Middle East democracy, Monday, September 26, 2005

None of the papers recalled that turning off a prime minister’s microphone was first used in Israel by Tzachi Hanegbi against Yitzhak Rabin, during the failed Likud campaign against Rabin in 1992. At the time, Hanegbi laughed off accusations of undemocratic behavior. Last night, as he and Silvan Shalom flanked Sharon on the dais, an older, balder, and perhaps wiser Hanegbi wasn’t smiling.

Up to the moment someone short circuited the cable to the microphone at which Sharon was to reiterate even more clearly the reasoning behind what is regarded as the betrayal of his own settlement enterprise – ‘We must state the truth that everyone knows: when the time comes, we will not retain everything. We have a dream; it is good and just. But there is also reality which is tough and demanding. We cannot both manage a democratic Jewish state and rule over the entire land of Israel’ – it looked like Netanyahu would win.

Now, just before noon on Monday, 10 hours before the results of the voting on the proposal to elect a party leader in mid-November, it’s very possible Sharon will win. Likud central committee members, it’s often said, don’t like their prime minister treated with disrespect. We’ll see.

In any case, as Shaul Mofaz said this morning about the nationwide broadcast of the ruckus at the Likud, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ He was asked about the images from the Likud central committee, but he might have been asked about the other images – renewed targeted killings of ‘terrorist leaders’ in Gaza, West Bank arrests of as many as 80 Palestinians every night for the last 10 days.

In fact, the outgoing round of violence, which was intensified greatly by the stupidity of the Hamas activists who killed at least 19 Palestinians and wounded hundreds over the weekend by carrying live munitions into the chaos of their victory parade in Gaza, was prompted by the slaying of three Islamic Jihad figures in the West Bank last week during one of those nighttime IDF arrests. That killing wound up the tension, as Islamic Jihad in Gaza retaliated with three Qassams fired into empty fields around Sderot. It escalated with the Hamas’ knee jerk accusations and Qassam fire against Israel for the bombs that killed so many Palestinians – and embarrassed Hamas so much that by last night, Mohammad a-Zahar was announcing in Arabic and English that Hamas was ending ‘all attacks against Israel out of Gaza,’ including Qassam fire. There were reports this morning that the PA, which has more than 30,000 men and women in uniform, told the Damascus headquarters of Hamas that if the attacks out of liberated Gaza continue, it won’t be only the Israelis hunting down the rocket-launchers. By all accounts, Hamas has at most 3,000 men with any training with arms.

Mofaz might also have been asked about why there were Likud central committee members who reportedly knew in advance that some leading Islamic Jihad figure from Gaza would be assassinated last night, as indeed one was, at 8 p.m. last night, just before the prime minister was due to take the podium after Netanyahu’s ‘I told you so’ speech to a crowd that including all the press numbered fewer than a third of the 3,050 members of the full central committee, which is due to vote today.

Israel Radio and Army Radio led with the police investigation into the alleged sabotage of the electrical circuitry that prevented the prime minister from delivering his speech. But the speech that wasn’t isn’t the real story. The real story is that throughout the entire crisis of the Gaza bomb, the 40 Qassams launched at Sderot, the renewal of the assassination policy and the killings of Islamic Jihad men, communications between Israel and the Palestinian Authority held up.

There was no report stating Sharon spoke directly with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but as the Americans said, their people were talking. True, Sharon’s office said a meeting with Abbas slated for next Sunday had been postponed. But Saeb Erekat, the longtime negotiator, was telling Israel’s Arabic Radio service this morning that the postponement was so the sides could prepare for the session.

Israel is heading into its annual month of holidays starting next week. This year, every single Jewish holiday falls in the middle of the work week, meaning that essentially, very little gets done. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts on the eve of Monday, October 3; Yom Kippur begins on Wednesday, October 11; and the week-long Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) kicks off on October 17, a Monday. One teacher reckoned that she’ll work a total of six days the entire month.

In other words, whatever happens tonight when they count the Likud central committee votes, Sharon has plenty of time when to meet Abbas as well as whether he will continue to lead the Likud or start a new party and call snap elections, perhaps as early as January, the same month that the Palestinians are holding their own elections.

And that’s the other story of democracy in the Middle East nowadays – the Palestinian elections. Nobody – the Americans, Europeans, Palestinians, not even the Israelis – want to see those go down the drain with raining Qassams and rockets from IDF helicopter gunships. This weekend, Israel, the Americans, the Europeans, the Egyptians and most of all the Palestinians apparently made clear to Hamas that it is time to put away the guns– for now, at least in Gaza – if they want to take part in Palestinian democracy, which they do.

Meanwhile, the Likudniks continued shouting at each other on the radio this morning, Sharon’s people accusing Netanyahu’s people of sabotage, Netanyahu’s people calling the short circuit a ‘provocation.’ And Ehud Olmert fought openly with Danny Naveh, who suddenly turned against Sharon last night, while Limor Livnat accused Olmert of ‘unbridled cynicism.’ The education minister’s own sudden turn against Sharon was also widely regarded in the press at least as ‘unbridled cynicism.’

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