Settler leader calls for civil disobedience

Monday, December 20, 2004

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz is supposedly examining whether Wallerstein, who is now saying ‘I am prepared to be killed to prevent the evacuation,’ was breaking the law against incitement, which requires a clear and present danger of violence breaking out as a result of the rhetoric used. Wallerstein did not call for an armed insurrection, just mass breaking of army roadblocks that will be going up to prevent demonstrators from reaching Gaza and the four northern West Bank settlements deemed for evacuation. He wants thousands of setters to flood the settlements, making it impossible to arrest them, all. ‘Break the evacuation-compensation law – and be ready for prison,’ went Wallerstein’s call.

If it were only Wallerstein, that would be one thing, but the powerful Yesha Council, a symbol of establishment politics, voted last night to support Wallerstein’s call. From Left and Right there were condemnations of the call for mass civil disobedience coming from people who for nearly three decades have enjoyed more state budgets, subsidies and other forms of state help than any other sector in the public. Just this morning, a Yedioth Ahronoth report on government expenditure per capita in various parts of the country showed that settlers get 4 to 7 times as much money per capita than the so-called ‘development towns’ – meaning relatively poor towns far form the center of the country.’ Wallerstein, the regional council head for the settlements around Ramallah, is quoted in the article as saying ‘the smaller the settlement, the more the per capita expenditure, and besides, even simple things like garbage removal has become very expensive because of security concerns in recent years.’ Indeed.

Meanwhile, that new coalition on which the disengagement plan is so dependent remains snagged over Shimon Peres’ role in the new government. While it is obvious that the two old men, Ariel Sharon and Peres will be running the government, it is equally obvious that Peres cannot become the Vice Premier, meaning the acting prime minister, if Sharon is incapacitated – not when Labor is barely a third of the government and the Likud has twice the number of MKs in the Knesset than Labor. Curiously – perhaps because he knows something that nobody else (except Sharon) knows -- Peres does not seem worried, but around him there is a ruckus of negotiations concerning his title. The lexicographers have been called in to look for something between deputy and vice premier – and all the while, care must be taken on the part of the Likud negotiations not to ruffle the feathers of either Ehud Olmert, Sharon’s handpicked choice as vice premier in case Sharon is incapacitated, or of Silvan Shalom, the foreign minister who will obviously be overshadowed by Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who is feted world-wide as a voice for peace in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the first tangible signs of cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority took place last night, when Dov Weisglass and Sharon’s diplomatic advisor Shalom Turjeman met in Jerusalem with Palestinian senior officials Saeb Erekat and Hassan Abu Libdah to hammer out the arrangements for the January 9th elections in the PA. They agreed on a reprise of the same conditions that prevailed on the ground in the 1996 PA elections, including five polling stations in East Jerusalem. Israel has promise to pull out of the West Bank towns and cities it has been holding since March of 2002, for the elections. Erekat said the PA wants Israel to withdraw completely to the September 2000 lines it held before the intifada – something that is so far unlikely, unless there are clear signs of the PA ‘combating terror,’ as the Israelis put it. That is not likely, largely because Mahmoud Abbas, the likely winner of the elections, has a strategy meant to coopt the irregular militias into a newly constituted PA security service. A cabinet committee yesterday approved freeing 170 Palestinian prisoners, in what Ariel Sharon described as a personal goodwill gesture to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, following the release of Azzam Azzam from Egyptian jail two weeks ago. Most of those to be released are Fateh activists ‘without blood on their hands,’ as well as 50 Palestinians arrested without legal entry permits for working in Israel. The release is due within days, said the Prime Minister’s Office.

ain Israeli concern heading toward the PA elections right now is the obvious effort by rogue militants in Gaza to drag Israel into a sustained, costly operation in Gaza in attempt to halt Qassam rocket fire into Israel proper, mostly Sderot, and mortar fire at settlements. Israel is aware that such an operation, which would be costly in Palestinian lives and property, could harm the legitimacy of the elections and thus Abbas, whose election campaign continues in the Arab world, seemingly with great success. So far, he has not taken a single false step, from promising to stand for Yasser Arafat’s legacy – but without an specifically promising a right of return of refugees explicitly into the state of Israel, only to the ‘homeland’ – to constantly reiterating the damage done to the Palestinian cause by the ‘armed intifada.’ One person other than Abbas deeply invested in an end to the armed intifada is Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, due back in the country tomorrow for talks with both Israelis and Palestinians on several issues: how Egypt will try to fill a security lacuna on its side of the border from Gaza and Israel; train Palestinian security officials; and use its influence to get Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other armed political parties to transform their military struggle into a political one. The personal envoy of Egyptian President Mubarak, whom Sharon is now referring to as his ‘friend,’ Suleiman has managed to win respect from Israeli security officials as well as Palestinian politicians – but except for the 50-day hudna of July-August 2003, he has not managed to hammer down a ceasefire that held.

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