In the wake of President Obama’s visit to Israel and on the eve of Secretary of State John Kerry’s return, 100 prominent American Jews have sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to “work closely” with Kerry “to devise pragmatic initiatives, consistent with Israel’s security needs, which would represent Israel’s readiness to make painful territorial sacrifices for the sake of peace.” In the letter, initiated and organized by the pro-peace Israel Policy Forum and delivered Wednesday to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem and to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the Jewish leaders call on Netanyahu to “take concrete confidence building measures designed to demonstrate Israel’s commitment” to a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The letter does not contain any criticism of Israeli policies. It lauds Obama’s recent visit to Israel and commends Netanyahu’s “leadership” in resolving the Marmara dispute with Turkey. It states that by taking the recommended steps, Netanyahu would be challenging the Palestinian leaders to “take similarly constructive steps, including, most importantly, a return to the negotiating table.” The signatories to the letter include well-know philanthropists such as Charles Bronfman, Danny Abraham, Lester Crown and Stanley Gold; former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim; former U.S. Congressman Mel Levine; former AIPAC executive director Tom Dine; Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt; President of United Reform Judaism Rabbi Rick Jacobs and his predecessor Rabbi Eric Yoffie; Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson; Warner Eisenberg co-founder of Bed, Bath and Beyond; Peter Joseph, Chairman of IPF; former UJA Chairman Marvin Lender; Richard Pearlstone, former chairman of the Jewish Agency and Marcia Riklis, Campaign Chair of the UJA Federation of New York. Jacobs said Wednesday "It was clear to me that President Obama's trip was an historic one. It would be beneficial to both the U.S. and to Israel to build on the momentum created by that trip to look for fresh ways to create a way to move beyond the log-jam of the current Israeli-Palestinian situation to a just two-state solution, especially at a time when the region is so fraught with uncertainty regarding other countries in the region." Launched in 1993 in the wake of the Oslo Accords, the IPF describes itself as a “centrist and pragmatic” organization which is both a think tank and an advocacy group. The IPF played a prominent role in U.S.-Israeli relations throughout the 1990’s, reaching its zenith in the 2001 event in which former U.S. President Bill Clinton detailed his “parameters” for a Palestinian-Israeli final settlement. The influence and stature of the organization diminished, however, during the last decade, following 9/11 and the Second Intifada. Its current chairman, Joseph, along with executive director David Halperin are now leading an effort to revitalize the group and to regain some of its former stature. Halperin said Wednesday that the new letter to Netanyahu represents a “unique collection” of prominent American Jews who are committed to a two-state solution and to Israel’s security.
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By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
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Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them. In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B. The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories). In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long. The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
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John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector. The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace. Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago. Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid. Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority". Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations. "Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
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Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops. “All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive. Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him. “I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.” Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay. “It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.” He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?” Illegal annexation Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect. “After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote. Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation. Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Extreme poverty Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower. While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line. “How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”. “Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked. “You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS. Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities. Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn. Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent. “Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population. To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones. It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services. “Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER). Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
By the Same Author
Date: 06/12/2011
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Leading Palestinian Intellectual: We Already have a One-State Solution
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority should unite, unequivocally renounce violence and jettison the U.S.-led peace process which is “a corpse that has had formaldehyde pumped into its veins for over a decade” – this is the diagnosis and prescription of Professor Rashid Khalidi, one of the leading Palestinian intellectuals in the world. “Nobody believes that firing rockets and getting 1,400 people killed in response is ‘resistance’ that is going to liberate Palestine, and nobody believes that talking with the U.S., with Dennis Ross putting his thumb on the scales in favor of Israel, which is already overwhelmingly superior, is going to produce an equitable and just and lasting solution of the Palestine question. If you still believe that - you have to have your head examined,” the U.S.-born Khalidi said. Khalidi, a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace process in the early 1990s, and one of the first proponents of a two-state solution expressed grave doubts about the chances for its implementation, because of what he describes as the “inexorable work of the bulldozers” and Israel’s “settlement-industrial complex”. In any case, he added, the two-state solution was but a “way station” that would not mean end-of-conflict and would still necessitate agreement on Palestinian refugees and on Israel’s “Palestinian minority” before a comprehensive settlement could be achieved. A “one-state solution already exists," he added, because “there is only one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, in which there are two or three levels of citizenship or non-citizenship within the borders of that one state that exerts total control.” Laying much of the blame for their situation on the Palestinians themselves, he called on them to “re-imagine” the way a Palestinian state would work. “Why not have a Palestinian state in which Jews live? What’s wrong with that?” And in what might sound as an echo of Israeli complaints about the “Tel Aviv state”, Khalidi said that Palestinian leaders need to mobilize their people and “get them out their expensive Audis and Mercedes and out of their bubble in Ramallah where everyone is prosperous and there is no unemployment.” Khalidi refused to discuss any aspect of his personal relations with U.S. President Obama, which featured so prominently in the 2008 presidential campaign and was used to criticize Obama’s attitude toward Israel. But Khalidi’s criticism of the President’s Middle East policies is withering: “I had low expectations and my low expectations were more than fulfilled. He’s done considerably worse than I would have expected.” Khalidi said that Obama had squandered his chance of making meaningful changes during his first two years in office, when the Democrats still controlled Congress “and since they lost Congress a year and a half ago, Benjamin Netanyahu has more influence over these issues than the president does. Because he has a House and a Senate that will carry him on their shoulders as far as he wants to go. The President can’t do that.” In a wide-ranging interview conducted in his office at Columbia University in New York, where he is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, Khalidi also dismissed Israel’s existential fears of Iran as “fantasy” and said that the leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are “pragmatic” and would not abrogate Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel. On the other hand, Khalidi expressed grave concern about the extremist Salafi party’s performance in the Egyptian parliamentary elections, which “shocked” him, and suggested that its success may be connected to Saudi funding. “There are several scores of Saudi princes who have personal budgets as large as medium-sized states. So there are 20 or 30 Saudi ‘foreign policies,'" he said. At the same time, Khalidi believes that Islamist parties will have a hard time maintaining their current popularity in the Arab world, a development that already be seen in what he described as the Gaza public’s growing disenchantment with Hamas. “It’s perfectly fine to come in with a slogan that ‘Islam is the solution’, but try to solve a housing crisis, or infrastructure, or unemployment, with ‘Islam is the solution’, he said. “This is a process that’s going to fall through – if it’s not short-circuited by hysterical people from the outside,” he added. On Iran, Khalidi believes that “Ahmadinejad is a technician who has no real role in security or foreign policy or where the military is concerned. You try to convince Americans of that – as far as they are concerned, he’s Hitler’s little brother.” He said that Israeli leaders are “cynically and irresponsibly” drumming up fears of Iran in order to “maintain Israel’s dominance over the region” and that Jerusalem must change its attitude towards Teheran “which means layers of hysteria, and lies and exaggeration and propaganda are going to have to be peeled back.” “The idea that Israel is under any existential danger is fantasy. The idea that the Iranians would incinerate a 3,000-4,000 year old civilization for some apocalyptic reason and destroy themselves as a government, as a regime, and as individuals – is irrational,” Khalidi said. Khalidi, who lived for many years in Beirut, also warned of an outbreak of “civil war and sectarian violence” in Syria, which would be “catastrophic for the whole region”. He accused the Gulf countries of stirring the pot in Syria and of drumming up sectarian animosity.
Date: 20/09/2011
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Mahmoud Abbas is having the Time of his Life
NEW YORK - More than 100 world leaders are descending on New York this week to participate in the 66th United Nations General Assembly, in what can only be described as a security expert’s worst nightmare. The entire area surrounding the UN building on Manhattan’s East Side is like a closed military zone; the city’s narrow streets and sprawling avenues are blocked off intermittently and at a moment’s notice, sirens pierce the day and night as notables and dignitaries are whisked from here to there and back in armed convoys, while thousands of New York’s Finest are out in force in a valiant effort to unravel the monster traffic jams while calming the frayed nerves of the local residents. But make no mistake, Mahmoud Abbas is having the time of his life. At 76 years of age, with less than a year to go before his supposed retirement, the Palestinian president has suddenly got the world in his hands, or at least at his feet. Statesmen and diplomats from around the globe are falling over themselves in a last-ditch effort to dissuade Abbas from pursuing his bid for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood and he, as far as one can tell, is enjoying every minute. For the past several weeks Abbas has been pressured, cajoled, threatened or bribed every which way imaginable. At this very minute, only hours after his arrival in New York, members of the Middle East Quartet are frantically exchanging fresh formulas that might find favor with Abbas, while European diplomats come and go with last-minute wordings and new fangled phrasing, and even Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama are to confer Wednesday in what is by far the most hastily-arranged meeting of their short and troubled acquaintance - but to no avail. In this Coliseum of high-stakes diplomacy, the soft-spoken and rather uncharismatic Abbas has suddenly been cast out-of-character as a Caesar who gazes at the teeming arena below him before dispassionately turning his thumbs down, as the Arabs and Palestinians ecstatically cheer him on. What started off last October as a half-baked and half-hearted suggestion in Le Monde newspaper by two soon-to-be has-been European diplomats – France’s Bernard Kouchner and Spain’s Miguel Moratinos - that the Palestinian issue be brought to the UN, has now blossomed into a high-stakes game of political brinkmanship. It is slated to reach a climax in the General Assembly on Friday, in a rhetorical showdown between Abbas and Netanyahu worthy of the OK Corral. In the interim, a distraught Israel has been reduced to so much bluster and empty threats, such as denying funds to the financially strapped Palestinian Authority or unilaterally annexing settlement blocs, which are mostly of the “cutting off your nose to spite your face” variety. And Obama, the nebbish, who has enlisted his entire Administration to fight in the trenches for Israel, has had to endure not only the indignity of being summarily brushed off by Abbas but also the humiliation of the giant New York billboards posted by his Jewish detractors, which show him smiling and shaking hands with the same Abbas, under the damning caption: “not pro-Israel”. Some knowledgeable observers now view Abu Mazen’s success as a cause for guarded optimism. He has proven his point, they say; he has drawn the world’s attention to Palestinian statehood and has positioned himself as the man of the moment. He can now safely submit a request for full UN membership of Palestine to the Security Council - in which the Palestinians are having a hard time rustling up the nine-member majority which would trigger a US veto – but refrain for the time being from seeking the lesser but no less incendiary upgrade that is assured in the General Assembly. Abbas could say that he is awaiting a new and more favorable makeup of the Security Council (after the selection of its new non-permanent members in mid-October), while continuing to negotiate with the Americans, thus averting not only the threat of violence in the territories but also the danger of economic sanctions that might be imposed by the American Congress. But these rational calculations may fail to take into account the potential effects of Abbas’ late-blooming empowerment, both on him and on the suddenly resurgent expectations of the Palestinians as a whole. Emboldened by his unexpected success and guided by a false sense of confidence that he will be able to ride the tiger that he has unleashed, Abbas might decide to go all the way, come what may, and to press for a quick victory in the General Assembly. The fact that everyone is hanging on his every word only emphasizes the fact that Abbas is still sitting firmly in the driver’s seat, while both Jerusalem and Washington are like the deer that are mesmerized by the approaching headlights. As the drama continues to unfold in the Turtle Bay neighborhood near the East River in midtown Manhattan, one cannot escape the feeling that both countries have been outfoxed and outmaneuvered by a Palestinian leader who is apparently surprising even himself.
Date: 09/07/2002
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Mideast Lull Saps Strength Of Laborites, Diplomacy
Prime Minister Sharon said this week that he has a "detailed plan" for getting rid of Yasser Arafat and advancing the peace process at the same time. But Sharon hasn't divulged any details of his blueprint. Even some of his trusted aides admit they're not sure what exactly the prime minister is talking about. Across the ocean, according to reports reaching Jerusalem, the State Department is also engaged in turbulent "brainstorming" sessions aimed at squaring the circle, seeking, in effect, to engage Arafat in a process that is supposed to bring about his political demise. Suspicious officials in Jerusalem are already accusing the State Department of scheming to "circumvent" the president's clear-cut nixing of Arafat in his June 24 policy speech. "The presidential directive has yet to trickle down to the working professionals," one Foreign Ministry official said, "and the officials in the State Department appear to be living in the past." The same was being said here this week, in far more colorful terms, about the Israel Labor Party. The venerable party held its convention in Tel Aviv this week and appeared to be at an utter loss not only about the future of peace process, but about its own future. Once synonymous with Israeli governance, Labor is now trapped in a no-win situation, unwilling to leave the Likud-led unity government to the mercies of the right but unable to offer an electoral or diplomatic alternative so long as it remains in the government. Labor's quandary was aptly encapsulated in the fact that even Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the architect of the Oslo accords, appeared to be resigning himself this week to life without Arafat. Addressing a sparsely attended, late-night convention plenum, Peres said that in the wake of the Bush address "we have to find a suitable partner with whom to negotiate." By next morning, however, Peres clarified that he had been "quoted out of context," saying that Arafat was not "disqualified" and that Israel "could not choose leaders for the Palestinians." The dilemma confronting Labor, Sharon and the State Department stems in part from Bush's speech. The president's emphatic call to replace Yasser Arafat seems to have created a diplomatic vacuum that no one, in Washington or in the Middle East, knows how to fill. "Before, the peace process was paralyzed because everyone was waiting for the speech," a senior Israeli official said this week. "Now the speech has been made, and the diplomats are still paralyzed, because no one knows what to do." While the diplomats mull their options, the Israeli army has effectively retaken most of the West Bank, conducting numerous and repeated operations against suspected terrorists and reimposing military rule and curfews over close to a million Palestinians. Without a change in the diplomatic and political status quo, the army probably won't withdraw for several months. But President Bush has made any movement in the diplomatic process contingent on the removal of Arafat from power, a task which is apparently easier said than done. The inherent difficulty of the task is compounded, observers here agree, because of the unsurprising phenomenon that the more the outside world wants to get rid of Arafat, the more the Palestinians support his continued rule. Hence, Labor's dilemma. The party is deeply divided between those who want to remain in the Sharon government, sensing the public wants unity in the face of the crisis, and those who want to leave the coalition and confront the public with an alternative. The party chairman, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who leads the don't bolt faction, easily deflected a drive at the convention by rivals pushing for a decision to leave the coalition. Still, Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg seemed to be conveying the anguish of many party members when he told Ben-Eliezer: "One cannot be in favor of dividing East Jerusalem in the evening, and in the morning serve as a tail for the policies of Sharon and of Effi Eitam," referring to the militant leader of the National Religious Party. Former minister Haim Ramon, who has announced plans to challenge Ben- Eliezer in the party's leadership primary this fall, echoed Burg in his own convention speech, accusing Ben-Eliezer and Peres of "collaborating" with Sharon's drive to "recapture" Palestinian areas in the territories. Ramon also castigated Ben-Eliezer for agreeing only belatedly to start construction of the so-called separation fence, implying that the party leader's negligence may have cost hundreds of Israeli lives. Ben-Eliezer himself responded with a dovish-sounding peace plan based on the Clinton guidelines of December 2000 and this year's Saudi peace initiative. He went so far as to declare that the establishment of many of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza had been "a mistake." But he did not make clear with whom Israel was supposed to negotiate, and he added that settlements could be removed only within the framework of an overall peace agreement, whenever that might occur. Ben-Eliezer's plan received overwhelming support from his stacked majority in the convention, and his performance was widely seen as a political victory. Contrary to the perceived sentiments of most party members, Ben-Eliezer kept his party in the unity coalition, emotionally declaring that "we cannot leave when 20 Israeli children are being brought to burial daily." Nonetheless, even Ben-Eliezer is said to be contemplating a departure from the coalition. He reportedly told former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who is threatening to resign from politics at the end of the month if Labor remains in the coalition, that he won't have to make good on his threat. Ben-Eliezer realizes that an election year is ahead, and that Labor must differentiate itself and be portrayed as an alternative to Sharon if it hopes to avert the electoral disaster currently forecast in the polls. Ironically, much of the attention at the convention was drawn not by Ben-Eliezer or his challengers, but by former prime minister Ehud Barak, who claims that he has no intention of reentering politics "yet" but nonetheless behaved suspiciously like a candidate. Barak gave his first interview in Hebrew since losing the elections to Sharon in February 2001 to Israel's Channel 1 station this week. He defended his much-maligned record as prime minister, claiming that the Camp David summit which preceded the intifada was "crucial" to the fact that Israel is united today against Palestinian terrorism, and that much of the international community supports Israel's war against terrorism. Barak praised Bush's speech, adding that international pressure would bring about Arafat's downfall in the near future. He said that the peace process would be resumed on the basis of the Clinton initiative. He exuded self-confidence and, in vintage Barak form, had answers for everything. To a public that feels its leadership is groping in the dark - especially those with an extremely short memory - Barak's self- assurance may once again prove appealing. Contact us
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