Today's Situation

Fighting back Thursday, September 21, 2006

‘The color was back in Halutz’s cheeks,’ said one TV correspondent last night describing an afternoon press conference with Israeli military correspondents. Halutz made mincemeat of his predecessor, Moshe ‘Bogie’ Yaalon, who had charged that the final ground operation of the war against Hizbollah cost 33 soldier’s lives that were lost to ‘spin.’ Halutz responded with a scornful ‘I never used the blood of soldiers to make any point.’

Halutz admitted that for technical reasons concerning coordination with the UN Lebanese Army the evacuation of the last of the Israeli soldiers from south Lebanon would not take place until next week, instead of the promised ‘by New Year’s’ he had issued only two days ago. He said that ‘to get up and resign would be running away from responsibility,’ but that it would be ‘lying’ to deny that he had considered resignation. He admitted that he might have decided to call up and prepare ground troop reserves earlier, but insisted that he would not necessarily have deployed them in the campaign. Much of the criticism against him is aimed at his failure to properly deploy the ground forces, relying too much on air power to achieve Israel’s military goals. He denied he had told the cabinet early in the war that air power would win the war.

Olmert meanwhile faced a handful of noisy hecklers -- protesting reservists and some bereaved families -- last night at a Kadima party gathering to mark the new year, and though they were hustled out of the building, it surely shook him up. On the other hand, in holiday interviews he gave to the major papers, due for release tomorrow, he insists he is still the right man for the job. He mocked Shaul Mofaz and Moshe Yaalon’s criticisms of the war, rhetorically asking Haaretz when the last time Mofaz or Yaalon had conducted a war. (Olmert apparently forgot the second intifada, which Mofaz wanted to rename ‘the war for the home’).

But when he woke this morning, he might have had second thoughts about his self-confidence. A Yedioth Aharonoth poll showed him with only 7 percent support in the public, a Haaretz poll showed he had the support of only 22 percent of the public. The Haaretz poll found Kadima would drop from 29 seats to 16 in new elections while Likud would climb from 12 to 24. Labor would drop from 19 to 15, and Yisrael Beitenu, the Rightist party headed by Avigdor Lieberman would climb from 11 seats to 18.

Thirty percent of the sample taken by Haaretz said that a Netanyahu-Yaalon is most suitable to run the country now; but Yaalon hasn’t even tossed his hat into the ring, and Netanyahu’s popularity seems to be derived as much from his recent silence as his position head of the Likud, the largest party in a fragmented opposition.

In other developments, four Palestinians were killed during an IDF raid into Rafah, while the IDF backtracked from preliminary estimates, saying that they had confiscated NIS 6 million, not 12 million in cash from West Bank money changers believed to be connected to terrorist groups.

But the most significant development took place at the UN, where the Quartet announced it ‘welcomes the efforts of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to form a government of national unity, in the hope that the platform of such a government would reflect Quartet principles and allow for early engagement.’ The Quartet -- the U.S., Russia, EU and UN -- also agreed to extend and expand a temporary international mechanism to channel aid to the Palestinians bypassing the existing Hamas-led government and encouraged Israel to hand over some $500 million in tax and customs revenues that it has withheld from the Palestinians. The statement mirrored an EU statement last week and UN and European diplomats said it represented a significant easing of the United States' stance toward the Palestinian Authority since Hamas took it over this year.

If so, it was a shock to Israel, which has been pressing the U.S. in particular not to take any steps toward the putative Hamas-Fateh government, at last until it accepts three conditions set forward by the international community -- recognition of Israel, renunciation of terror, and acceptance of the PLO’s agreements with Israel. President Bush reiterated as much to PA President Mahmoud Abbas last night during a meeting they held in New York, so the subsequent Quartet announcement was somewhat shocking to Jerusalem, even though it only said it hoped the formation of a national unity government would include acceptance of the Quartet’s conditions. That didn’t stop former foreign minister Silovan Shalom, a contender for Likud leadership from telling Israel Radio the Quartet statement a ‘total collapse’ of Israeli foreign policy, and denouncing the U.S. for agreeing to the statement.

Meanwhile, President Moshe Katsav, perhaps feeling his back against the wall after police said they now have eight women ready to accuse him of sexual coercion, as well as evidence that could lead to charges on breach of trust for handing out sentence commutations, and wiretapping charges, has implied that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader is behind the charges by all eight women. According to Maariv, Katsav said so bluntly to police detectives who questioned him. On Israel Radio today his brother Lior Katsav, mayor of Kiryat Malachi, stopped just short of such an accusation when he said that ‘political interests that do not want Moshe Katsav back in Likud politics’ were behind the accusations, some of which go back more than a decade but the accusers have only come forward now.

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