, since Prime Minister Sharon is not speaking publicly on the issues, let alone answering questions from the press directly – is that Israel is seeking Egyptian agreement (via American pressure) to take security control in Gaza after an Israeli withdrawal.

But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has soured that -- if it was Israel’s intent -- telling Le Figaro that a security role for Egypt in Gaza after an IDF withdrawal would be a ‘trap because we would find ourselves in a situation of confrontation with the Palestinians – and maybe even Israel.’ He also recited what is becoming an Arab – and Western European -- refrain: U.S. plans for reform in the Arab world cannot succeed without an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yasser Arafat’s National Security Advisor Jibril Rajoub meanwhile reiterated that the Palestinian Authority security forces are ready to take responsibility for any area Israel quits, including in Gaza – but Israel so far appears to be adamant that it will not deal directly with the PA to coordinate any handover of the territory.

As Deputy Defense Minister Ze’ev ‘maybe the Palestinians are genetically defective’ Boim said this morning – ‘Israel is awaiting word from the Americans what we will get in exchange for leaving Gaza.’ He pointedly said Americans, not the Palestinians – and the reports say that Sharon is seeking American permission for de facto annexation of settlement blocs in the West Bank, American backing for Israeli refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians, and American acceptance of a new route for the separation fence that is somewhat less intrusive into Palestinian areas – though still mostly on the eastern side of the Green Line.

Despite the eternally optimistic spin from Dov Weisglass that there are no disagreements with the Americans than cannot be overcome, Sharon has yet to get an invitation to discuss the plan with President Bush, who meanwhile has invited Mubarak to Bush’s home in Texas in mid-April. The days of implicit Bush acceptance of anything Sharon wanted are over.

eanwhile, nowhere is the conflict more evident than at the dozens of checkpoints the IDF has put up on the roads of the West Bank, disrupting freedom of movement for Palestinians. After nearly a decade of using the checkpoints as a tactical measure, and after three years of using them as a strategic measure in the territories, the army has finally come up with a plan to codify its doctrines and professionalize the troopers at the checkpoints, standardizing soldiers’ behavior at the checkpoints, establishing special passages will for ambulances, emergency and other essential workers, and dignitaries.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has approved the plan, which calls for manning checkpoints 24 hours a day, instead of the limited – and often unpredictable – hours the checkpoints are currently open. And while the number of checkpoints barricading West Bank roads will be reduced, the number of crossing points in the controversial separation fence now under construction is to be increased to 68 from the 31 currently planned.

The army report also recommended using the money confiscated from terror group bank accounts in Ramallah last week to improve the infrastructure at the roadblocks and improve conditions for Palestinians using them. According to Baruch Spiegel, the brigadier who prepared the report and its recommendations, the plan will go into effect at the six major checkpoints outside the major cities of the West bank, and then spread to the rest. There are dozens of checkpoints, many temporary, so it is difficult to come up with a precise number.

he Palestinians were saying troops killed a Palestinian teenage shepherd not far from a Gaza settlement, outside Jerusalem, Israeli Border Patrolmen were reported using rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas to disperse about 300 anti-seperation fence demonstrators – Palestinians, Israeli peace activists and International Solidarity Movement foreigners.

Mofaz met this morning with his French counterpart, Michele Alliot-Marie – a civilian woman, something still unthinkable in Israel as head of the defense establishment -- to present Sharon's disengagement plan. Mofaz and Vice Premier Ehud Olmert are the only two ministers in Sharon’s government actively pressing for the plan.

Palestinian Prime Minster Ahmed Qurei’ meanwhile was in London this morning for a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will press Qurei’ to meet with Sharon. Actually, Sharon’s office has canceled meetings with Qurei’ as often as Qurei’s office has canceled with Sharon.

On other fronts, the United Arab Emirates is paying for renovations on the Haram al Sharif – Temple Mount compound in the old city while Jordanian experts were checking this morning whether any damage caused to Dome of the Rock mosque by last month’s earthquake.

And the Tennenbaum affair continues. State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg announced at the weekend that his office would examine the entire affair – from the decision making process that led to the prisoner exchange, through the issue of Tennenbaum’s immunity deal with the state in exchange for his confession to what exactly he was trying to accomplish in a drug deal with Keis Obeid, an Israeli Arab who enlisted in the Hezbollah and arranged for Tennenbaum’s kidnapping.

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