Today's Situation

THREE CRISES AND A FUNERAL, November 22, 2006

Israelis woke up on Wednesday morning facing a three-pronged crisis: the eighth Israeli fatality in Sderot from continued Qassam attacks; the alleged total breakdown in communication between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz; and the assassination in Lebanon of a leading Christian cabinet member.

The Sderot man who was critically wounded by a Qassam strike on Tuesday died of his wounds late last night, bringing to eight the number of Israelis killed by the homemade rockets manufactured in and launched from the Gaza Strip. By noon Wednesday, another four rockets struck Israeli territory - one of them just meters from a school - but no one was injured.

Olmert was meeting with his security cabinet on Wednesday to discuss ways of halting the ongoing Qassam rocket fire. According to Haaretz, one Defense Ministry source said the cabinet was split between those pressing for a full-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip and other ministers seeking a political solution.

On Tuesday, Peretz held a security briefing with military and intelligence officials. The defense minister asked to be presented with options for reoccupying areas of Gaza from which rockets are fired in order to distance the fire from Israeli communities. Peretz would like to avoid a long-term presence in Gaza, and therefore instructed the IDF to come up with 'creative solutions.'

Israel Radio, meanwhile, reports that Peretz has ordered the army to prepare for a gradual operation in Gaza. Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon (Labor) told Israel radio that there may be no alternative to an extensive military operation in Gaza. Simhon argued that Israel should not accept any cease-fire deal with the Palestinians which merely gives the terrorists time to restock their supply of arms.

Yedioth Ahronoth's online edition, Ynet, reports that senior officials at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert 's office are expected to meet Wednesday with senior officials from the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a bid to promote a meeting between the two leaders. Olmert's Chief of Staff Yoram Turbowicz and Foreign Policy Advisor Shalom Turgeman are expected to meet with their Palestinian counterparts, Saeb Erekat and Rafiq Husseini.

Yedioth Ahronoth's Alex Fishman, meanwhile, reports that the Hamas engineers are working on more advanced missiles, with a range of up to 20 kilometers, compared to the 5 kilometer range of the Qassam. According to Fishman, the new missiles, which will closely resemble the Qatyusha rockets used by Hizbollah to target Israeli towns in the North, would carry a warhead five times the size of the Qassam.

On the domestic front, relations between Olmert and Peretz appear to have hit a new low, with Shimon Shiffer claiming in Yedioth Ahronoth that the two leaders are not even speaking.

Arutz 7 reports that the two men are due to meet for the first time since their falling-out earlier in the week, to discuss the continued rocket attacks into Sderot and the western Negev. Speaking on Army Radio on Wednesday morning, Deputy Defense Minister Dr. Ephraim said that it would be preferable if Olmert and Peretz addressed state security concerns rather than continuing the controversy between themselves. The Jerusalem Post, quoting sources close to the prime minister, insist that Olmert 'does not intend to fire [Peretz] yet,' but that the sources put the emphasis on the word 'yet.' According to the paper, the sources said that Olmert had seriously considered firing his defense minister because of the lost trust between the two, because the prime minister was convinced that Peretz lied to him and because he believed Israel needed a more experienced defense minister to face the threats Israel is under.

Meanwhile, the Israeli press is primarily viewing the assassination of Pierre Gemayel as further proof of the Syrian government's neck-deep involvement in Lebanese affairs. Arab affairs commentator Zvi Bar'el argues in Haaretz that ' pure political and diplomatic logic makes it difficult to see Damascus behind the assassination.' (See below).

Haaretz loudly proclaims on its front page that Lebanese sources are blaming Syria for the assassination in Beirut yesterday of Pierre Gemayel, while The Jerusalem Post quotes Dr. Boaz Ganor, founder and the Executive Director of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya as saying that 'The assassination … will undoubtedly lead to a major confrontation, though probably not a civil war in Lebanon.'

Maariv's Jackie Hugi, meanwhile, believes that the biggest loser from the assassination is Hassan Nasrallah, since it will halt the momentum he has got going in his efforts to rebuild Hizbollah after the war with Israel.

In the meantime, Yedioth Ahronoth published the result of its weekend poll, which shows that Likud would increase it Knesset representation from 12 seats to 20 if elections were to be held today. The poll, conducted for Yedioth Ahronoth by the Dahaf Institute also predicts that Kadima, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , would crash to15 Knesset seats, nearly half the number it has today. Labor, led by Defense Minister Amir Peretz, would get a similar amount of seats, compared to the 19 it holds today.

The rise of Meretz - which is predicted to climb from five seats in the current Knesset to eight in the next, may gibe renewed impetus to talks over a possible merger with Labor Party.

The above text was written and compiled by Simon Spungin using newpaper, radio and wire reports, in English and Hebrew.

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