Today's Situation

SLIP SLIDING AWAY , December 13, 2006

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was bending over backwards yesterday to correct his slip of the tongue on during a television interview on Monday.

Speaking to German television news channel N24, Olmert said, 'Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?' This was taken as confirmation that Israel has nuclear weapons, and Olmert was at pains to stress yesterday that he can not admitted this.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Olmert said - on no less than eight occasions - that 'Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.' This was not enough, however, to prevent the general secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council urging the United Nations to pressure Israel into opening its Dimona facility to international inspection. Failing that, the GCC said that Israel should be subjected to the same sanctions that are currently being debated for Iran.

In the first American response to Olmert's slip, U.S. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that there is no change in Israel's policy and there 'I have no plans to compare between Iran's conduct and any other country, because honestly, the Iranian conduct, the conduct of this regime, is far from any other regime we know on the face of the earth.'

Olmert is due to travel to Italy on Wednesday on the second leg of his European tour. He will hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and other top officials. His agenda is expected to include the crisis in Lebanon, with Italy being the largest contributor to a UN peacekeeping force there, as well as how to deal with the Palestinians, Syria and Iran. He will also have a private meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, during which he will invite the pontiff to visit Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, a Hamas-linked judge was shot dead by gunmen on Wednesday, in apparent reprisal for the murder Monday of three sons of a Fateh loyalist in Gaza City. Bassam al-Fara, 30, a judge at the Islamic court and a Hamas member, was ambushed by several gunmen who opened fire as he emerged from his car and began walking into the Khan Yunis courthouse.

Monday's killing has sparked renewed clashes between the rival Hamas and Fatah factions and raised the specter of a civil war among Palestinians. According to Haaretz, demonstrations erupted throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a mass outpouring of grief and anger; students stayed home from school, newspapers penned angry editorials and mothers outside the president's office demanded protection for their children. Amid rising tensions, Hamas gunmen opened fire on a group of demonstrators who blamed the militant Islamic group for the slayings. For its part, Hamas denied involvement in Monday's brutal killing and denounced it.

The upsurge in violence appears linked to an announcement by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who said Wednesday he would return to Gaza on Thursday, cutting short his trip abroad. Speaking at a press conference in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Haniyeh also said that President Omar al-Bashir had pledged US$10 million to the Palestinian government and people.

In Gaza, Haniyeh's political adviser, Ahmed Youssef, confirmed the prime minister would return on Thursday or Friday, adding: 'We need the prime minister to be here now to resolve the internal problems.'

Haniyeh dismissed fears of the violence in Gaza escalating to a civil war. 'We want to assure you that words such as 'civil war' don't exist in our dictionary. They don't exist in our makeup, in our culture,' Haniyeh told reporters in Khartoum. 'We don't have time for internal feuds. We will protect the national unity of the Palestinian people and we will thwart any attempt to instigate an inter-Palestinian struggle.'

In the meantime, Palestinian factions renewed their Qassam attacks against Israeli targets on Tuesday, with five of the homemade rockets landing in the Negev, despite a ceasefire that has seen the number of rockets fired drop significantly. No one was injured in the attacks. Israel Radio reports that Olmert warned Wednesday that restraint in the face of Palestinian ceasefire violations was becoming 'harder and harder.'

At home, the High Court of Justice yesterday told the state it is not immune to compensation claims filed by Palestinians who were injured or who sustained financial damage as a result of non-combat operations in the West Bank. The ruling means that hundreds of claims from the IDF's Operation Defense Shield can now go ahead.

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

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