Symbolic relief, Monday, September 05, 2005

As the dimensions of the disaster in the Gulf became evident, there was talk that Israel might cancel its request for the aid money, but 'America experts' in Israel agree that it's most likely the talks will resume later this year. Ambassador Danny Ayalon in Washington went on record as stating unequivocally that the aid request would go through – and that it would win approval from the administration and Congress.

The money is supposedly being earmarked for development in Galilee and the Negev. The Galilee is almost 50 percent Arab, with a higher unemployment rate than the Jewish population, and the sparsely populated Negev is notorious for its 'unrecognized' Bedouin villages, clusters of tents, shacks, and permanent housing that get no support from the state, with no infrastructure and the worst unemployment in the country. There is talk that the Americans will insist on some of the money – if it is sought – going to development in these Arab communities.

Of course, much depends on Sharon's political condition. He and his challenger, Binyamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu have both rejected a compromise proposal put up by Tzachi Hanegbi, Limor Livnat, and Silvan Shalom, for an early primaries in February, instead of November, as Netanyahu is demanding, and April as the Likud constitution says, and which Sharon is insisting on. September 25th – 26th is the showdown between them, when the Likud central committee is supposed to vote on the issue of when to hold the primaries. Sharon refuses to back down – and to promise that if he loses to Netanyahu he will remain in the Likud.

The polls show Sharon handily defeating Netanyahu (and tying with Peres) in a general election if the Likud splits but losing to Netanyahu in a vote among Likud rank and file voters who are said to be angry that Sharon didn't listen to their vote when they said no to disengagement in a referendum. If, against the conventional thinking, Sharon beats back the Netanyahu challenge inside the Likud, the former premier and former finance minister is expected to drop out of politics once again.

Meanwhile, at least in the press, Netanyahu's campaign appears to be increasingly pathetic – full of sound and fury and mostly hollow promises that only the most gullible believe. Yesterday it was a train to Beit Shean that will bring millions of tourists to the sleepy town on the northwestern corner of the Jordan Valley, just south of the Sea of Galilee. His campaign manager this time around is apparently Yehiel Leiter, a hard-line settler ideologue. When Netanyahu won the elections in 1996, his chief of staff was Avigdor Lieberman, who went on to become an elected MK at the head of a radically Rightist party with a heavily Russian constituency that eventually became the main party in the National Union bloc, the most Rightist faction in the current Knesset.

Meanwhile, the Left is going to try to wake up, with the Geneva Initiative, Peace Now, various other peace groups and possibly Labor – or at least parts of Labor – calling for a major demonstration in Tel Aviv's Rabin Plaza on the evening before the Likud central committee session. The planned message: Israel must engage the Palestinians in full-fledged peace talks. That's the exact opposite of what Sharon wants, even though Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are said to be planning to meet after the UN General Assembly next week. Nobody has any illusions it will lead to a breakthrough to goodwill instead of suspicion as the locus of relations between the sides.

One Arab leader, looking for some kind of breach in that wall of distrust is Jordan's King Abdullah, who is now due in Ramallah this week for meetings with Abbas and other PA officials. There are reports in the press today that a planned Abdullah-Sharon meeting in Jerusalem touted for immediately after the disengagement has been scotched by the Jordanians because of leaks about it in the Israeli press.

The New York Times was reporting today that the Americans have asked allies to lay off pressuring Sharon for more movement out of Palestinian territories, at least for now. International Pressure on Sharon means more votes inside the Likud for Netanyahu. And right now, Ariel Sharon appears to Westerners as a symbol of reason in the otherwise Muddled East. Indeed, his biggest problem might not end up Netanyahu, but that the longer the Palestinians maintain the still relative but definite quiet, Abbas also appears to Western eyes as a symbol of reason – and there's no reason why reasonable men can't be partners to a dialogue about peace.

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