Today's Situation

FOREIGN INTERESTS, July 11, 2007

Sex and scandal continue to dominate the tabloid press in Israel, with Yedioth Ahronoth leading on fresh allegations of sexual conduct against an unnamed Knesset member, and Maariv providing new details of the private investigator hired to follow the woman whose sexual assault complaint led to Haim Ramon serving a 120-hour community serviced order and - temporarily - leaving the cabinet.

Although Yedioth Ahronoth is careful not to mention the name of the MK who allegedly caressed the breasts of a female political activist who visited his home before last year's election, Internet sites were quick to fill in the missing details: 69-year-old Izhak (sic) Ziv of the Pensioners Party. Ziv vehemently denied the allegations.

In the meantime, Haaretz's Internet site revealed on Tuesday - in a report that was splashed across the front pages of all the newspaper on Wednesday - that it was Haim Ramon's former brother-in-law and close confidant who hired a private investigator to trail H., the woman who filed a complaint against Ramon. Despite denying any knowledge of the PI, Ramon issued an apology to H. on Wednesday morning.

Haaretz leads, however, with a rather more substantial story. According to the paper's diplomatic correspondent, Barak Ravid, the United Nations is set to ask Israel to withdraw from the disputed Shaba Farms area on the Israel-Lebanon border. According to the report, the UN's cartographical experts have determined that the Shaba Farms, located on Mount Dov and now controlled by Israel, are in Lebanese territory and is set to propose that Israel withdraw from the area and that it be considered international territory to be controlled by UNIFIL.

Israel maintains that the farms were Syrian territory until Israel conquered it in 1967. Syria maintains that the territory is Lebanese. France and the U.S. are pressuring Israel to withdraw, since they believe that it will strengthen Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's fragile government.

Another international force is on the agenda on Israel's southern border, after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for peacekeepers to be stationed in the Gaza Strip. He said it was necessary to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and to allow citizens to enter and leave freely.

Abbas made the comments as a joint news conference in Ramallah with visiting Italian Prime Minister Roman Prodi who said that deploying an international force would require all the parties involved to agree and that the question has not yet been examined in detail.

Nonetheless, Hamas was quick to reiterate its opposition to an international force and a spokesman for U.S. State Department said the focus should be on building up Palestinian security forces capable of functioning, adding that the proposal would have to be studied.

Meanwhile, Egypt's state owned news agency reports that officials there have ruled out any possibility for a resumption of talks between Fateh and Hamas in the near future. The comments came after a delegation representing Abbas visited Cairo to coordinate how Egypt and the Abbas government would deal with Hamas. An unidentified Egyptian official said the current climate does not permit the resumption of the dialogue between Fateh and Hamas.

Abbas is now also facing heavy criticism from home, including some of the jurists who drafted the PA's Basic Laws, who say he is forging a 'military dictatorship' in the West Bank, by granting military courts broad powers to crack down on civilians, according to the lead story in The Jerusalem Post. He is also under attack for seeking to dilute the power of the Palestinian Legislative Council, whose members were elected in January 2006.

On Monday, Abbas issued a 'presidential decree' giving Palestinian military courts in the West Bank greater power 'in the interest of public safety and internal public security.' The move is seen as an attempt to enhance his power and to foil any attempt by Hamas to undermine his Fateh faction in the West Bank. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the new order was 'the most dangerous of a series of decrees' that Abbas issued following his declaration of a state of emergency on June 14. 'The decree paves the way for the destruction of the judicial authority and civilian life for the sake of militarizing Palestinian society,' the center said in a statement.

Finally, all four of Israel's leading papers carry a report of a briefing by a senior Military Intelligence officer on Tuesday, in which all of the major threats to Israel were examined in detail.

Maariv leads its coverage of the briefing with a rehash of an interview granted earlier this week by an unnamed member of Syrian President Bashar Assad's Baath Party, who told the New York Sun that if Israel doesn't vacate the Golan Heights before September, Syrian guerillas will immediately launch 'resistance operations' against Israeli communities there. The Jerusalem Post also focuses on the Syrian angle, headlining its coverage with a quote from the MI officer, who said that 'war with Syria would be 10 times worse than the war against Hizbollah.' Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz both highlight the assessment that, unchecked, Iran will reach the point where it is able to manufacture nuclear weapons by the middle of 2009.

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