Politicking

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Sharon rhetorically went to war at home last night in his official residence, telling a group of Likud mayors that it was intolerable that ‘a group of outsiders’ is trying to ‘take over’ the Likud, ‘threatening’ MKs. He was referring to the ‘Jewish Leadership’ movement, aka the ‘Faiglins’ because they are led by a deceptively soft-spoken zealot named Moshe Faiglin, who has made it his mission to take over the Likud by recruiting highly motivated ultra-Orthodox and settler voters to the party, winning a significant hold inside the party’s all-powerful central committee. Faiglin was one of the leaders of the ‘Zu Artzeinu’ movement that rioted in the streets against Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres during the Oslo years and he has drawn many from extreme Rightist fringe into the Likud, including known Kach activists. This morning, he told Army Radio he welcomed the challenge from Sharon, since ‘it is Sharon who is the outsider’ in the Likud, and after Sharon made clear he would seek another term in office if he is forced to go to elections because of rebellious MKs (many of whom draw support from the ‘Jewish Leadership’ group) Faiglin said he would also run for the leadership of the Likud.

One person who might not be happy about Faiglin running for the party’s leadership inside the central committee is Binyamin Netanyahu, since the former and would be premier is counting on the hardliners in the central committee to back him against Sharon. Faiglin is said to control between 150-250 votes in the central committee, around 5-7 percent of the body. There is a Catch-22 to the entire theory, however – in the unlikely situation that Faiglin does indeed ‘take over’ the Likud, or Netanyahu is forced to strike a deal with him to win gthe Likud leadership, the identification of the Likud with some of the most Rightist forces in Israeli politics would alienate the center, which Sharon won over to the Likud in the 2001 elections after the peace camp led by Labor collapsed because of the Palestinian intifada and Barak’s handling of the October 2000 police riot against Israeli Arabs.

A test of the Sharon-Netanyahu-Faiglin divide in the Likud will take place on Sunday, when Uzi Landau, the ideological MK fired as a minister by Sharon for voting in the Knesset against the disengagement plan, and Tzachi Hanegbi, the controversial minister (and son of firebrand Geula Cohen, La Passionara who rebelled against Menachem Begin’s Camp David agreement with Egypt) under investigation for cronyism, are running against each other for president of the Likud central committee. It’s a powerful job, since it can set the agenda for the committee. Sharon is backing Hanegbi, who says he is opposed to the disengagement plan but is loyal to the premier when it comes to critical votes, while Landau is counting on mounting resentment against Sharon, both for the ideological deviationism from the Likud’s traditional Greater Land of Israel policies, and for his ‘dictatorial’ management of affairs, ignoring both a Likud referendum and a central committee decision against disengagement.

If Hanegbi wins, Sharon is expected to quickly move to bring Labor into the government, and since Shinui has already accepted the idea of United Torah Judaism as a coalition supporter, if not outright partner, Israel would then have the most secular government in its history. UTJ has already been cutting deals with the Prime Minister’s Office on issues regarding the budget (including funding for pet UTJ projects). If Landau wins …

In any case, Sharon took another step ‘Leftward,’ last night, for the first time saying that if the Palestinian leadership takes steps to halt terror, he would be prepared to engage the Palestinians for a ‘bilateral’ disengagement, instead of the unilateral disengagement he has been touting for the past year.

alting the terror is just what Abbas was trying to do over the past few days in Gaza, meeting in marathon sessions with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other armed political factions, trying to persuade them to halt armed resistance against Israel during the eight weeks leading up to the January 9 elections, and to participate in those elections. He is apparently carefully avoiding the term ‘hudna,’ because the Islamicists are convinced that Israel violated the hudna of July-August 2003, and so far, the Islamicists have been vague in their response to his appeals, so much so that there are conflicting reports coming out of Gaza about the progress of the talks.

Abbas was quoted this morning as saying that if the Hamas ceases its operations against Israel, Jerusalem will quit its assassination and arrests policies. Some Hamas spokesmen say that Israel has to also release all the security prisoners as well, to win a ceasefire. There is also talk about Hamas insisting that Abbas declare elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council as well as the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. He is so far not committing himself to a date for such broader elections and keeps trying to persuade the Hamas to take part in the presidential race.

The prevailing view today is that Hamas very much wants to take part in a local authority and possibly a PLC race, but will avoid the presidential election. But while it openly boycotted the 1996 elections, telling its supporters not to vote that year, this coming vote it will apparently not campaign against the elections, per se. But given the utterly fluid situation in the Palestinian political arena, nothing is certain yet, not even whether Abbas will be the Fateh candidate for president. Although it is assumed Sharon wants ‘a war on terror’ from the Palestinians, he is also becoming ever more pragmatic. If Abbas succeeds in reaching an agreement with the armed groups that reduces terror alerts from the daily 40-50 to less than 10, and there is quiet cooperation between the PA security forces (now under control of PA Premier Ahmed Qurei’), Sharon could choose to read that as the Palestinian effort he needed to see to start talking directly with Abbas.

eanwhile, for the first time, the IDF, along with armies from Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, has been invited to participate directly in NATO exercises. Furthermore, NATO is considering responding positively to an Israeli-Palestinian request for it take up positions in Gaza – and/or the West Bank – if ever such a request is formulated as part of an agreement.

And in the West Bank, police and army troops were clashing with settlers from the settlement of Itamar, who were trying to prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives from a Palestinian-owned grove smack in the middle of a security zone around the settlement. A dozen residents of the settlement have been killed by Palestinians in the four years of warfare, and radical residents of the settlement have been involved in anti-Palestinian vigilantism over the years. According to the settlers, they offered to buy the harvest from the Palestinians to prevent them from entering the buffer zone, a few hundred meters from the outskirts of the settlement. The Palestinians turned them down, and clashes broke out. The police and army arrived, and following a new, strict Israeli policy ordered by the High Court of Justice to guarantee Palestinian olive-grove owners access to their trees during harvest time, the troops were reportedly preventing the settlers from disrupting today’s harvest, which was taking place in the first heavy rains of the year. Fifteen settlers were arrested, and according to Israel Radio at noon, the harvest was proceeding without disruption as Israeli troops kept guard.