Today's Situation

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING OR THE TEMPEST?, September 07, 2007

If Israeli journalists and commentators think that they worked hard on Thursday - the day Syria announced it had fired on Israeli planes that had violated its airspace - they should spare a thought for the military censor. The very few facts that are known about the alleged incident were spiked by the censor, and even some of the more insightful analysis was deemed unsuitable for publication.

Instead, the main Hebrew newspapers asked questions in their Friday editions - some providing answers, others not. All three, however, have different takes on the day's drama.

Yedioth Ahronoth opts to lead with a quote from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who told a New Year gather of Kadima activists, 'I am calm.' Maariv turns up the heat a little further, with its 'On the brink of an explosion' headline, while Haaretz focuses on 'Jerusalem's silence' in its lead headline.

Opinions were divided about the severity of the incident, whether it could lead to further escalation and, in some case, whether it even happened at all. We had to wait until Friday morning for the first official Israeli response to the Syrian allegation.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied all knowledge of the incident. 'I don't know what you are talking about,' Olmert said in response to a question, hours after his office and the Israel Defense Forces both said they refused to respond to Damascus' claims. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Vice Premier Haim Ramon issued similar responses. 'I don't know what happened there,' Ramon said.  The IDF said it would not comment on the Syrian reports. 'It is not our custom to respond to these kinds of reports,' the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.

On Friday, however, Science, Sport and Culture Minister Ghaleb Majadele said that Israeli aircraft regularly enter Syrian airspace, and that he does not believe the IAF's reported infiltration of Syrian airspace on Thursday would spark a war. Majadle told the Nazareth-based A-Sinara newspaper that while he had no specific information about the latest alleged operation, it was likely that 'the planes either entered Syrian airspace to take photographs or in error.'

The United States, meanwhile, is also maintaining silence over the alleged incident. The State Department and the White House both said 'no comment' when asked about Syria's claim 'Those stories conflict with one another so really I just don't have anything for you on it,' said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. He added he has no 'information that would be able to substantiate any of the charges that have been made.'

The only voice being heard, in the meantime, is that of Syria.

On Thursday, Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said that Damascus is giving serious consideration to its response. 'Syria reserves the right to determine the quality, type, and nature of our response to the Israeli attack,' he told Al-Jazeera television. 'The Syrian leadership is seriously considering its response.'

On Friday, Syria accused Israel of jeopardizing the chances of success in the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Middle East conference, according to Army Radio. The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, told Al-Jazeera that the IAF operation came only a few hours after Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo had published a message of support for the upcoming diplomatic conference and called for Syria to be invited.

Despite the media frenzy, Israel Radio reports Friday that that the IDF has not issued any warnings to residents of the Golan Heights and tourism officials. 'It's all in the media. Nobody canceled. We're all booked up for Rosh Hashanah and reservations for Sukkot are pouring in,' said one tourism operator. 'We're all booked up for this weekend as well. Israelis don't believe rumors.'

Despite the drama in the North, the deaths in Gaza continued unabated; a total of 10 Palestinians were killed by IDF forces in two separate incidents. Six militants, who were heading toward the border security fence in central Gaza in a truck and a jeep, in what Israel said was an attempt to storm an IDF outpost or abduct a soldier, were killed by a missile fired from a gunship. The gunmen were later indeitified as members of Islamic Jihad and the Fateh-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

In the second incident, four Palestinian militants were killed and six others wounded in an IDF strike in the al-Boureij refugee camp in southern Gaza Strip. A soldier was lightly wounded and evacuated for treatment.

In other news, Yedioth Ahronoth reports Friday that Vice Premier Haim Ramon has offered Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and other senior officials a broad West Bank withdrawal as part of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer report that Ramon met with the Palestinian leaders in an effort to put together a joint Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles that will be presented in November at a U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference. Ramon is offering the Palestinians an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all of the West Bank, including the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, as part of a final peace deal.

According to the report, the border between Israel and the future Palestinian state will roughly follow the route of the separation fence leaving major Israeli settlement blocs and between 3 and 8 percent of the West Bank in Israel's hands.

This means that Ariel and Maale Adumin will stay within Israeli area, while settlements like Karnei Shomron, Beit El, Ofra, the ultra-Orthodox town Tel Zion and many other communities will be evacuated and their territory handed over to the Palestinians. In return, Israel will cede the same amount of land inside Israel to the Palestinians to make up for the annexed territory - possibly including a land corridor between the West Bank and Gaza, long a central Palestinian demand.

Regarding Jerusalem, the proposed plan adopts Clinton's outline in the 2001 peace talks: East Jerusalem will be divided among the two states and holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City will be under the control of the various religions and no national flags will be flown.

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