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APN in Israel: Daily Dispatch - June 16, 2008

By Ori Nir, APN Spokesman APN's annual fact finding mission to Israel is taking Board members and supporters this week to the Knesset and to Sderot, to Ramalah and to the settlements around Jerusalem, to meetings with strategists, politicians diplomats and journalists in Tel Aviv, West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem. I am writing this dispatch, the first in our week-long visit, in a bus on the way to Sderot and the kibbutzim bordering the Gaza strip. The area has been relatively quiet in the ...

By Ori Nir, APN Spokesman

APN's annual fact finding mission to Israel is taking Board members and supporters this week to the Knesset and to Sderot, to Ramalah and to the settlements around Jerusalem, to meetings with strategists, politicians diplomats and journalists in Tel Aviv, West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem.

I am writing this dispatch, the first in our week-long visit, in a bus on the way to Sderot and the kibbutzim bordering the Gaza strip. The area has been relatively quiet in the past three days, apparently as a prelude to an informal ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt.

Participants started their series of meetings and field trips Saturday night, just as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel on yet another attempt to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Just before landing at Ben Gurion Airport, Rice told reporters on her plane that Israel's continued settlement activity in the West Bank was "unhelpful" and "a problem." Our tour in and around settlements in the vicinity of Jerusalem hours later illustrated the Secretary's diplomatic observation. We witnessed a frenzy of construction in the settlement of Har Homa and observed the E-1 corridor in the valley between Jerusalem's Mount Scopus and the settlement of Ma'ale Adomim. Israeli, Palestinian and American experts agree that construction in E-1 could undermine the feasibility of a two-state solution by slicing the West Bank and denying the future Palestinian state contiguity and viability. Last month, the headquarters of Israel's Judea and Samaria Police station was transferred from East Jerusalem to a vast office building constructed in the E-1 corridor.

Our first meetings Saturday night and Sunday underlined the tremendous gap between the lofty objective of Israeli, Palestinian and American leaders to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord before the end of 2008 and the circumstances on the ground. President Bush on Saturday, speaking to reporters in Paris, said that he still thinks there is a chance to achieve that goal before he leaves the White House. But violence and mistrust, settlements and outposts, roadblocks and checkpoints, combined with an Israeli leadership crisis, Palestinian political fragmentation and a public disengagement from the political process are making any real progress toward peace improbable, we were repeatedly told.

On Monday MK Colette Avital (Labor) and Journalist Atila Shumfelvi (Ynet) explained why it would be almost impossible to keep together the ruling coalition beyond the beginning of next year. And even if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert does succeed to last through the coming months, he is perceived by the Israeli public as not having the mandate to make fateful decisions on matters of peace or war. This perception - combined with Olmert's coalition partners threats to break the coalition and the succession battle within his party, Kadima - is deeming his government dysfunctional, we were told. Israel's large circulation dailies on Sunday featured stories saying that because of all these factors, the cabinet is incapable of making decisions.  

On the bright side, the Israeli media are reporting that a swap to exchange the Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah for Lebanese prisoners may be imminent and that Israel and Hamas are again negotiating; through Egypt, a possible ceasefire.

Today, Monday we will learn more about the apparent inception of the ceasefire when we visit the southern town of Sderot and other Israeli communities bordering Gaza.