The Likud votes

Thursday, December 09, 2004

he Israeli media was reporting this morning that President Katsav has been using mediators and envoys to propose to Syrian President Bashar Assad over the last few months to make a goodwill gesture to Israel by allowing the remains of Israeli spy Eli Cohen to be transferred to Israel. Both Miguel Moratinos and Terje Larsen delivered the message to Assad, with both telling the Syrian president that such a gesture would be an important icebreaker for Israelis. According to the reports, Katsav also proposed meeting with Assad, to discuss other humanitarian issues outstanding between the two countries. But, said the reports, Assad has not responded.

Much attention was being devoted today to yet another vote in the Likud central committee where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has faced so many problems over the past four years. This time, the vote is on whether to grant him permission to negotiate with Labor and the two ultra-Orthodox Haredi parties over joining the coalition. By casting the vote as a choice between a coalition with Labor and its leader Shimon Peres, perhaps the most hated politician in the Likud, or new elections, Sharon has probably will have a victory tonight, when the ballots are counted.

Disengagement opponents and opponents of the proposed ‘unity’ government are pretty much one and the same, and there was a brief legal effort this morning in Tel Aviv District Court to force the party’s central committee presidium to hold a debate before the voting, arguing that Sharon’s ‘dictatorial’ control over the party was preventing a genuinely democratic process. The court threw that petition out and the voting began on time at 10. Sharon’s great worry is turnout – it’s the Hanukkah holiday in Israel, so children are out of school, and the good weather could backfire for him, since many of the 3,000 conventioneers might choose to holiday with their kids rather than go to Tel Aviv to vote. He has all the Likud ministers on his side – though disengagement opponent Uzi Landau, a minister fired by Sharon for voting against disengagement in the Knesset, says the ministers are only in favor of the negotiations with Labor because they are ‘afraid.’ Likud politicians are certain they will be victorious in any new election – but they are not at all certain that they would go back to the Knesset with 40 seats, a third of the parliament. Furthermore, only with Sharon at their head, in the current political constellation, does the Likud win big again in a general election, yet it is not certain that Sharon, if he loses the vote today, would even be the Likud candidate if new elections are called.

Assuming the Likud approves the negotiations with Labor, the question is whether Labor will pick up the offer. Peres, of course, is ready at practically the drop of a hat to join his old rival and ally Sharon. But the octogenarian has a new generation of Labor politicians – all at least 20 years younger than him – breathing down his neck, and the Labor Party institutions have decided, against Peres’ will, that on Sunday, the party’s central committee will vote on when to hold an internal election for the leadership. Peres argues that if they are joining the Sharon government, now is not the time for a leadership race in the party. Most of the contenders and the top tier Labor Party politicians, eager for an early primaries race, are also candidates for ministerial positions in a unity government, so if Sharon wins tonight and formal negotiations with Labor begin, the internal Labor quarreling might be postponed – at least until disengagement begins. Or, as Peres would prefer, finishes. Peres brushed off accusations by some of Ehud Barak’s supporters that Peres had arranged the forging of some signatures on a petition that tried to persuade the central committee’s board of appeals to cancel the vote on Sunday. ‘I’m not impressed by slander against me,’ said Peres. Traditionally, Labor finds compromises for such disputes and such a compromise was likely to be reached over the weekend.

In other developments, IDF troops overnight killed five Palestinians in Gaza, in two separate incidents near the Egyptian border. This morning, the army was admitting that it was not clear if the two groups of Palestinian men seen creeping and crawling near the border were terrorists or smugglers.

And a new Palestinian public opinion poll shows a dramatic drop in support for armed operations against Israelis inside the Green Line as well as across the Green Line. The respected Jerusalem Media and Communication Center said 52% of Palestinians oppose attacks on Israeli targets, and believe that they are counterproductive to the Palestinian national interest. This figure rose significantly since the previous poll in June, when those opposed to attacks on Israeli targets stood at only 27%. Half of those polled believe that the positions of Palestinian Authority leaders would change as a result of Yasser Arafat's death, while half believe that they would not change. A clear majority among those polled (57%) prefer a two-state solution, while 24% supported the creation of a binational state. Only 12% favor the creation of an Islamic state on all areas between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

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