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Vol. 8, Issue 38 - August 20, 2007

Fledgling Endgame?; Bibi's Back; Self-fulfilling Alert?; Haredi Settlement Growth; Taking the Land, and the Water Too;

FLEDGLING ENDGAME?: Yedioth Ahronoth's veteran diplomatic correspondent Shimon Schiffer on Thursday published one of his signature explosive scoops. According to the report, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen) are secretly drafting a memorandum of understanding regarding the resolution of core issues of dispute between Israelis and Palestinians - e.g. permanent borders, Jerusalem and refugees. The two, Schiffer reported, are planning to unveil their set of agreed principles at the U.S.-sponsored international conference, which is scheduled for November in Washington. According to the report, Olmert disclosed the details of his secret negotiations with Abbas at a meeting with a large American delegation of House Democrats, headed by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) last week. According to notes taken by someone who attended the meeting, the objective of the Olmert-Abbas talks is to reach "agreed upon principles on the fundamental issues that will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel: borders, Jerusalem, refugees, exchange of territories, passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the essence of relations between Israel and the Palestinian state." According to Yedioth, the two are still far from an agreement. Here is how the newspaper described the differences in positions between the two: "Borders: Abu Mazen: Israel will return to the 1967 borders. A Palestinian state will be established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and its capital will be Jerusalem. Olmert: Israel will withdraw from more than 90 percent of the West Bank. The settlement blocs will remain under Israeli sovereignty. Israel will give the Palestinians alternative territory in the Negev, around the Gaza Strip. Right of Return: Abu Mazen: Israel will recognize the right of the refugees to return to their homes, in accordance with the resolution of the Security Council. Implementation of the right of return will be by agreement between the sides. Olmert: The Palestinian refugees will be permitted to return only to the territory of the Palestinian state which will be established in the future, and not into the borders of the State of Israel. Territorial Contiguity: Abu Mazen: A safe passage, entirely under Palestinian control, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Olmert: The West Bank will be joined to the Gaza Strip by bridges or tunnels. The ground will remain under Israeli sovereignty. Jerusalem: Abu Mazen: East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state. The Temple Mount will be under full Palestinian control. Olmert: Neighborhoods on the edge of East Jerusalem will be handed over to Palestinian sovereignty. There will be joint control of the Temple Mount with international participation."

Abbas denied that the talks were held secretly, but his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, confirmed that the two leaders were discussing core issues. ""I can't say that we are now negotiating final status issues. But there are beginnings of talks about the fundamental issues that need to be agreed upon to end this conflict,'' he told the Associated Press.

Israel's Ha'aretz confirmed Schiffer's scoop. Based on reports attributed to "government sources in Jerusalem," the paper added that talks between the two are stuck over the question of Palestinian refugees. It also added that the talks are a component of a broader Israeli diplomatic strategy that includes bilateral talks with the Palestinians over "local issues" with the aim of bolstering Abbas and weakening Hamas; Engagement with Arab governments on regional issues in pursuit of a rapprochement with the League of Arab States; Engagement with international players such as the U.S. and the European Union to secure financial support for Abbas and his people.

The notion that Abbas and Olmert are trying to agree on final status issues generated little excitement among both Israelis and Palestinians. Yedioth's Nahum Barnea, Israel's top commentator, explained why: "Olmert is a prime minister for all intents and purposes, and yet, he is a prime minister on probation. He is waging a desperate holding battle against an investigative committee that he appointed, for fear that the committee is cooking up his removal." Contrary to Ariel Sharon in the days of the Gaza disengagement, Olmert "does not have automatic public backing. He is overdrawn in terms of public opinion. Under such conditions, he might be expected to display his agreement of principles to the Israeli public before displaying it to members of Congress from the United States [.] Not to mention Abu Mazen, whose only strength lies in his weakness. If Olmert wants to help Abu Mazen, let him first take Ehud Barak aside for a heart-to-heart talk. It is time for the prime minister and the defense minister to form a political kitchen cabinet, a partnership for times of trouble. Together they can give the West Bank population, whose support is hoped for by Abu Mazen, a great deal. There are roadblocks that can be opened. Settlement outposts that need to be dismantled. The Americans are still waiting for 27 outposts that Sharon promised to evacuate. Until today, not a single outpost has been evacuated. In order to reach a historical agreement between Israel and Palestine, someone has to believe in it with all his heart, push towards it with all his strength. The negotiations between Olmert and Abu Mazen are being conducted, unfortunately, between two non-believers." (Yedioth Ahronoth 8/16/07, 8/17/07; AP 8/17/07; Israel Radio 8/16/07; Ha'aretz 8/17/07)

BIBI'S BACK: Binyamin Netanyahu last week won the Likud primary by a large margin. Some 37,000 of approximately 95,000 registered Likud members (around 40%) turned out to vote, following an intense campaign by Netanyahu to get out the vote.

Although the former prime minister won 74% of the vote, his achievement was called a pyrrhic victory by the leading political commentators of Israel's largest circulation dailies. Not so much because of the relatively low turnout but because Netanyahu's hasty effort to force early primary elections in his party damaged his image and that of his party, according to the Israeli pundits. The early primary prompted Netanyahu's chief challenger, former Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, to pull out of the race, charging that Netanyahu abused his power and violated the party's bylaws. Shalom was on a U.S. coast-to-coast trip when his fellow party members went to the polls last week.

Instead of Shalom, Netanyahu faced off against Moshe Feiglin, an ultra-nationalist who advocates annexing the entire West Bank to Israel, without giving its Palestinian residents civil rights. Feiglin was convicted in 1997 of inciting mutiny by advocating a violent rebellion against Israeli security forces. During the mid-1990s he led the popular movement, mainly comprised of settlers, seeking to block the implementation of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO.

Feiglin, who has been working for years to drive Likud further to the right, won 24% of the vote, much more than ever before [he received 4% of the vote when he ran for the leadership of Likud in 2003 and 13% in 2005]. Celebrating his flattering defeat, Feiglin issued a press release on Wednesday, declaring: "This will be remembered as an emotional day in which Israel started to return to the people, so that it will no longer be controlled by a leftist minority and by politicians on the Right who do their bidding." He added, "We are on a journey toward victory, and this was a big step along the way."

Yedioth Ahronoth's chief political analyst Nahum Barnea wrote on Wednesday: "This was Shalom's revenge on Netanyahu: he deprived him of the joy of victory. Victory in a party primary is almost always the beginning of a surge in public support. Not this time. Netanyahu prayed yesterday that the results would be stricken from the voters' memories within a week, if not in a day."

Netanyahu, however, is interested in striking Feiglin and his "Jewish Leadership" faction from Likud. He said that Feiglin does not belong in Likud and that the party ought to oust him. Ha'aretz, in an editorial, expressed hope "that this popular rightist party really will disgorge insufferable extremism." If Likud members "do not take steps to prove to the public that Feiglin, his people and his ideas do not belong to them - not even on the pretext and coincidence of some political conjuncture or other - they will be responsible for a dangerous radicalization of their movement," Ha'aretz asserted.

A poll published by Israel Radio two days after his victory showed that despite the possible backlash resulting from the primary elections, Netanyahu is still the leading candidate for prime minister, with a slight lead over Labor's Ehud Barak and a more significant lead over potential Kadima candidates for premiership. (Yedioth Ahronoth, 8/14, 8/15 & 8/16/07; Ma'ariv, 8/15 & 8/16/07; Jewish Leadership web site, 8/15/07; Ha'aretz, 8/16/07; Israel Radio 8/16/07)

Self-fulfilling ALERT?: Israel and Syria are still exchanging both non-belligerence reassurances and bellicose threats of retaliation in case the other side missteps toward war. Speaking at a press conference in Damascus, Syria's Vice President Farouk al-Shara said Tuesday: "Syria is not interested in war, and Israel knows this. Nonetheless, Syria is in a state of readiness, since it has learned that Israel looks for any excuse to start a war, as it did in July 2006. Thus we must be ready for any eventuality." He added, "When we say that peace is Syria's strategic choice, we are not ruling out other possibilities."

On the same day, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told officers during a heavily televised visit to Northern Command headquarters: "Israel is not interested in war with Syria, but we are preparing for any eventuality." On Wednesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak watched tank exercises on the Golan Heights and told reporters: "Israel does not want war today and, according to our assessments, nor do the Syrians, so there does not need to be a war." Olmert added that he was seeking "cracks" of opportunity to talk peace with Syria. "It is important that we know how to create momentum that will bring about a change of the political situation. I believe in political initiatives. Where there is a crack of opportunity, I will not forgive myself if I don't use it," he said. "Had I seen a crack of opportunity with the Syrians, I wouldn't have missed it [.] we have no interest in war with the Syrians, but we also have no interest in giving absurd assurances in advance. I believe that a dynamic would be created, which would change the situation in the North."

Commenting on the confusing exchanges between Israel and Syria, Maariv's Ofer Shelah wrote: "everyone who is trying to figure out the signs in what is happening between Israel and Syria should be careful: there is so much contradictory information, so many things said and their opposite, including statements uttered in closed rooms. Whoever claims to know something now, should speak softly, or hold their peace. In simple words: we don't know. Israel's official version is that we do not want war, nor do the Syrians. All in all, the IDF carried out its rehabilitation exercises following the Second Lebanon War to meet a scenario of fighting against Syria, since the army needs an operative plan on which to train. But it does not see a real threat of attack from Syria, and certainly Israel has no intention of attacking first. This sounds logical, war would only cause huge damage to both sides without achieving anything, but since when does logic decide anything. And besides, these statements are accompanied by a series of various contradictory and confusing warning signs. For example, the army's sense of urgency, as projected to mid-rank officers. The army's operational echelon is not getting the feeling from above that we are only conducting training exercises. The big clock that Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi drew over the training, the discussions and the formulation of operative plans, does not look to unit commanders like a theoretical exercise meant only to return atrophied muscles to an active state. Some of them come out of meeting rooms with the feeling that their superiors see a real threat, which they perhaps do not wish to come to fruition, but believe that is certainly possible." Israeli Military Intelligence's assessments that Syria is not seeking military confrontation conflict with apprehensions about Syria's growing arsenal and its ever increasing capability to severely harm Israel, mainly with missiles, Shelah observed. "It seems that what is going on here, first and foremost, is the old paralysis relating to the enemy's ability. Syria is indeed arming, mainly with offensive and defensive weapons for the kind of war that it envisions-rockets and missiles against the Israeli home front, and surface-to-air missiles in order to make it hard for an IAF counterstrike. Israel has always been afflicted by an obsession about the enemy's ability, based on the basic belief that in the Middle East, a gun hanging on the wall in the first act will be fired in the third. If our weapon counters decide that Syria has reached a critical mass of destruction, their hearts conclude that Assad is headed for war, no matter what their head and their senses tell them." (SANA, 8/14/07; MEMRI, 8/17/07; Jerusalem Post, 8/14/07; Ha'aretz, 8/15/07; Ynet, 8/15/07; Ma'ariv, 8/17/07)

Haredi settlement growth: For the past several years, official Israeli data has been shown a higher rate of growth among Jewish settlers in the West Bank than the growth rate among Jews in Israel- proper. An investigative piece published last week by Ha'aretz shows that this higher growth rate - almost double the growth rate in Israel - is almost exclusively due to the relatively recent influx of ultra-Orthodox Jews to West Bank settlements. 2006 Israeli government data show that "the settler population has grown by 5.45 percent, from 260,932 to 275,156," reported Ha'aretz's Nadav Shragai. However, if you don't figure in the ultra-Orthodox community, "the West Bank settlements' growth is 3.7 percent, only a little more than the natural growth the settlements would see, which stands at 3.5 percent." For example, Beitar Ilit's population [which is almost exclusively ultra-Orthodox], some 35,000, grows annually by some 10 percent - five to six times more than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv's population growth respectively and twice as much as the growth of many other settlements." According to the report, "by the end of June, 72,106 people - more than a quarter of the West Bank settlers - were concentrated in Beitar Ilit, Modi'in Ilit and Kochav Yaakov, another ultra-Orthodox settlement, according to Interior Ministry figures. The growth rate in the ultra-Orthodox Beitar Ilit and Modi'in Ilit is higher than most places in Israel. Modi'in Ilit's population, some 40,000, grows annually by about 11 percent (this year it has grown by 12.5 percent). Beitar Ilit's population, some 35,000, grows annually by some 10 percent - five to six times more than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv's population growth respectively and twice as much as the growth of many other settlements. By the end of June, 72,106 people - more than a quarter of the West Bank settlers - were concentrated in Beitar Ilit, Modi'in Ilit and Kochav Yaakov, another ultra-Orthodox settlement, according to Interior Ministry figures." Shragai notes: "Most of the ultra-Orthodox settlers - young couples or young families with numerous children - do not live in the West Bank for ideological reasons. They moved to the settlements due to the soaring real estate prices in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, which created an acute housing shortage." (Ha'aretz, 8/14/07)

TAKING THE LAND. AND THE WATER TOO: The following refreshing summer tale, published Sunday in Israel's largest circulation daily newspaper, gives a new meaning to the term chutzpah. According to Yedioth Ahronoth's Roni Shaked and Zvi Singer, residents of Elon Moreh, a veteran settlement on the outskirts of Nablus recently built a quaint picnic area with benches and some nice landscaping. There is even a small pool. However, the land for the picnic area is not Elon Moreh's land but rather land belonging to the neighboring Palestinian village of Dir el-Khatab. That's not news. But what about the water for the pool? Well, it turns out that the settlers simply cut the pipe that brings water to Dir el-Khatab, diverted it to their pool, and connected the drainage back to the pipe that goes down to the Palestinian village. "Not only are they using water that does not belong to them, but they are polluting the drinking water of some of the village residents," Yoel Maharshak, director of the operations department of the United Kibbutz Movement told Yedioth. "The small children relieve themselves in the water, which flows directly to the water fountains of the Palestinian school." The newspaper reported that complaints were submitted to Israel's military government of the West Bank, which established that the picnic area is in fact built on land that does not belong to the settlement. The Civil Administration even issued a demolition order for the picnic area. No one seems to be in a hurry to enforce it, the newspaper reported, but a spokesman for the Civil Administration reassured that "The demolition order will be carried out over the next several days." Benny Katzover, one of the leaders of Elon Moreh, insisted that the body of water at the picnic area is not a pool but rather a small cistern that attracts hikers. "This is spring water that flows near Elon Moreh and flows to the village. The spring water is not the village's main source of water because the village has been connected to Mekorot [Israel's water company] for years. The spring water serves flocks and is a backup in case of an interruption in the water supply, and no one has blocked the flow of the spring water to the village," Katzover said. (Yedioth Ahronoth, 8/19/07)