By Rafael D. Frankel
HEBRON - On a wall opposite the former Arab wholesale market here where Jews have squatted for the past three years is a mural of a payot-donning man in black sandals and a red kippa raising an M-16 high above his head. Standing by a well, with the Cave of the Patriarchs in the background, he guards two women in purple and pink blouses who are planting flowers.
All around the Jewish areas of town, in pictures, banners and in the words of Jewish residents, the message is clear: this is Jewish land and it will be defended by force - from friend and foe alike - if necessary.
But on Monday, convinced occupation of the heavily symbolic Mitzpe Shalhevet outpost was just a small battle in a larger war, the Jews of Hebron left. Quietly, they packed their belongings. Resolutely, they vowed to return.
"There's a big determination by the community here that in a short time we will return to this land because it's Jewish land," said Hillel Horovitz, a 20-year resident of Hebron. "Of course it's a big sacrifice for the families in the market, but in this situation there really was no other choice."
When judgment day finally came, the local leadership's fiery rhetoric of the past days and weeks about not yielding an inch turned into triumphant talk of securing the future at the expense of the present.
"We feel good that the place will stay in Jewish hands. It would have been a great crime if Jews were evacuated from land that was rightfully ours," said Danny Cohen, the Chabad representative in Hebron. "There's a big difference between being thrown out of the city in bloody clashes with the army and just moving your stuff."
According to numerous residents, the decision to accept the deal offered by the IDF was made collectively by the Jewish community with the consent, or at least the acceptance of the market residents.
Even after Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz and the Defense Ministry stated that no agreement existed between the state and the Hebron community that would allow Jewish residents here to return to the market in the coming months, the settlers did not alter their stance.
"We've got promises and we have an agreement with the commander of this area," said Noam Arnon, a local leader. "This area is under military sovereignty and the military command is responsible in the name of the state and the law. We are going to implement our share of the agreement and we're quite sure they will implement theirs."
The settlers were not spoiling for a fight. So amidst a dozen photographers, a couple camera crews and a light and unintrusive police presence, the market residents began packing.
According to the agreement, which was outlined in only broad terms by community leaders, the families residing in Mitzpe Shalhevet were not allowed to sleep in the market past Sunday night, but had until the end of the week to clear out their belongings.
Temporary shelter in Hebron for the departing settlers was being hastily arranged, said David Wilder, a spokesman for the Hebron Jewish community.
"It's not easy for them or for anyone here," he said. "But what's most important is that we are not replaying what happened in Gush Katif. This property will remain in Israeli hands and that is a major victory."
Like the mural's caricature, the Hebron Jews are trying to cement their presence here for a long time to come - even if they have to take a step back to do it.
"What we are doing is not for us, it's not for personal gain," said Yair Garbovsky, a father of three who has lived with his family in the market for more than three years. "We are here for the nation of Israel and [by leaving] we are doing what is best for everyone. Whether or not it is easy for us is not the point."
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Anarchy or stability? In Gaza, it could go either way
Analysis
By Rafael D. Frankel
The last time an entrenched power vacated the Gaza Strip, the vacuum that was left in its wake brought with it a steady deterioration in the security situation to the point where "anarchy" was the prevailing description of conditions on the street.
To avoid a fate similar to what happened following the IDF's withdrawal in September, Gaza leaders on all sides of the political spectrum are holding talks to ensure a smooth transition between outgoing Fatah and Hamas.
Analysis on the strip's prospects for stability largely run along an Israeli-Palestinian divide, with Israelis saying the violence could escalate and Palestinians insisting that a civil war is not in the cards, and the transition of power will be handled smoothly.
"It's a transitional period where everybody is testing the muscles of everyone else," said Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Shalom Harari, an expert in Palestinian affairs at the Institute for Counter- Terrorism in Herzliya. "We haven't seen the end of the clashes yet. But whether they fight all-out or remain at a low level there is no way to tell." The weekend's events - eight wounded in clashes between Hamas and Fatah loyalists in Gaza - represented an early test for the new leaders of Gaza, and so far they have not escalated to a serious pitch.
Despite the clashes on Saturday, Ahmed Hales, a Fatah leader in Gaza, paid a courtesy call on Ishmael Haniya, Hamas's No. 1 who will likely be the next Palestinian prime minister, to congratulate him on Hamas's victory.
According to Palestinian news agencies, Hales was received warmly by Haniya, and the two parted cordially.
However, Fatah-Hamas violence may not be the greatest threat to Gaza's stability. Rather, internal clashes between separate arms of Fatah - which has failed to exert discipline among its ranks - is a far more likely threat to Gaza's stability, said Dan Schueftan, the deputy director of the Internal Security Department at the University of Haifa and a senior fellow at the Shalem Center.
"Fatah is not an entity, it is a loose congregation of hooligans," Schueftan said. "Extended families and militias [allied with Fatah] will all be trying to find their niche in the new reality." That would likely lead to intensifying violence in the near future, he said.
From within Gaza, though, a more hopeful vision emerged. Reached by telephone in Gaza City, Ziyyad Abu Amr, an independent who won a PLC seat on the Gaza City local list and is tipped as a possible foreign minister in the next government, said Fatah would listen to the will of the Palestinian people and realize the time for fighting "was long over." Fatah would "lose the little support it has left on the street if it resorts to acts of violence," Abu Amr said. As a trusted intermediary between the two factions, Abu Amr helped mediate the calm declared by many of the militant groups last year and also obtained promises from them in advance of the elections to keep the peace on voting day.
"Gaza is headed in the right direction. You have a party assuming power that is very strong politically and militarily, that has a wide power base and enjoys political and legal legitimacy," he said. "Once Hamas forms a government the violence on the ground will [subside] because their people will have their credibility at stake."
Hamas will work with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to rein in any violence that threatens to disrupt Gaza, Abu Amr said - a task that Fatah leadership was unwilling or unable to accomplish. "Abu Mazen will be happy to work with Hamas to find the appropriate tools to impose law and order," he said.
However, Abbas's control over the security forces could become a friction point,
Harari said, if Hamas decided it needed to act against Fatah elements who were disturbing the peace.
With an army of 60,000 compared to around 10,000 for Hamas, Abbas would still be able to act from a position of power.
Additionally, there was no guarantee that Fatah would, in the end, let go of the power elections have stripped from it, Harari said. "Right now, everyone is taking things slow, and seeing what moves the other is going to make."
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
By Rafael D. Frankel
The last time an entrenched power vacated the Gaza Strip, the vacuum that was left in its wake brought with it a steady deterioration in the security situation to the point where "anarchy" was the prevailing description of conditions on the street.
To avoid a fate similar to what happened following the IDF's withdrawal in September, Gaza leaders on all sides of the political spectrum are holding talks to ensure a smooth transition between outgoing Fatah and Hamas.
Analysis on the strip's prospects for stability largely run along an Israeli-Palestinian divide, with Israelis saying the violence could escalate and Palestinians insisting that a civil war is not in the cards, and the transition of power will be handled smoothly.
"It's a transitional period where everybody is testing the muscles of everyone else," said Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Shalom Harari, an expert in Palestinian affairs at the Institute for Counter- Terrorism in Herzliya. "We haven't seen the end of the clashes yet. But whether they fight all-out or remain at a low level there is no way to tell." The weekend's events - eight wounded in clashes between Hamas and Fatah loyalists in Gaza - represented an early test for the new leaders of Gaza, and so far they have not escalated to a serious pitch.
Despite the clashes on Saturday, Ahmed Hales, a Fatah leader in Gaza, paid a courtesy call on Ishmael Haniya, Hamas's No. 1 who will likely be the next Palestinian prime minister, to congratulate him on Hamas's victory.
According to Palestinian news agencies, Hales was received warmly by Haniya, and the two parted cordially.
However, Fatah-Hamas violence may not be the greatest threat to Gaza's stability. Rather, internal clashes between separate arms of Fatah - which has failed to exert discipline among its ranks - is a far more likely threat to Gaza's stability, said Dan Schueftan, the deputy director of the Internal Security Department at the University of Haifa and a senior fellow at the Shalem Center.
"Fatah is not an entity, it is a loose congregation of hooligans," Schueftan said. "Extended families and militias [allied with Fatah] will all be trying to find their niche in the new reality." That would likely lead to intensifying violence in the near future, he said.
From within Gaza, though, a more hopeful vision emerged. Reached by telephone in Gaza City, Ziyyad Abu Amr, an independent who won a PLC seat on the Gaza City local list and is tipped as a possible foreign minister in the next government, said Fatah would listen to the will of the Palestinian people and realize the time for fighting "was long over." Fatah would "lose the little support it has left on the street if it resorts to acts of violence," Abu Amr said. As a trusted intermediary between the two factions, Abu Amr helped mediate the calm declared by many of the militant groups last year and also obtained promises from them in advance of the elections to keep the peace on voting day.
"Gaza is headed in the right direction. You have a party assuming power that is very strong politically and militarily, that has a wide power base and enjoys political and legal legitimacy," he said. "Once Hamas forms a government the violence on the ground will [subside] because their people will have their credibility at stake."
Hamas will work with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to rein in any violence that threatens to disrupt Gaza, Abu Amr said - a task that Fatah leadership was unwilling or unable to accomplish. "Abu Mazen will be happy to work with Hamas to find the appropriate tools to impose law and order," he said.
However, Abbas's control over the security forces could become a friction point,
Harari said, if Hamas decided it needed to act against Fatah elements who were disturbing the peace.
With an army of 60,000 compared to around 10,000 for Hamas, Abbas would still be able to act from a position of power.
Additionally, there was no guarantee that Fatah would, in the end, let go of the power elections have stripped from it, Harari said. "Right now, everyone is taking things slow, and seeing what moves the other is going to make."
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Peaceful vote something to celebrate
Orderly election day in Gaza as militant factions keep promise
By Rafael D. Frankel
GAZA CITY - Just minutes after the ballots closed across the Palestinian territories, gunfire erupted in the streets of Gaza. Palestinian youths took to the streets, firing automatic weapons from their car windows and closed off city blocks in a jubilant if chaotic mass celebration, with shots ringing out every few seconds.
But rather than street warfare, the shooting represented Gaza's version of celebrating democracy as Hamas and Fatah both sought to claim victory in the neck- and-neck campaign.
Promises from terrorist factions for a peaceful election came true here Wednesday as Palestinians voted in an extremely high turnout, without a single reported incident of violence in Gaza - a strip of land teeming with 1.3 million people and synonymous with street warfare and anarchy.
Preliminary results suggested a victory for Fatah in Gaza by a margin of 40 percent to 30% for Hamas, the Central Elections Committee said.
If the results hold, they would be a small surprise considering Gaza's standing as a Hamas stronghold.
"It went surprisingly well," Eyad Farraj, a Gaza psychiatrist and the head of the Wa'ad party list, said of the elections here. "There were so many people who were apprehensive about the civility of the factions, particularly Fatah, but it seems like they made a decision to abide by the democratic process."
In cities throughout Gaza, a festive mood prevailed on streets awash in the green, gold, and occasional red flags of Hamas, Fatah and the PFLP, respectively. Throughout the day, taxis and vans sporting the colors of their favorite parties carted voters to the polls as youths flew flags out the windows and flashed victory signs to go along with them.
Were it not for the security forces who made their presence felt but kept their automatic rifles in check, a visitor to Gaza might have mistaken election day for a color war.
But the stakes here were high, and in interviews conducted by The Jerusalem Post around the Gaza Strip, voters painted a picture of deep satisfaction with the democratic process but varying ideas about the party best suited to lead the first genuinely democratic Palestinian Legislative Council.
Where Hamas voters unanimously criticized Fatah, and by extension the PA, as corrupt, Fatah voters maintained theirs was still the only party that could deliver a state for the Palestinian people.
In the Rimel neighborhood in northern Gaza City, Jamila Muhammad Harb, 80, was led, hand in hand, away from a polling station by her 17-year-old grandson Mahmoud after voting for Fatah. "It was something patriotic for Palestine," Harb said, adding it was the first time she voted.
"Fatah was the first to do everything," said Amal Harb 40, Jamila's daughter-in-law. "They were the first to fight Israel, they started the liberation project of Palestine. Every party has corruption but Fatah gives us the best chance for peace with Israel."
At the Rafah Preparatory Boys School just north of the Egyptian border, Samir Khalil, 50, struck a much different note. He said the ink on his index finger was one more vote for Hamas, and an end to the status quo.
"They are the best, the other guys had 10 years in the PLC and until now accomplished nothing for the Palestinian people," said Khalil, who has been unemployed for the last five years. "They have a high salary and nice cars and while they go off to Ramallah, Egypt, and Europe we are stuck here and they don't give a damn about us."
Hassan el-Azazy, 42, who like Khalil fled from a town close to Tel Aviv during the 1948 war, stroked his long, salt and pepper beard as he listened to his friend speak. When Khalil finished, he added that "Hamas will get us our land back, God willing. Israel should go to the sea."
Other Hamas voters were drawn by the movement's Islamic credentials.
In the Del el Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, an area literally on the border with Egypt which was heavily damaged by the IDF during the second intifada, a group of women dressed in full, black burkas sat outside their polling station after casting votes for Hamas.
Among them was Atidal em Ossama Affuga, 40, who voted for Hamas because she hoped it would work to install Islamic Sharia law in the Palestinian territories. "Islam is not just for us, it's for all the world," she said.
About the only scare during the day came outside the Kamal Nasser Secondary School in Khan Yunis, when a group of al-Aksa gunmen drove by the school, serving as a polling station, firing bullets in the air from the bed of a truck. A crowd of hundreds, who were loitering on the sidewalk and street outside the school, briefly ducked for cover before they realized the shots were not being fired in anyone's direction.
Despite orders to arrest anyone who fired guns on election day, security forces outside the school chose not to take that measure to keep the peace, they said. "If we tried to arrest them, it would have been big trouble," said Said Ishbir, 20, an M-16 thrown across his shoulder. "We just talked to them reasonably and they calmed down." Later, the same gunmen returned to the school - without their weapons - to campaign for Muhammad Dahlan.
Despite the gunshots outside the schoolyard where they were observing the elections, Cypriot parliamentarian Eleni Theocharous said he had not recorded any "cheating or interfering" with the ballot. "People are voting in peace and normality with full access," he said.
In Gaza City, the walls of many buildings, whose graffiti often acts as a pulse-taker for the mood of Gazans, were spray-painted with election slogans. And throughout the strip, posters of the late Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin were spliced with pictures of Fatah No. 1 Marwan Barghouti and Hamas No. 1 Ismail Hania, respectively. But in all the locales visited by the Post, only one poster of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was on display, and it was hung high in the corner of a side wall, outside the field of vision of passers-by.
Throughout the day, taxis and buses rounded up voters all over Gaza in a ramped-up get-out-the-vote effort by the parties here. Fatah alone was buying the services of 600 buses in the half of Gaza City which Musbah Felfel was responsible for, the Fatah transportation coordinator said. The going rate for a bus or taxi driver for the day, including gas, was NIS 300.
Meanwhile, children combed the streets, flinging hand- size election placards through open car windows.
The efforts apparently worked. Voter turnout in Gaza registered 76.8%, compared to 62.5% in the West Bank, and 40%in Jerusalem, the Central Elections Commission said.
Where Gaza goes from here remains to be seen.
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
By Rafael D. Frankel
GAZA CITY - Just minutes after the ballots closed across the Palestinian territories, gunfire erupted in the streets of Gaza. Palestinian youths took to the streets, firing automatic weapons from their car windows and closed off city blocks in a jubilant if chaotic mass celebration, with shots ringing out every few seconds.
But rather than street warfare, the shooting represented Gaza's version of celebrating democracy as Hamas and Fatah both sought to claim victory in the neck- and-neck campaign.
Promises from terrorist factions for a peaceful election came true here Wednesday as Palestinians voted in an extremely high turnout, without a single reported incident of violence in Gaza - a strip of land teeming with 1.3 million people and synonymous with street warfare and anarchy.
Preliminary results suggested a victory for Fatah in Gaza by a margin of 40 percent to 30% for Hamas, the Central Elections Committee said.
If the results hold, they would be a small surprise considering Gaza's standing as a Hamas stronghold.
"It went surprisingly well," Eyad Farraj, a Gaza psychiatrist and the head of the Wa'ad party list, said of the elections here. "There were so many people who were apprehensive about the civility of the factions, particularly Fatah, but it seems like they made a decision to abide by the democratic process."
In cities throughout Gaza, a festive mood prevailed on streets awash in the green, gold, and occasional red flags of Hamas, Fatah and the PFLP, respectively. Throughout the day, taxis and vans sporting the colors of their favorite parties carted voters to the polls as youths flew flags out the windows and flashed victory signs to go along with them.
Were it not for the security forces who made their presence felt but kept their automatic rifles in check, a visitor to Gaza might have mistaken election day for a color war.
But the stakes here were high, and in interviews conducted by The Jerusalem Post around the Gaza Strip, voters painted a picture of deep satisfaction with the democratic process but varying ideas about the party best suited to lead the first genuinely democratic Palestinian Legislative Council.
Where Hamas voters unanimously criticized Fatah, and by extension the PA, as corrupt, Fatah voters maintained theirs was still the only party that could deliver a state for the Palestinian people.
In the Rimel neighborhood in northern Gaza City, Jamila Muhammad Harb, 80, was led, hand in hand, away from a polling station by her 17-year-old grandson Mahmoud after voting for Fatah. "It was something patriotic for Palestine," Harb said, adding it was the first time she voted.
"Fatah was the first to do everything," said Amal Harb 40, Jamila's daughter-in-law. "They were the first to fight Israel, they started the liberation project of Palestine. Every party has corruption but Fatah gives us the best chance for peace with Israel."
At the Rafah Preparatory Boys School just north of the Egyptian border, Samir Khalil, 50, struck a much different note. He said the ink on his index finger was one more vote for Hamas, and an end to the status quo.
"They are the best, the other guys had 10 years in the PLC and until now accomplished nothing for the Palestinian people," said Khalil, who has been unemployed for the last five years. "They have a high salary and nice cars and while they go off to Ramallah, Egypt, and Europe we are stuck here and they don't give a damn about us."
Hassan el-Azazy, 42, who like Khalil fled from a town close to Tel Aviv during the 1948 war, stroked his long, salt and pepper beard as he listened to his friend speak. When Khalil finished, he added that "Hamas will get us our land back, God willing. Israel should go to the sea."
Other Hamas voters were drawn by the movement's Islamic credentials.
In the Del el Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, an area literally on the border with Egypt which was heavily damaged by the IDF during the second intifada, a group of women dressed in full, black burkas sat outside their polling station after casting votes for Hamas.
Among them was Atidal em Ossama Affuga, 40, who voted for Hamas because she hoped it would work to install Islamic Sharia law in the Palestinian territories. "Islam is not just for us, it's for all the world," she said.
About the only scare during the day came outside the Kamal Nasser Secondary School in Khan Yunis, when a group of al-Aksa gunmen drove by the school, serving as a polling station, firing bullets in the air from the bed of a truck. A crowd of hundreds, who were loitering on the sidewalk and street outside the school, briefly ducked for cover before they realized the shots were not being fired in anyone's direction.
Despite orders to arrest anyone who fired guns on election day, security forces outside the school chose not to take that measure to keep the peace, they said. "If we tried to arrest them, it would have been big trouble," said Said Ishbir, 20, an M-16 thrown across his shoulder. "We just talked to them reasonably and they calmed down." Later, the same gunmen returned to the school - without their weapons - to campaign for Muhammad Dahlan.
Despite the gunshots outside the schoolyard where they were observing the elections, Cypriot parliamentarian Eleni Theocharous said he had not recorded any "cheating or interfering" with the ballot. "People are voting in peace and normality with full access," he said.
In Gaza City, the walls of many buildings, whose graffiti often acts as a pulse-taker for the mood of Gazans, were spray-painted with election slogans. And throughout the strip, posters of the late Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin were spliced with pictures of Fatah No. 1 Marwan Barghouti and Hamas No. 1 Ismail Hania, respectively. But in all the locales visited by the Post, only one poster of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was on display, and it was hung high in the corner of a side wall, outside the field of vision of passers-by.
Throughout the day, taxis and buses rounded up voters all over Gaza in a ramped-up get-out-the-vote effort by the parties here. Fatah alone was buying the services of 600 buses in the half of Gaza City which Musbah Felfel was responsible for, the Fatah transportation coordinator said. The going rate for a bus or taxi driver for the day, including gas, was NIS 300.
Meanwhile, children combed the streets, flinging hand- size election placards through open car windows.
The efforts apparently worked. Voter turnout in Gaza registered 76.8%, compared to 62.5% in the West Bank, and 40%in Jerusalem, the Central Elections Commission said.
Where Gaza goes from here remains to be seen.
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
Gaza vote a landslide for king of kebab
By Rafael D. Frankel
GAZA CITY - Whether Wednesday goes down in history as the day on which Gazans demonstrated their preference for the pen over the sword remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: In this long- depressed and chaotic territory, kebab is mightier than both.
On election day, the only nook in the entire Gaza Strip more crowded than the polling stations was Jamala, a popular takeaway kebab joint in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City.
Inside its kitchen, where the smoke rising from the meeting of lamb drippings and charcoal sears the eyes but tempts the stomach, politicos of all ages and parties lined up to enjoy the best kebab in town.
Even with 20 men in the kitchen, 10 more than on a normal day - the grill masters found it difficult to keep up with orders pouring in from the campaigns of Fatah, Hamas, and a spate of smaller and independent lists. At one point in the late afternoon there was an hour-long wait for a pita stuffed with two strips of lamb.
"Elections are good for business," said Abd el-Sallam, who has owned Jamala with his three brothers since 1986, and whose grandfather first started the family's kebab grilling exploits in 1936. "We haven't had a day this good since the Fatah primaries."
What is also good for business is a wealth of political views, and that Jamala also has.
While Sallam voted Wednesday for Fatah, one brother voted for Hamas, his mother voted for the PFLP, and his father voted for the Popular Resistance Committees.
The same variety exists among his employees and clientele.
Turning strips of lamb on the two-meter-long spit which faces the street from the open-air kitchen was Fousy Abu Assad, 32, who has worked at Jamala for 20 years and supports Hamas.
The lamb he grilled eventually found its way into the pita of Dr. Sana el-Sair, a professor of information technology at the Palestine International University. She was picking up food for the campaign team of her brother, who is running on an independent list.
"Everyone comes here," el-Sallam said, smiling proudly, "Hamas, Fatah, even journalists." But aside from the offhand comment or two, political talk even on election day falls silent when customers step into Jamala's kitchen and gaze longingly at the kebab they hope will soon be theirs.
"This is the best food in Gaza," Dr. el-Sair said. "And no matter who you support, you still have to eat."
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
GAZA CITY - Whether Wednesday goes down in history as the day on which Gazans demonstrated their preference for the pen over the sword remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: In this long- depressed and chaotic territory, kebab is mightier than both.
On election day, the only nook in the entire Gaza Strip more crowded than the polling stations was Jamala, a popular takeaway kebab joint in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City.
Inside its kitchen, where the smoke rising from the meeting of lamb drippings and charcoal sears the eyes but tempts the stomach, politicos of all ages and parties lined up to enjoy the best kebab in town.
Even with 20 men in the kitchen, 10 more than on a normal day - the grill masters found it difficult to keep up with orders pouring in from the campaigns of Fatah, Hamas, and a spate of smaller and independent lists. At one point in the late afternoon there was an hour-long wait for a pita stuffed with two strips of lamb.
"Elections are good for business," said Abd el-Sallam, who has owned Jamala with his three brothers since 1986, and whose grandfather first started the family's kebab grilling exploits in 1936. "We haven't had a day this good since the Fatah primaries."
What is also good for business is a wealth of political views, and that Jamala also has.
While Sallam voted Wednesday for Fatah, one brother voted for Hamas, his mother voted for the PFLP, and his father voted for the Popular Resistance Committees.
The same variety exists among his employees and clientele.
Turning strips of lamb on the two-meter-long spit which faces the street from the open-air kitchen was Fousy Abu Assad, 32, who has worked at Jamala for 20 years and supports Hamas.
The lamb he grilled eventually found its way into the pita of Dr. Sana el-Sair, a professor of information technology at the Palestine International University. She was picking up food for the campaign team of her brother, who is running on an independent list.
"Everyone comes here," el-Sallam said, smiling proudly, "Hamas, Fatah, even journalists." But aside from the offhand comment or two, political talk even on election day falls silent when customers step into Jamala's kitchen and gaze longingly at the kebab they hope will soon be theirs.
"This is the best food in Gaza," Dr. el-Sair said. "And no matter who you support, you still have to eat."
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
Thursday, January 19, 2006
EU, PA slam east J'lem voting arrangements
PFLP activists arrested in capital
By Rafael D. Frankel and Etgar Lefkovits
The logistics provided by the Israeli government to allow residents of Jerusalem to vote in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections will not provide a "free and fair" environment, European Union monitors and Palestinian Authority election officials told The Jerusalem Post just a week before the elections are set to take place.
Though the cabinet approved a measure allowing Palestinian Jerusalemites to vote in Wednesday's PLC elections in five east Jerusalem post offices, the exact arrangement for how the vote will proceed in the city has yet to be finalized.
"The devil is in the details," Veronique De Keyser, chief observer for the elections, told The Jerusalem Post. "But surely if the political issues can be worked out, so too can the technical ones."
Lack of secrecy, lack of space to accommodate enough voters and intimidation - even if unintentional - by Israeli security personnel are all problems that have yet to be addressed, PA Central Elections Committee chief officer Ammar Dwaik told the Post. "The [provisions] are inadequate; if they remain the way they are, they will not provide for free and fair elections."
The main problem, according to Dwaik and confirmed by De Keyser, was the issue of privacy. In previous PA elections, voters did not have a screen or booths set up in the post offices that allowed them to mark their ballots without being observed by Israeli postal or security officials.
"Every time they vote in Jerusalem, they have the same claims. But we are in the middle of working on the preparations for the elections now," said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby.
As of press time, Israeli and PA negotiators were in the Crown Plaza Hotel in Jerusalem attempting to reconcile their positions on the logistics of the vote, both sides said.
Once Jerusalem police are given directives from the politicians, they will plan accordingly, Ben-Ruby said. The specifics of the Election Day arrangement will likely be announced Monday.
Among the other concerns voiced by the PA and EU monitors was the impossibility of accommodating 100,000 eligible voters in the five post offices. Dwaik said Israeli officials had told him the size of those venues would allow only some 5,000 people to vote.
De Keyser added that Palestinians might also feel intimidated by checking in with Israeli officials.
"Giving a Palestinian ID to an Israeli official is a problem," she said, "not because the Israeli will do anything with it, but because many people will be scared of them and won't dare vote."
The presence of Israeli security personnel and surveillance cameras affixed in some of the post offices will deter many voters from participating, Dwaik said, citing a similar phenomenon in the 1996 elections.
"People in Jerusalem are concerned about their IDs and status as Jerusalem citizens, and there are rumors about penalties against those who participate in the elections," he said.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem police detained seven activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, including the group's Jerusalem head, who had gathered in an east Jerusalem hotel to hold a press conference about the upcoming elections, police said.
Several of the suspects resisted arrest and police had to use force to take them into custody, Ben-Ruby said.
The detained PFLP Jerusalem leader, Abdel Latif Shehadeh, is No. 10 on the group's national list.
Israel has forbidden all terror organizations to campaign in east Jerusalem. Police have carried out a series of raids against such gatherings over the last week, but candidates from various parties continue to campaign in the city.
The relatively small PFLP was behind several deadly attacks in recent years, including the assassination of tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
By Rafael D. Frankel and Etgar Lefkovits
The logistics provided by the Israeli government to allow residents of Jerusalem to vote in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections will not provide a "free and fair" environment, European Union monitors and Palestinian Authority election officials told The Jerusalem Post just a week before the elections are set to take place.
Though the cabinet approved a measure allowing Palestinian Jerusalemites to vote in Wednesday's PLC elections in five east Jerusalem post offices, the exact arrangement for how the vote will proceed in the city has yet to be finalized.
"The devil is in the details," Veronique De Keyser, chief observer for the elections, told The Jerusalem Post. "But surely if the political issues can be worked out, so too can the technical ones."
Lack of secrecy, lack of space to accommodate enough voters and intimidation - even if unintentional - by Israeli security personnel are all problems that have yet to be addressed, PA Central Elections Committee chief officer Ammar Dwaik told the Post. "The [provisions] are inadequate; if they remain the way they are, they will not provide for free and fair elections."
The main problem, according to Dwaik and confirmed by De Keyser, was the issue of privacy. In previous PA elections, voters did not have a screen or booths set up in the post offices that allowed them to mark their ballots without being observed by Israeli postal or security officials.
"Every time they vote in Jerusalem, they have the same claims. But we are in the middle of working on the preparations for the elections now," said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby.
As of press time, Israeli and PA negotiators were in the Crown Plaza Hotel in Jerusalem attempting to reconcile their positions on the logistics of the vote, both sides said.
Once Jerusalem police are given directives from the politicians, they will plan accordingly, Ben-Ruby said. The specifics of the Election Day arrangement will likely be announced Monday.
Among the other concerns voiced by the PA and EU monitors was the impossibility of accommodating 100,000 eligible voters in the five post offices. Dwaik said Israeli officials had told him the size of those venues would allow only some 5,000 people to vote.
De Keyser added that Palestinians might also feel intimidated by checking in with Israeli officials.
"Giving a Palestinian ID to an Israeli official is a problem," she said, "not because the Israeli will do anything with it, but because many people will be scared of them and won't dare vote."
The presence of Israeli security personnel and surveillance cameras affixed in some of the post offices will deter many voters from participating, Dwaik said, citing a similar phenomenon in the 1996 elections.
"People in Jerusalem are concerned about their IDs and status as Jerusalem citizens, and there are rumors about penalties against those who participate in the elections," he said.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem police detained seven activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, including the group's Jerusalem head, who had gathered in an east Jerusalem hotel to hold a press conference about the upcoming elections, police said.
Several of the suspects resisted arrest and police had to use force to take them into custody, Ben-Ruby said.
The detained PFLP Jerusalem leader, Abdel Latif Shehadeh, is No. 10 on the group's national list.
Israel has forbidden all terror organizations to campaign in east Jerusalem. Police have carried out a series of raids against such gatherings over the last week, but candidates from various parties continue to campaign in the city.
The relatively small PFLP was behind several deadly attacks in recent years, including the assassination of tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.
©2006 The Jerusalem Post
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Sharon's legend grows among Israelis
Controversial aspects of the prime minister's career are muted by an anxious nation.
By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
JERUSALEM - In Hebrew, "Ariel" means "Lion of God." As Ariel Sharon continued to show signs of improvement Wednesday following the massive stroke and three brain surgeries he endured, many Israelis - from across the political spectrum - have come to see their prime minister as no less than the name implies.
From behind the wheel of his taxi, David, who would not give his last name, tells a story now circulating around the country about Sharon going up to Heaven. "He saw Arafat and everyone else up there and decided he had to come back to us. Now he is arguing with God, like Abraham did, to give him more time."
That quasi-biblical view of Sharon is typical among Israelis these days. The controversial aspects of Sharon's record as a military man and a government leader are drowned out by an outpouring of emotion from a people who desperately want him to wake up and continue leading Israel to what appeared to be the finish line he was sprinting toward in his final years.
Never mind that one of Sharon's chief surgeons, Dr. Jose Cohen, said that expecting him to recover fully is unlikely. Israelis by the thousands have gone to the Wailing Wall - the most holy spot in the world for Jews - to pray for just that.
That includes many, such as Karen Brunwasser, who are secular and do not regularly attend Synagogue. “He’s developed this mythical persona and inspires confidence where other people just don’t,” says Brunwasser, 29, originally from Philadelphia.
“It’s like ‘there’s no atheist in the foxhole,’” she added, speaking of her trip to the Wall to pray. “I felt like I should do something active, and what else could I do?”
Perhaps no other person alive today so embodies the history and character of Israel as Sharon. His life has been a mix of tragedy, controversy, and conquest. He has lost two wives and a son. His name will always be linked to massacres of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. And yet, he led Israel in stunning successes as a soldier and a politician.
That is why, says Moshe Lissak, a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University, his legend continues to grow.
"The human aspect to this man is very strong, and it's a very emotional response people are having for him right now," Mr. Lissak says, adding that the intense reaction Israel is seeing would probably not be accorded another man, even if he was prime minister. "There is a lot of sympathy for him and his family despite how controversial they are."
(One of Sharon's sons, Omri, was convicted of campaign finance violations in relation to his father's first run for prime minister, and is facing possible jail time.)
Since his stroke, Israeli television has shown flattering footage of Sharon from his army days and interviews with many of his old friends and fellow soldiers. The story being told of the brilliant military general who bested the Egyptians and the resolute prime minister who extricated Israel from the Gaza Strip, has glossed over details of the defense minister who mired Israel in Lebanon and the hard-liner who built the settlements which have hindered peace and whose provocative visit to the Temple Mount in 2000 coincided with the start of the second intifada.
Assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak "Rabin was also not the beloved one until he was murdered, but afterwards he was appreciated and made into a hero," Lissak says. "The legend was built by the press, and the people both. We are seeing the same process now. People are realizing the history of Sharon and are forgiving him for everything because the end of his career is so tragic."
"They [also] feel he is the only figure in Israel that could carry out any political plan," he added.
Now it seems that Israelis are trying through the sheer will of millions to bring Sharon back to them against all odds.
"It would be a miracle, we know," says Zvia Sorinov, from behind the counter of her homemade-food store. Like many shops in Israel, hers has the television on throughout the day as she and her customers wait on every word from Hadassah Hospital. "But if everyone will pray for him, think positive, wish for him - it is something spiritual, but it works."
Children are also trying to connect to Sharon. On Tuesday, a boy brought a sign to Hadassah Hospital, where he is being treated, reading: "Sharon, wake up, there is still much more work to do." Another boy, Oran Goren, 4, drove from an hour away on Saturday with his father to give the prime minister a picture of a brain he drew in many colors because he wanted "Sharon's brain to be happy," the Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported.
Israelis are also lamenting the passing of the original generation of leaders who fought for the country before its birth and guided it ever since. The realization that if Sharon does not recover, Israel will no longer have them as a pillar to lean on in this tempestuous region, has hit hard.
“The people of that generation gave everything of themselves to the country,” says Rotem Zohar, 24, who said she will vote for the far left party Meretz in the coming elections yet still wants Sharon to continue as prime minister. “We don’t have people like that anymore.”
©2006 The Christian Science Monitor and Rafael D. Frankel
By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
JERUSALEM - In Hebrew, "Ariel" means "Lion of God." As Ariel Sharon continued to show signs of improvement Wednesday following the massive stroke and three brain surgeries he endured, many Israelis - from across the political spectrum - have come to see their prime minister as no less than the name implies.
From behind the wheel of his taxi, David, who would not give his last name, tells a story now circulating around the country about Sharon going up to Heaven. "He saw Arafat and everyone else up there and decided he had to come back to us. Now he is arguing with God, like Abraham did, to give him more time."
That quasi-biblical view of Sharon is typical among Israelis these days. The controversial aspects of Sharon's record as a military man and a government leader are drowned out by an outpouring of emotion from a people who desperately want him to wake up and continue leading Israel to what appeared to be the finish line he was sprinting toward in his final years.
Never mind that one of Sharon's chief surgeons, Dr. Jose Cohen, said that expecting him to recover fully is unlikely. Israelis by the thousands have gone to the Wailing Wall - the most holy spot in the world for Jews - to pray for just that.
That includes many, such as Karen Brunwasser, who are secular and do not regularly attend Synagogue. “He’s developed this mythical persona and inspires confidence where other people just don’t,” says Brunwasser, 29, originally from Philadelphia.
“It’s like ‘there’s no atheist in the foxhole,’” she added, speaking of her trip to the Wall to pray. “I felt like I should do something active, and what else could I do?”
Perhaps no other person alive today so embodies the history and character of Israel as Sharon. His life has been a mix of tragedy, controversy, and conquest. He has lost two wives and a son. His name will always be linked to massacres of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. And yet, he led Israel in stunning successes as a soldier and a politician.
That is why, says Moshe Lissak, a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University, his legend continues to grow.
"The human aspect to this man is very strong, and it's a very emotional response people are having for him right now," Mr. Lissak says, adding that the intense reaction Israel is seeing would probably not be accorded another man, even if he was prime minister. "There is a lot of sympathy for him and his family despite how controversial they are."
(One of Sharon's sons, Omri, was convicted of campaign finance violations in relation to his father's first run for prime minister, and is facing possible jail time.)
Since his stroke, Israeli television has shown flattering footage of Sharon from his army days and interviews with many of his old friends and fellow soldiers. The story being told of the brilliant military general who bested the Egyptians and the resolute prime minister who extricated Israel from the Gaza Strip, has glossed over details of the defense minister who mired Israel in Lebanon and the hard-liner who built the settlements which have hindered peace and whose provocative visit to the Temple Mount in 2000 coincided with the start of the second intifada.
Assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak "Rabin was also not the beloved one until he was murdered, but afterwards he was appreciated and made into a hero," Lissak says. "The legend was built by the press, and the people both. We are seeing the same process now. People are realizing the history of Sharon and are forgiving him for everything because the end of his career is so tragic."
"They [also] feel he is the only figure in Israel that could carry out any political plan," he added.
Now it seems that Israelis are trying through the sheer will of millions to bring Sharon back to them against all odds.
"It would be a miracle, we know," says Zvia Sorinov, from behind the counter of her homemade-food store. Like many shops in Israel, hers has the television on throughout the day as she and her customers wait on every word from Hadassah Hospital. "But if everyone will pray for him, think positive, wish for him - it is something spiritual, but it works."
Children are also trying to connect to Sharon. On Tuesday, a boy brought a sign to Hadassah Hospital, where he is being treated, reading: "Sharon, wake up, there is still much more work to do." Another boy, Oran Goren, 4, drove from an hour away on Saturday with his father to give the prime minister a picture of a brain he drew in many colors because he wanted "Sharon's brain to be happy," the Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported.
Israelis are also lamenting the passing of the original generation of leaders who fought for the country before its birth and guided it ever since. The realization that if Sharon does not recover, Israel will no longer have them as a pillar to lean on in this tempestuous region, has hit hard.
“The people of that generation gave everything of themselves to the country,” says Rotem Zohar, 24, who said she will vote for the far left party Meretz in the coming elections yet still wants Sharon to continue as prime minister. “We don’t have people like that anymore.”
©2006 The Christian Science Monitor and Rafael D. Frankel
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
New movement gets Israel's first approval
Olmert receives an early vote of confidence
By Rafael D. Frankel and Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff
JERUSALEM -- As Israelis have acknowledged increasingly that there is little chance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returning to political life, the leaders of his Kadima Party appear to be coalescing around the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and are articulating more clearly a vision of centrist politics for Israel.
''Whatever talk there is about a center, it represents support for a specific plan, not just a center between left and right," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is considered the top official in Kadima after Sharon and Olmert, said in an interview with the Globe yesterday.
Kadima, which means ''forward" in Hebrew, is turning toward its first electoral campaign, even as Sharon is treated for the massive stroke he suffered last Wednesday.
Doctors who are gradually bringing Sharon out of deep sedation said yesterday for the first time that his life was no longer in imminent danger.
Opinion polls have suggested that even without Sharon, Kadima appears at this early stage to be heading for a first-place finish in the national parliamentary elections on March 28.
This would be a major shakeup for Israeli politics after years of dominance by the rightist Likud party, which shared the stage with Labor and a handful of small single-interest parties.
Livni said Sharon tapped a deep well of public support, with specific policies: ending fruitless negotiations with Palestinians, accepting a principle of a Palestinian state, and giving up occupied land, unilaterally, to draw logical borders for a Jewish state.
''This is the Israeli consensus," Livni said, adding that this new political center would survive even if Sharon could not return to a position of leadership. Both Livni and Shimon Peres, who threw his support behind Sharon's new party after leaving Labor, said over the weekend that they were supporting Olmert.
Kadima is getting down to the business of governing without Sharon, and of positioning itself for a campaign that is likely to be bitter and hard-fought.
Likud, the party that Sharon abandoned to form Kadima in November, lost several ministers and Knesset members to the new party; its leadership remains furious.
''The need for a centrist party, a moderate party that presents an alternative to the radical right and the radical left is still there," said Eyal Arad, a top Sharon aide. ''It is not affected by the tragedy."
On Sunday, Olmert presided over a Cabinet meeting and held a press conference touting his and Sharon's economic record -- drawing scathing criticism from Likud and Labor for allegedly taking advantage of Sharon's illness to campaign while other parties refrained from politics out of respect for the prime minister.
The rise of a political center in Israel followed the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, and the wave of suicide bombings that grew from it, which prompted a convergence of the Israeli left and right.
Many on the political left gave up on the idea of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians that had driven the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the same time, many on the right concluded that Israel had to give up much of the land it took during the 1967 war to maintain Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
For Kadima, barely two months old, the question is whether the party can maintain the loyalty -- and capture the votes -- of that relatively new political center, which took shape largely as a result of Sharon's security policies in his five years as prime minister. These included the construction of a separation barrier roughly along the perimeter of the West Bank and the withdrawal of 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip.
''Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ''On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right, and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel."
In the last poll taken before Sharon fell ill, Kadima was the front-runner.
Projections had it winning 42 seats of 120 in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, with the once dominant Labor and Likud parties gaining 19 and 14 seats respectively. The first poll after Sharon fell ill gave Kadima 37 seats, while Likud rose to 17. Political analysts have said they expect a further drop in numbers after the initial shock of Sharon's stroke.
Hazan said Kadima's standing is likely to erode without Sharon at the helm.
The question, he said, is how much, because a great amount of the centrist party's support is centered on Sharon's personal standing. Without him, he said, many centrist voters probably would not vote for any party on Election Day.
Kadima members, meanwhile, are trying to convince voters that the party will stick to the path the prime minister laid out.
Lior Chorev, who helped Sharon form Kadima, said the new party's following would grow even without its founder, because of ''Sharon's legacy."
''Kadima represents the point which most of the Israeli public supports," he said.
The party's centrist platform, he said, rested on two pillars: unwavering war on terrorism and compromises made with the Palestinians ''in order to form the final borders of our state."
He also said Kadima would appeal to leftist voters by promising a war on poverty at a time when more than 20 percent of Israelis live below the poverty line -- a departure from the free-market approach of the Likud.
When he formed Kadima in November, Sharon said his goal in his third and final term as prime minister would be to set permanent borders for Israel.
Most Israelis understood that Sharon intended to evacuate some settlements in the West Bank, outside the barrier that separates Jewish and Palestinian areas with walls or fences. But the prime minister had avoided spelling out plans, leaving Kadima's new leaders to define their party now.
''If Sharon had to have a coalition, he would have forced his will on people, given everyone something to play with, and meanwhile pursued his own policy," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem. ''Only Sharon could have done that."
''The people trusted Sharon, and sometimes said to themselves 'I don't like what he's doing, but I trust he knows what he's doing,' " Schueftan said. Kadima is counting on resentment against the two major parties to drive voters to the alternative, even without Sharon.
''We're fed up with Likud, fed up with Labor," said Zvia Sorinov, 59 , citing ''endless attacks," corruption and a tight economy that made it hard for working people to make ends meet.
From behind the counter of her food shop in Jerusalem, Sorinov said that even without Sharon leading the party, she would still vote for Kadima ''because they will go on his path."
©2006 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel and Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff
JERUSALEM -- As Israelis have acknowledged increasingly that there is little chance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returning to political life, the leaders of his Kadima Party appear to be coalescing around the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and are articulating more clearly a vision of centrist politics for Israel.
''Whatever talk there is about a center, it represents support for a specific plan, not just a center between left and right," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is considered the top official in Kadima after Sharon and Olmert, said in an interview with the Globe yesterday.
Kadima, which means ''forward" in Hebrew, is turning toward its first electoral campaign, even as Sharon is treated for the massive stroke he suffered last Wednesday.
Doctors who are gradually bringing Sharon out of deep sedation said yesterday for the first time that his life was no longer in imminent danger.
Opinion polls have suggested that even without Sharon, Kadima appears at this early stage to be heading for a first-place finish in the national parliamentary elections on March 28.
This would be a major shakeup for Israeli politics after years of dominance by the rightist Likud party, which shared the stage with Labor and a handful of small single-interest parties.
Livni said Sharon tapped a deep well of public support, with specific policies: ending fruitless negotiations with Palestinians, accepting a principle of a Palestinian state, and giving up occupied land, unilaterally, to draw logical borders for a Jewish state.
''This is the Israeli consensus," Livni said, adding that this new political center would survive even if Sharon could not return to a position of leadership. Both Livni and Shimon Peres, who threw his support behind Sharon's new party after leaving Labor, said over the weekend that they were supporting Olmert.
Kadima is getting down to the business of governing without Sharon, and of positioning itself for a campaign that is likely to be bitter and hard-fought.
Likud, the party that Sharon abandoned to form Kadima in November, lost several ministers and Knesset members to the new party; its leadership remains furious.
''The need for a centrist party, a moderate party that presents an alternative to the radical right and the radical left is still there," said Eyal Arad, a top Sharon aide. ''It is not affected by the tragedy."
On Sunday, Olmert presided over a Cabinet meeting and held a press conference touting his and Sharon's economic record -- drawing scathing criticism from Likud and Labor for allegedly taking advantage of Sharon's illness to campaign while other parties refrained from politics out of respect for the prime minister.
The rise of a political center in Israel followed the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, and the wave of suicide bombings that grew from it, which prompted a convergence of the Israeli left and right.
Many on the political left gave up on the idea of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians that had driven the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the same time, many on the right concluded that Israel had to give up much of the land it took during the 1967 war to maintain Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
For Kadima, barely two months old, the question is whether the party can maintain the loyalty -- and capture the votes -- of that relatively new political center, which took shape largely as a result of Sharon's security policies in his five years as prime minister. These included the construction of a separation barrier roughly along the perimeter of the West Bank and the withdrawal of 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip.
''Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ''On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right, and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel."
In the last poll taken before Sharon fell ill, Kadima was the front-runner.
Projections had it winning 42 seats of 120 in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, with the once dominant Labor and Likud parties gaining 19 and 14 seats respectively. The first poll after Sharon fell ill gave Kadima 37 seats, while Likud rose to 17. Political analysts have said they expect a further drop in numbers after the initial shock of Sharon's stroke.
Hazan said Kadima's standing is likely to erode without Sharon at the helm.
The question, he said, is how much, because a great amount of the centrist party's support is centered on Sharon's personal standing. Without him, he said, many centrist voters probably would not vote for any party on Election Day.
Kadima members, meanwhile, are trying to convince voters that the party will stick to the path the prime minister laid out.
Lior Chorev, who helped Sharon form Kadima, said the new party's following would grow even without its founder, because of ''Sharon's legacy."
''Kadima represents the point which most of the Israeli public supports," he said.
The party's centrist platform, he said, rested on two pillars: unwavering war on terrorism and compromises made with the Palestinians ''in order to form the final borders of our state."
He also said Kadima would appeal to leftist voters by promising a war on poverty at a time when more than 20 percent of Israelis live below the poverty line -- a departure from the free-market approach of the Likud.
When he formed Kadima in November, Sharon said his goal in his third and final term as prime minister would be to set permanent borders for Israel.
Most Israelis understood that Sharon intended to evacuate some settlements in the West Bank, outside the barrier that separates Jewish and Palestinian areas with walls or fences. But the prime minister had avoided spelling out plans, leaving Kadima's new leaders to define their party now.
''If Sharon had to have a coalition, he would have forced his will on people, given everyone something to play with, and meanwhile pursued his own policy," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem. ''Only Sharon could have done that."
''The people trusted Sharon, and sometimes said to themselves 'I don't like what he's doing, but I trust he knows what he's doing,' " Schueftan said. Kadima is counting on resentment against the two major parties to drive voters to the alternative, even without Sharon.
''We're fed up with Likud, fed up with Labor," said Zvia Sorinov, 59 , citing ''endless attacks," corruption and a tight economy that made it hard for working people to make ends meet.
From behind the counter of her food shop in Jerusalem, Sorinov said that even without Sharon leading the party, she would still vote for Kadima ''because they will go on his path."
©2006 Globe Newspaper Company
New movement gets Israel's first approval
Olmert receives an early vote of confidence
By Rafael D. Frankel and Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff
JERUSALEM -- As Israelis have acknowledged increasingly that there is little chance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returning to political life, the leaders of his Kadima Party appear to be coalescing around the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and are articulating more clearly a vision of centrist politics for Israel.
''Whatever talk there is about a center, it represents support for a specific plan, not just a center between left and right," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is considered the top official in Kadima after Sharon and Olmert, said in an interview with the Globe yesterday.
Kadima, which means ''forward" in Hebrew, is turning toward its first electoral campaign, even as Sharon is treated for the massive stroke he suffered last Wednesday.
Doctors who are gradually bringing Sharon out of deep sedation said yesterday for the first time that his life was no longer in imminent danger.
Opinion polls have suggested that even without Sharon, Kadima appears at this early stage to be heading for a first-place finish in the national parliamentary elections on March 28.
This would be a major shakeup for Israeli politics after years of dominance by the rightist Likud party, which shared the stage with Labor and a handful of small single-interest parties.
Livni said Sharon tapped a deep well of public support, with specific policies: ending fruitless negotiations with Palestinians, accepting a principle of a Palestinian state, and giving up occupied land, unilaterally, to draw logical borders for a Jewish state.
''This is the Israeli consensus," Livni said, adding that this new political center would survive even if Sharon could not return to a position of leadership. Both Livni and Shimon Peres, who threw his support behind Sharon's new party after leaving Labor, said over the weekend that they were supporting Olmert.
Kadima is getting down to the business of governing without Sharon, and of positioning itself for a campaign that is likely to be bitter and hard-fought.
Likud, the party that Sharon abandoned to form Kadima in November, lost several ministers and Knesset members to the new party; its leadership remains furious.
''The need for a centrist party, a moderate party that presents an alternative to the radical right and the radical left is still there," said Eyal Arad, a top Sharon aide. ''It is not affected by the tragedy."
On Sunday, Olmert presided over a Cabinet meeting and held a press conference touting his and Sharon's economic record -- drawing scathing criticism from Likud and Labor for allegedly taking advantage of Sharon's illness to campaign while other parties refrained from politics out of respect for the prime minister.
The rise of a political center in Israel followed the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, and the wave of suicide bombings that grew from it, which prompted a convergence of the Israeli left and right.
Many on the political left gave up on the idea of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians that had driven the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the same time, many on the right concluded that Israel had to give up much of the land it took during the 1967 war to maintain Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
For Kadima, barely two months old, the question is whether the party can maintain the loyalty -- and capture the votes -- of that relatively new political center, which took shape largely as a result of Sharon's security policies in his five years as prime minister. These included the construction of a separation barrier roughly along the perimeter of the West Bank and the withdrawal of 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip.
''Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ''On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right, and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel."
In the last poll taken before Sharon fell ill, Kadima was the front-runner.
Projections had it winning 42 seats of 120 in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, with the once dominant Labor and Likud parties gaining 19 and 14 seats respectively. The first poll after Sharon fell ill gave Kadima 37 seats, while Likud rose to 17. Political analysts have said they expect a further drop in numbers after the initial shock of Sharon's stroke.
Hazan said Kadima's standing is likely to erode without Sharon at the helm.
The question, he said, is how much, because a great amount of the centrist party's support is centered on Sharon's personal standing. Without him, he said, many centrist voters probably would not vote for any party on Election Day.
Kadima members, meanwhile, are trying to convince voters that the party will stick to the path the prime minister laid out.
Lior Chorev, who helped Sharon form Kadima, said the new party's following would grow even without its founder, because of ''Sharon's legacy."
''Kadima represents the point which most of the Israeli public supports," he said.
The party's centrist platform, he said, rested on two pillars: unwavering war on terrorism and compromises made with the Palestinians ''in order to form the final borders of our state."
He also said Kadima would appeal to leftist voters by promising a war on poverty at a time when more than 20 percent of Israelis live below the poverty line -- a departure from the free-market approach of the Likud.
When he formed Kadima in November, Sharon said his goal in his third and final term as prime minister would be to set permanent borders for Israel.
Most Israelis understood that Sharon intended to evacuate some settlements in the West Bank, outside the barrier that separates Jewish and Palestinian areas with walls or fences. But the prime minister had avoided spelling out plans, leaving Kadima's new leaders to define their party now.
''If Sharon had to have a coalition, he would have forced his will on people, given everyone something to play with, and meanwhile pursued his own policy," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem. ''Only Sharon could have done that."
''The people trusted Sharon, and sometimes said to themselves 'I don't like what he's doing, but I trust he knows what he's doing,' " Schueftan said. Kadima is counting on resentment against the two major parties to drive voters to the alternative, even without Sharon.
''We're fed up with Likud, fed up with Labor," said Zvia Sorinov, 59 , citing ''endless attacks," corruption and a tight economy that made it hard for working people to make ends meet.
From behind the counter of her food shop in Jerusalem, Sorinov said that even without Sharon leading the party, she would still vote for Kadima ''because they will go on his path."
©2006 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel and Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff
JERUSALEM -- As Israelis have acknowledged increasingly that there is little chance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returning to political life, the leaders of his Kadima Party appear to be coalescing around the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and are articulating more clearly a vision of centrist politics for Israel.
''Whatever talk there is about a center, it represents support for a specific plan, not just a center between left and right," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is considered the top official in Kadima after Sharon and Olmert, said in an interview with the Globe yesterday.
Kadima, which means ''forward" in Hebrew, is turning toward its first electoral campaign, even as Sharon is treated for the massive stroke he suffered last Wednesday.
Doctors who are gradually bringing Sharon out of deep sedation said yesterday for the first time that his life was no longer in imminent danger.
Opinion polls have suggested that even without Sharon, Kadima appears at this early stage to be heading for a first-place finish in the national parliamentary elections on March 28.
This would be a major shakeup for Israeli politics after years of dominance by the rightist Likud party, which shared the stage with Labor and a handful of small single-interest parties.
Livni said Sharon tapped a deep well of public support, with specific policies: ending fruitless negotiations with Palestinians, accepting a principle of a Palestinian state, and giving up occupied land, unilaterally, to draw logical borders for a Jewish state.
''This is the Israeli consensus," Livni said, adding that this new political center would survive even if Sharon could not return to a position of leadership. Both Livni and Shimon Peres, who threw his support behind Sharon's new party after leaving Labor, said over the weekend that they were supporting Olmert.
Kadima is getting down to the business of governing without Sharon, and of positioning itself for a campaign that is likely to be bitter and hard-fought.
Likud, the party that Sharon abandoned to form Kadima in November, lost several ministers and Knesset members to the new party; its leadership remains furious.
''The need for a centrist party, a moderate party that presents an alternative to the radical right and the radical left is still there," said Eyal Arad, a top Sharon aide. ''It is not affected by the tragedy."
On Sunday, Olmert presided over a Cabinet meeting and held a press conference touting his and Sharon's economic record -- drawing scathing criticism from Likud and Labor for allegedly taking advantage of Sharon's illness to campaign while other parties refrained from politics out of respect for the prime minister.
The rise of a political center in Israel followed the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, and the wave of suicide bombings that grew from it, which prompted a convergence of the Israeli left and right.
Many on the political left gave up on the idea of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians that had driven the 1993 Oslo Accords. At the same time, many on the right concluded that Israel had to give up much of the land it took during the 1967 war to maintain Israel as a Jewish, democratic state.
For Kadima, barely two months old, the question is whether the party can maintain the loyalty -- and capture the votes -- of that relatively new political center, which took shape largely as a result of Sharon's security policies in his five years as prime minister. These included the construction of a separation barrier roughly along the perimeter of the West Bank and the withdrawal of 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip.
''Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ''On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right, and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel."
In the last poll taken before Sharon fell ill, Kadima was the front-runner.
Projections had it winning 42 seats of 120 in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, with the once dominant Labor and Likud parties gaining 19 and 14 seats respectively. The first poll after Sharon fell ill gave Kadima 37 seats, while Likud rose to 17. Political analysts have said they expect a further drop in numbers after the initial shock of Sharon's stroke.
Hazan said Kadima's standing is likely to erode without Sharon at the helm.
The question, he said, is how much, because a great amount of the centrist party's support is centered on Sharon's personal standing. Without him, he said, many centrist voters probably would not vote for any party on Election Day.
Kadima members, meanwhile, are trying to convince voters that the party will stick to the path the prime minister laid out.
Lior Chorev, who helped Sharon form Kadima, said the new party's following would grow even without its founder, because of ''Sharon's legacy."
''Kadima represents the point which most of the Israeli public supports," he said.
The party's centrist platform, he said, rested on two pillars: unwavering war on terrorism and compromises made with the Palestinians ''in order to form the final borders of our state."
He also said Kadima would appeal to leftist voters by promising a war on poverty at a time when more than 20 percent of Israelis live below the poverty line -- a departure from the free-market approach of the Likud.
When he formed Kadima in November, Sharon said his goal in his third and final term as prime minister would be to set permanent borders for Israel.
Most Israelis understood that Sharon intended to evacuate some settlements in the West Bank, outside the barrier that separates Jewish and Palestinian areas with walls or fences. But the prime minister had avoided spelling out plans, leaving Kadima's new leaders to define their party now.
''If Sharon had to have a coalition, he would have forced his will on people, given everyone something to play with, and meanwhile pursued his own policy," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem. ''Only Sharon could have done that."
''The people trusted Sharon, and sometimes said to themselves 'I don't like what he's doing, but I trust he knows what he's doing,' " Schueftan said. Kadima is counting on resentment against the two major parties to drive voters to the alternative, even without Sharon.
''We're fed up with Likud, fed up with Labor," said Zvia Sorinov, 59 , citing ''endless attacks," corruption and a tight economy that made it hard for working people to make ends meet.
From behind the counter of her food shop in Jerusalem, Sorinov said that even without Sharon leading the party, she would still vote for Kadima ''because they will go on his path."
©2006 Globe Newspaper Company
Friday, January 06, 2006
Israel's political vacuum
Prime Minister Sharon's sudden absence leaves no major leaders in the nation's political center.
By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
JERUSALEM – Israel is facing a political realignment that could reverberate through the entire Middle East for years to come. The health crisis that has removed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the political scene has created a political vacuum that Israelis compare to the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
It comes less than three months before national elections, which Mr. Sharon's new centrist party was expected to dominate. The duties of Israel's prime minister were quickly assumed by Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, but the political absence of Sharon is casting doubt about the viability of the party he founded as well as any movement toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
"The problem is that there is nobody in any party who has the stature to step into his shoes," says Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute here.
Running under the banner of his Kadima party, Sharon, who fought in or directed every one of Israel's wars since the country's birth in 1948, was expected to easily win a third term as prime minister in the March 28 elections.
With the retirement of longtime Labor leader Shimon Peres in November, Sharon was the last of Israel's original generation of leaders active in politics and the only man the majority of Israelis trusted to run the country, which many here view as in a perpetual fight for its existence.
Since Israel's disengagement from Gaza in August, Sharon had ridden a wave of popularity here which allowed him to throw off the allies-turned-foes in his former Likud party. If given another term as prime minister, Sharon declared in November when he created Kadima, he would seek to "determine the final borders of the state" of Israel.
With Israeli settlers out of Gaza and the continued construction of the separation barrier running through parts of the West Bank, those final contours were beginning to take shape. As his last stamp on the land he has exerted extraordinary influence over during the course of his life, Sharon was expected, either by negotiation with the Palestinians or through further unilateral steps, to see that plan through to fruition.
"If Sharon would have stayed, then a government headed by him making further disengagements in the next year or two was a good likelihood," says Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "As of now, that is off the political agenda. There is nobody around who can move the country quickly to make hurtful concessions if it's not him."
Ghazi al Saadi, a Palestinian commentator, agreed with that assessment, saying Sharon was "the first Israeli leader who stopped claiming Israel had a right to all of the Palestinians' land."
"A live Sharon is better for the Palestinians now, despite all the crimes he has committed against us," Mr. Saadi said on the Saudi Al-Arabiya TV network.
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on how Palestinians living in Jerusalem would vote in the upcoming Palestinian elections were set to begin Thursday with mediation by US officials. Those talks were postponed. "We hope that [Sharon's illness] will not affect what we had expected of the Israelis," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters. If [Acting Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert puts off a decision on Jerusalem, "it means the Palestinian election is going down," meaning it will be postponed. The elections are scheduled for Jan. 25.
The political turmoil created here by the prime minister's incapacitation is severely complicated by the fact that Kadima, though it drew many well-known names in Israeli politics, was a party ostensibly created for Sharon to continue leading the country as he saw fit. That was a situation a solid plurality of Israelis, according to polls, felt comfortable with.
But "Israel is [now] expecting a generation shift in its upper echelons," commentator Aluf Ben wrote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "Sharon was hospitalized at a time when his standing at home and abroad was at a peak, following the successful implementation of the disengagement plan.... A change in leadership will turn Israeli politics into a giant riddle...."
Without the prime minister at the helm, it was unclear who would lead Kadima into the March elections and its status as the front-runner is uncertain. Olmert,, and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, were tipped as possible No. 2s in the party. But Sharon had yet to fill out the party list indicating the order of succession.
Olmert is described by many Israeli analysts as intelligent and capable. However, says Mr. Schueftan, his leadership "is not high caliber" and he is not generally liked by the Israeli public. "In 10 years, we would have had Tzipi Livni, she has the potential," but she is not yet ready to assume the reigns of the premiership, he says.
In Sharon's absence, the two stalwart Israeli parties, Labor and Likud, led by former trade union leader Amir Peretz and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu respectively, are likely to gain ground. Some analysts say that Mr. Netanyahu's previous run as prime minister gives him an advantage over Mr. Peretz, despite the fact that polls conducted before Sharon's incapacitation showed Labor winning 19 seats in the Knesset compared to Likud's 14. Kadima was projected to win 42 of 120 available seats.
Netanyahu "would have easily been the next in line, but he made so many mistakes over the last few months that he alienated almost everyone," Schueftan says.
Whether any of the four major parties will get a solid mandate to govern is doubtful. "Everything is up in the air," says Professor Hazan. "Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse.
"On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel," Hazan says.
Using Sharon's nickname at an emergency cabinet meeting he convened Thursday morning, Olmert said "Arik is not only a leader, but a close friend of all of us. This is a difficult hour and we'll face it together.
"Israel's strength will allow it to face the situation," Olmert said slowly. "We will carry on running the country and pray for good news from the hospital."
• Correspondent Joshua Mitnick contributed from Tel Aviv.
©2006 The Christian Science Monitor
By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
JERUSALEM – Israel is facing a political realignment that could reverberate through the entire Middle East for years to come. The health crisis that has removed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the political scene has created a political vacuum that Israelis compare to the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
It comes less than three months before national elections, which Mr. Sharon's new centrist party was expected to dominate. The duties of Israel's prime minister were quickly assumed by Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, but the political absence of Sharon is casting doubt about the viability of the party he founded as well as any movement toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
"The problem is that there is nobody in any party who has the stature to step into his shoes," says Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute here.
Running under the banner of his Kadima party, Sharon, who fought in or directed every one of Israel's wars since the country's birth in 1948, was expected to easily win a third term as prime minister in the March 28 elections.
With the retirement of longtime Labor leader Shimon Peres in November, Sharon was the last of Israel's original generation of leaders active in politics and the only man the majority of Israelis trusted to run the country, which many here view as in a perpetual fight for its existence.
Since Israel's disengagement from Gaza in August, Sharon had ridden a wave of popularity here which allowed him to throw off the allies-turned-foes in his former Likud party. If given another term as prime minister, Sharon declared in November when he created Kadima, he would seek to "determine the final borders of the state" of Israel.
With Israeli settlers out of Gaza and the continued construction of the separation barrier running through parts of the West Bank, those final contours were beginning to take shape. As his last stamp on the land he has exerted extraordinary influence over during the course of his life, Sharon was expected, either by negotiation with the Palestinians or through further unilateral steps, to see that plan through to fruition.
"If Sharon would have stayed, then a government headed by him making further disengagements in the next year or two was a good likelihood," says Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "As of now, that is off the political agenda. There is nobody around who can move the country quickly to make hurtful concessions if it's not him."
Ghazi al Saadi, a Palestinian commentator, agreed with that assessment, saying Sharon was "the first Israeli leader who stopped claiming Israel had a right to all of the Palestinians' land."
"A live Sharon is better for the Palestinians now, despite all the crimes he has committed against us," Mr. Saadi said on the Saudi Al-Arabiya TV network.
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on how Palestinians living in Jerusalem would vote in the upcoming Palestinian elections were set to begin Thursday with mediation by US officials. Those talks were postponed. "We hope that [Sharon's illness] will not affect what we had expected of the Israelis," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters. If [Acting Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert puts off a decision on Jerusalem, "it means the Palestinian election is going down," meaning it will be postponed. The elections are scheduled for Jan. 25.
The political turmoil created here by the prime minister's incapacitation is severely complicated by the fact that Kadima, though it drew many well-known names in Israeli politics, was a party ostensibly created for Sharon to continue leading the country as he saw fit. That was a situation a solid plurality of Israelis, according to polls, felt comfortable with.
But "Israel is [now] expecting a generation shift in its upper echelons," commentator Aluf Ben wrote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "Sharon was hospitalized at a time when his standing at home and abroad was at a peak, following the successful implementation of the disengagement plan.... A change in leadership will turn Israeli politics into a giant riddle...."
Without the prime minister at the helm, it was unclear who would lead Kadima into the March elections and its status as the front-runner is uncertain. Olmert,, and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, were tipped as possible No. 2s in the party. But Sharon had yet to fill out the party list indicating the order of succession.
Olmert is described by many Israeli analysts as intelligent and capable. However, says Mr. Schueftan, his leadership "is not high caliber" and he is not generally liked by the Israeli public. "In 10 years, we would have had Tzipi Livni, she has the potential," but she is not yet ready to assume the reigns of the premiership, he says.
In Sharon's absence, the two stalwart Israeli parties, Labor and Likud, led by former trade union leader Amir Peretz and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu respectively, are likely to gain ground. Some analysts say that Mr. Netanyahu's previous run as prime minister gives him an advantage over Mr. Peretz, despite the fact that polls conducted before Sharon's incapacitation showed Labor winning 19 seats in the Knesset compared to Likud's 14. Kadima was projected to win 42 of 120 available seats.
Netanyahu "would have easily been the next in line, but he made so many mistakes over the last few months that he alienated almost everyone," Schueftan says.
Whether any of the four major parties will get a solid mandate to govern is doubtful. "Everything is up in the air," says Professor Hazan. "Logically, without Sharon, the package called Kadima should completely collapse.
"On the other hand, maybe people are really tired of the left and the right and the transition to something pragmatic in the middle was made emotionally by having Sharon lead the way. Maybe it can still be the focus of the next governing coalition of Israel," Hazan says.
Using Sharon's nickname at an emergency cabinet meeting he convened Thursday morning, Olmert said "Arik is not only a leader, but a close friend of all of us. This is a difficult hour and we'll face it together.
"Israel's strength will allow it to face the situation," Olmert said slowly. "We will carry on running the country and pray for good news from the hospital."
• Correspondent Joshua Mitnick contributed from Tel Aviv.
©2006 The Christian Science Monitor
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
After Israel, who can run Gaza?
In the wake of Israel's pullout and Yasser Arafat's death, militants have taken control.
By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
GAZA CITY – As the first year devoid of an Israeli presence since 1967 dawns in the Gaza Strip, armed militias roam the streets freely, foreigners are kidnapped with regularity, and the measure of a man in this coastal territory is not his political title, or even the size of his house, but the number of AK-47-wielding bodyguards he employs.
When Israel left Gaza four months ago, full control over the 1.3 million people was ostensibly transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA). But its authority in this coastal territory has deteriorated to such a state of anarchy, that the best-armed gangs or families are effectively the law now.
"Yasser Arafat left a terrible legacy of violence behind him where people are always acting outside the law," says Eyad Sarraj, a Palestinian political analyst and a candidate in the Jan. 25 elections. "Now, with him gone, everyone is fighting for his power."
Tuesday, Palestinian parties launched their election campaigns across Gaza and the West Bank with parades, posters, and banners. This is the latest manifestation of the central Palestinian power struggle between the Islamic militant group Hamas and the ruling Fatah Party.
With Palestinian Legislative Council elections scheduled in three weeks, the violence in Gaza has heightened as dozens of armed factions, most claiming ties to Fatah, jostle for control. On Monday, even the Palestinian police donned masks and shot their guns in the air in a mass protest against the PA's lack of will to give police permission to aggressively tackle the escalating crime.
All throughout the days here gun shots ring out. From time to time, explosions from homemade bombs, rockets, and the countering Israeli artillery fire echo through the graffiti-ridden streets.
But the police Monday had an additional demand of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, one that is being made increasingly by leaders of his Fatah Party: delay the elections. "We are in a dangerous situation in which any attempt to hold elections might bring about battles between armed factions and the police," PA Police Chief Ala Hosni told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
After insisting for weeks that elections would go ahead as scheduled, Mr. Abbas said for the first time on Monday that he would consider delaying the vote; not because of the violence, but due to the question of whether Israel would bar Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting.
Despite previous ambiguous statements from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin says Israel will not stand in the way of Palestinians living in Jerusalem from casting ballots.
"We will find a way to fulfill our obligations to allow them to exercise their right to vote," Mr. Gissin says. While the exact formula has not yet been decided, he says, it would likely be similar to the 1996 Palestinian elections when Israel allowed mail-in balloting from Jerusalem as well as easier access to areas in the West Bank with voting booths.
(Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinian political activities are prohibited in Jerusalem, as is participation in the PA by parties, such as Hamas, that do not recognize Israel's right to exist.)
"The Palestinians are looking for an excuse to blame Israel because they are incapable of controlling their own streets," Gissin says. "If they decide they want to cancel the election, they do it on their own merit, they can't hang it on us."
Mr. Sarraj, who is running for a seat in the Palestinian legislature with the Wahad [Promise] Party, says the PA's lack of law enforcement in Gaza and the talk about voting problems in East Jerusalem are calculated moves by Abbas to provide "excuses" to delay elections he knows Fatah will fair poorly in.
After the strong showing by Hamas in recent municipal elections in Palestinian cities, Abbas is worried that not only will Fatah lose substantial ground in the legislature, it may lose control of that body altogether, Sarraj says.
Of all the militant Palestinian groups, Hamas has been responsible for the most Israeli deaths in terrorist attacks. Yet in a move to increase its political standing, Hamas has largely kept to the terms of a cease-fire it agreed to with Abbas last February.
On Monday, an official Hamas statement demanded that "the excuse of the security situation and anarchy in the Palestinian Authority not be used to postpone the elections."
And it won't be, says Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator who often speaks for the PA. "President Abbas knows the catastrophic consequences of postponing the elections," he says. As long as Israel provides the same voting access as it did in 1996, Mr. Erekat says, the elections will go ahead as planned - Israel should "not stand in the way" of that process.
As for the violence on Gaza's streets, Erekat says that while "every effort is being made to contain" it, the PA was not sure who was behind the rash of shootings and government office takeovers by masked gunmen.
British human rights worker Kate Burton and her visiting parents were kidnapped last Wednesday by a previously unknown group of gunmen and released two days later.
"It's impossible to say who has guns in Gaza anymore," Erekat says. "The ballots are the only thing that can stop the violence at this point."
©2006 The Christian Science Monitor
By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
GAZA CITY – As the first year devoid of an Israeli presence since 1967 dawns in the Gaza Strip, armed militias roam the streets freely, foreigners are kidnapped with regularity, and the measure of a man in this coastal territory is not his political title, or even the size of his house, but the number of AK-47-wielding bodyguards he employs.
When Israel left Gaza four months ago, full control over the 1.3 million people was ostensibly transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA). But its authority in this coastal territory has deteriorated to such a state of anarchy, that the best-armed gangs or families are effectively the law now.
"Yasser Arafat left a terrible legacy of violence behind him where people are always acting outside the law," says Eyad Sarraj, a Palestinian political analyst and a candidate in the Jan. 25 elections. "Now, with him gone, everyone is fighting for his power."
Tuesday, Palestinian parties launched their election campaigns across Gaza and the West Bank with parades, posters, and banners. This is the latest manifestation of the central Palestinian power struggle between the Islamic militant group Hamas and the ruling Fatah Party.
With Palestinian Legislative Council elections scheduled in three weeks, the violence in Gaza has heightened as dozens of armed factions, most claiming ties to Fatah, jostle for control. On Monday, even the Palestinian police donned masks and shot their guns in the air in a mass protest against the PA's lack of will to give police permission to aggressively tackle the escalating crime.
All throughout the days here gun shots ring out. From time to time, explosions from homemade bombs, rockets, and the countering Israeli artillery fire echo through the graffiti-ridden streets.
But the police Monday had an additional demand of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, one that is being made increasingly by leaders of his Fatah Party: delay the elections. "We are in a dangerous situation in which any attempt to hold elections might bring about battles between armed factions and the police," PA Police Chief Ala Hosni told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
After insisting for weeks that elections would go ahead as scheduled, Mr. Abbas said for the first time on Monday that he would consider delaying the vote; not because of the violence, but due to the question of whether Israel would bar Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting.
Despite previous ambiguous statements from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin says Israel will not stand in the way of Palestinians living in Jerusalem from casting ballots.
"We will find a way to fulfill our obligations to allow them to exercise their right to vote," Mr. Gissin says. While the exact formula has not yet been decided, he says, it would likely be similar to the 1996 Palestinian elections when Israel allowed mail-in balloting from Jerusalem as well as easier access to areas in the West Bank with voting booths.
(Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinian political activities are prohibited in Jerusalem, as is participation in the PA by parties, such as Hamas, that do not recognize Israel's right to exist.)
"The Palestinians are looking for an excuse to blame Israel because they are incapable of controlling their own streets," Gissin says. "If they decide they want to cancel the election, they do it on their own merit, they can't hang it on us."
Mr. Sarraj, who is running for a seat in the Palestinian legislature with the Wahad [Promise] Party, says the PA's lack of law enforcement in Gaza and the talk about voting problems in East Jerusalem are calculated moves by Abbas to provide "excuses" to delay elections he knows Fatah will fair poorly in.
After the strong showing by Hamas in recent municipal elections in Palestinian cities, Abbas is worried that not only will Fatah lose substantial ground in the legislature, it may lose control of that body altogether, Sarraj says.
Of all the militant Palestinian groups, Hamas has been responsible for the most Israeli deaths in terrorist attacks. Yet in a move to increase its political standing, Hamas has largely kept to the terms of a cease-fire it agreed to with Abbas last February.
On Monday, an official Hamas statement demanded that "the excuse of the security situation and anarchy in the Palestinian Authority not be used to postpone the elections."
And it won't be, says Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator who often speaks for the PA. "President Abbas knows the catastrophic consequences of postponing the elections," he says. As long as Israel provides the same voting access as it did in 1996, Mr. Erekat says, the elections will go ahead as planned - Israel should "not stand in the way" of that process.
As for the violence on Gaza's streets, Erekat says that while "every effort is being made to contain" it, the PA was not sure who was behind the rash of shootings and government office takeovers by masked gunmen.
British human rights worker Kate Burton and her visiting parents were kidnapped last Wednesday by a previously unknown group of gunmen and released two days later.
"It's impossible to say who has guns in Gaza anymore," Erekat says. "The ballots are the only thing that can stop the violence at this point."
©2006 The Christian Science Monitor
Sunday, January 01, 2006
In Gaza, the measure of a man is his M-16
As '06 dawns, the Palestinian territory has degenerated into near-total anarchy
By Rafael D. Frankel
GAZA—As the first new year devoid of an Israeli presence dawns in Gaza since 1967, armed militias roam the streets freely, foreigners are kidnapped with regularity, and the measure of a man in this coastal territory is not his political title, or even the size of his house, but the number of M-16 and AK-47-wielding thugs he employs as bodyguards.
When Israel left Gaza, full control over its 1.3 million people was ostensibly transferred to the Palestinian Authority. But instead of asserting its newly granted jurisdiction, the PA has let this coastal territory deteriorate to such a state of anarchy that the best-armed gangs or families make law at the point of gun.
Speaking to reporters who had to pass through some 30 armed guards to get to his press conference, PA Police Chief Allah Housni on Friday said the PA was stepping up its security efforts in Gaza. “The police will make sure to stop all the acts,” Housni said, referring to the general lawlessness. As he spoke, gun fire echoed in the background and two PA snipers stood tensely at the windows of the second-story police station room.
Housni also condemned the rocket attacks emanating from the former Jewish settlements in northern Gaza. “Gaza is free now and we don’t want Israel back,” he told The Post, adding that the PA will deploy forces in those areas in order to halt the rocket fire.
But few in Gaza—let alone Israel—believe Housni and the PA will back up their words on any account. (Later in the day, a rocket fired from Gaza hit near Ashkelon, prompting Israeli retaliatory shelling.)
Earlier in the day, 100 gunmen stormed the same border crossing where the Burtons were abducted, temporarily shutting down the terminal and sending its European monitors fleeing to the nearby Kerem Shalom Israeli army base.
The incident was the continuation of a family feud that claimed two lives Thursday and a 14-year-old boy caught in a cross-fire Friday. He was killed at a protest in front of a police station where men and teenagers lit tires ablaze in the middle of the streets, scuffled with police, and chased down reporters who tried to photograph the mayhem.
“Yassir Arafat left a terrible legacy of violence behind him where people are always acting outside the law,” said Eyad Sarraj, a long-time political analyst and the president of Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. “Now with him gone, everyone is fighting for his power.”
All throughout the days here gun shots ring out. From time to time, explosions from home made bombs, rockets and the countering Israeli artillery fire echo through the graffiti-ridden streets.
With Palestinian elections coming in January, the violence has heightened as the different armed factions jostle for control. Having seen the results of PA governing, many people here say they will vote for Hamas because they believe it can deliver the quiet they so desperately crave. They are also grateful for the social services it provides and admire the struggle it has waged against Israel.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas “is impotent. He has no guts… He is a paralyzed leader,” said Sarraj, who is running for the Palestinian parliament on a human rights and law and order platform. “Hamas looks honest and disciplined and its people are ready to die for its cause.”
Where the rocket fire on Israel is concerned, Sarraj sees a Syrian connection. “It’s a game,” he said. “You play against me in Beirut, I play against you in Sderot and Ashkelon.”
Sipping Arabic coffee in his home, guarded by three gunmen, a spokesman for a faction of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade agreed that the rocket fire was a political move more than an aggression against Israel. But, said the spokesman who gave his name only as Abu-Jamal, it was a move made by Islamic Jihad because they are the only prominent faction not running in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Abu-Jamal denied his group’s involvement in the rocket fire, and also condemned it.
Whomever they are supporting, the goal of most Gazans is to bring some semblance of normality back to their streets, Abu-Jamal said. But admitting his own part in it, he added that “anyone who wants to do anything just takes guns with them.”
Though much of the violence here stems from political power plays, the aggressive disposition has seeped its way into the most benign places.
What was seemingly a small argument over a soccer game on Friday turned into a near-brawl next to a field in the middle of the city. One man threatened another with a sledge hammer he collected from his nearby yard before two dozen men who joined in the altercation and shouted him back into submission.
Taking in the scene from his car parked next to the field, a Palestinian journalist who wished his name withheld said such incidents are common place. “Aggression and frustration is everywhere in Gaza now,” he said. “You can feel it in the air all the time.”
©2006 Rafael D. Frankel & The Jerusalem Post