To return to the new Peace Now website click here.

November 1, 2004 - Vol. 6, Issue 15

Middle East Peace Report November 1, 2004 Vol. 6, Issue 15 

SHARON SOARS, BIBI BOMBS: In a Dahaf/Yedioth Ahronoth survey published the day that the Knesset voted on the disengagement plan, 65% of respondents said they favor Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's initiative to remove settlements from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, while just 26% oppose it. At the same time, 47% said they think Sharon's life is in ...

SHARON SOARS, BIBI BOMBS: In a Dahaf/Yedioth Ahronoth survey published the day that the Knesset voted on the disengagement plan, 65% of respondents said they favor Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's initiative to remove settlements from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, while just 26% oppose it. At the same time, 47% said they think Sharon's life is in danger, while 44% do not. The pre-vote poll found the public split on holding a referendum on the plan, with 40% saying the disengagement decision should be made that way, 39% saying that a Knesset vote should determine the outcome, and 19% calling for general elections. Commentator Sever Plotzker pointed out that, "The campaign against the withdrawal from Gaza can be summed up, from the perspective of the settlers and their supporters, as a failure. Israeli public opinion was not particularly influenced by it." A Smith/Globes survey taken after the Knesset action also found majority support for disengagement, although by a narrower margin (55% in favor to 37% opposed). These figures are the same among Likud supporters. However, the Smith/Globes survey found a small plurality of respondents (48% to 45%) opposes a referendum, the same figures as among Likud supporters. In the epic political clash between Sharon and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister came out on top. The Smith/Globes poll found that 58% of respondents think Sharon is performing his job very well or quite well, and 70% of Likud supporters believe that he is doing a good job. In contrast, 51% of respondents said that their opinion of Bibi had fallen, compared with 9% who said their opinion of him had risen. 51% of Likud supporters said their opinion of him had dropped, while just 11% had a better opinion of him. Similarly, a Teleseker/Ma'ariv survey found that 56% of respondents think that Bibi was wrong to serve Sharon with an ultimatum, threatening to resign unless it was decided within 14 days to hold a referendum on disengagement. 27% said Bibi was right. 54% said Sharon is more suitable to head Likud and to be its candidate for prime minister, compared with 15% for Bibi. Among Likud voters, 64% preferred Sharon over Bibi to head the party, while just 16% backed Bibi. Ma'ariv's Nadav Eyal remarked about Bibi, "It is difficult to imagine how a politician could commit political suicide so efficiently." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 10/26/04; Globes, 10/28/04; & Ma'ariv, 10/28/04)

THE MAJORITY RALLIES: On the night before the Knesset cast its historic vote in favor of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, the Israeli Peace Now movement helped lead a massive pro-disengagement rally in Jerusalem that was sponsored by the Majority Coalition, consisting of Peace Now, the Labor Party, the Yahad Party, the Kibbutz movement, and youth movements. Given the politically conservative nature of Jerusalem, Peace Now considers crowds of 3,000 people in the capital to be a good turnout. Organizers of the pro-disengagement rally estimated that over 30,000 people turned out to show their support for evacuating settlements from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Dancing to the pounding of drums, hundreds of young Labor Party activists kicked off the demonstration with singing and dancing in front of the Israel Museum before leading a march to the Knesset. Dancing in a tight circle while waving flags reading, "The Majority Decides: Leave Gaza, Start to Talk," they loudly chanted, "Yalla Arik, leave Gaza and evacuate the territories." Yahad Knesset Member Ran Cohen told Ha'aertz, "I am a happy man. I have the great privilege of voting in favor of disengagement and the beginning of the withdrawal from the territories, just the things I was elected to do 20 years ago. Then we were a small group of kibbutzniks and left-wingers, today we represent a huge majority of the people. I really don't care who makes the move." Dr. Janet Aviad, one of the leaders of Peace Now, shared Cohen's sense of being involved in history. "Some of our ideology is coming to a vote in the Knesset. This didn't happen in the days of Oslo. I really don't understand those who say we shouldn't support the plan because it is Sharon's. Governments of the left didn't dare do it." Labor Party leader Shimon Peres addressed the ecstatic crowed, saying, "You gathered here in the heart of Jerusalem with the goal of saving the State of Israel from the hands of those who make mistakes. For generations, we built a proud Jewish state here. If we do not leave Gaza now, there won't be a Jewish state and we will become a minority. We were not born to live by the sword. We will win because we are right. We do not hate the settlers, but we will not let them threaten us. Peace is closer than we all think and there is no turning back. It is possible to reach an agreement with the Arabs. We are here to raise the flag of hope and the flag of unity which we will never lay down." (Jerusalem Post & Ha'aretz, 10/26/04)

THE GOD OF SOIL, PART I: One of Israel's most prominent novelists, A.B. Yehoshua, commented on the turmoil surrounding disengagement, writing, "The 'Land of Israel' lies not in the Hefer Valley, the capacious and fertile fields of the Jezreel Valley, the hills of the western Galilee, the wooded slopes of Mount Carmel. The real 'Land of Israel' lies, according to the fanatic rabbis of Gush Emunim, only between southern Jabalya and northern Khan Yunis. In that same tract of land that the settlers of Gush Katif stole from the meager reserves left to the million and a half Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Residents who have lived there for generations on end and the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled from Israel in 1948. The 'Land of Israel' lies not in the stunning craters of the Negev, the beautiful Jordan Valley or the Sea of Galilee. The 'Land of Israel' lies precisely between the houses of Abu Dis and el-Azariya, and in the narrow alleyways of Hebron. That is where the real 'Land of Israel' is situated, that same 'Land of Israel' that the Likud faithful pledged allegiance to and dreamed at night about before 1967, until Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran and gave us a pretext for 'initiating' the Six Day War. The 'Land of Israel' lies not in the foothills of Judea, the woods of Beit Shemesh, or the golden vistas of Lachish, it lies not on the shore of the Mediterranean, nor in the city centers of the Tel Aviv metropolis. The 'Land of Israel' of the wise men from Shas and Agudat Yisrael snakes only along the narrow road between the checkpoint outside the Kalandiya refugee camp and the roadblocks in the streets of Ramallah. That is where the real 'Land of Israel' lies. The rest is negligible and insignificant. The 'Land of Israel' lies not between Ayelet Hashahar and Kiryat Shmona, Mount Meron, Safed or Carmiel. It resides only in the Nablus casbah. That is where the real 'heart' of the 'Land of Israel' lies, while its spleen is in the Jenin casbah. And it is because of them that we all must continue with war, terror, occupation, and oppression. Because, after all, from the dawn of time Jews have not liked partial solutions. They only like solutions that are fit to be eternal. For centuries the religious Jews blocked, by means of numerous prohibitions handed down by their rabbis and sages, the return of Jews to the Land of Israel, lest this be a presumptuous attempt to hasten the advent of the Messiah. Until along came a secular Jew, Herzl, and, in spite of their wrath, founded the Zionist movement which, at the very last moment, managed to save a small fraction of the nation from the Holocaust." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 10/25/04)

THE GOD OF SOIL, PART II: A.B. Yehoshua continued, "We, who love our homeland and suffice with the Land of Israel inside the Green Line, are regarded by the opponents of the disengagement plan as alienated folks who have betrayed the 'Land of Israel' of the Zionist vision. The western Land of Israel is 27,000 square kilometers in size. The State of Israel in the Green Line, which is recognized by the entire world as its legitimate border, is 21,000 square kilometers in size. Namely, close to 78% of all the territory in the western Land of Israel. The 3.5 million Palestinians only have 22% of the territory left on which to exercise the right to self-determination that every people has. More than 60% of the remaining 22% of the land is covered by Palestinian communities-cities, villages, fields, refugee camps. This 'Land of Israel' cannot even be seen or felt since it lies beneath the feet of millions of Palestinians. If that is the case, what is it that we are actually squabbling about? Eight percent of the western Land of Israel, a large part of which is Judean Desert (as if Israel lacked deserts). And because of that small area, the opponents of disengagement want to stay in this bloody cycle, and to pollute Zionism, to drag themselves over the rocks, to paralyze the state and to threaten a civil war? Remember the month of May 2000. The opponents of disengagement today are the knights of the opposition to a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon back then. Then too they cried: 'treason,' 'defeat,' 'capitulation,' 'flight,' and threatened us with Katyusha rockets that would begin to fall on Haifa. Had we heeded their warnings we would have far more soldiers in graves today, and hundreds more injured in hospitals. The God that governs these people's hearts and guides their action is a god of 'quantity of soil.' A tragic and absurd degeneration of the Jewish spirituality of yore." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 10/25/04)

A LITTLE BIT PREGNANT: According to an internal Israeli government assessment, even if Israel withdraws from Gaza, it will still be considered the occupying power under international law and as such responsible for the crowded territory. (Editor's Note: the PLO Negotiating Support Unit recently issued a paper making the same point.) Since Israel intends to maintain control over the crossings into Gaza, its coastline, and airspace, international law will continue to hold Israel responsible for the territory, according to legal experts from the Israeli Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and military. "We must be aware that the disengagement does not necessarily exempt Israel from responsibility in the evacuated territories," said the report. Israel could reduce its responsibility over the territory, where 8,200 Jewish settlers currently live among 1.3 million Palestinians, if someone else were to take control there, said the report. "The more active control is given to other parties, the more difficult it will be to claim Israel is still responsible," it said. The study concluded that both the involvement of an international force in Gaza or the establishment of a Palestinian state would reduce the burden on Israel. But Cabinet minister Tzipi Livni said that Israel was unlikely to endorse either option due to its reluctance to let another party handle security. Despite the legal complications, Israel hopes the international community will recognize the withdrawal as the end of its occupation of Gaza. "I really would like to have the technical, legal, international declaration that Israel is no longer responsible there," said Livni. "There is a tremendous difference between if Israel stays there.and a situation in which Israel does everything to get out of there." The report also examined the possible drawbacks for Israel if the Palestinians were to declare a state or an international force was brought into Gaza. "A Palestinian state would be free to conduct its foreign relations and we can expect a flood of agreements with Arab nations and Muslim organizations," it said. The report also warned that international involvement in Gaza could set a precedent for the West Bank, where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hopes to retain large swaths in any future peace deal. On a related note, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that the EU will not settle only for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank. "Sharon is mistaken if he thinks the Gaza pullout would automatically lead the region towards peace and Europe would settle for it," he told a German magazine. (AP, 10/24/04 & Ma'ariv, 10/23/04) NO ROOM

AT THE INN: The National Union party's Knesset faction convened in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem last week at Rachel's Tomb in order to commemorate the anniversary of the matriarch's death, and to move two settlement families into houses to take up permanent residence in the city of Jesus' birth. The families were moved into newly built apartments on property in the Rachel's Tomb complex. The IDF initially agreed not to forcibly remove the settlers. A group of yeshiva students has also lived at the tomb site during the past year. Right-wing activists and people involved with the yeshiva were preparing to ultimately bring ten families to live on there and transform it into a settlement at the holy site in order to provide a Jewish hold in that region. Settler activists said that the site had undergone renovations throughout the last year and that the building was connected to the grave compound with the approval, aid, and knowledge of the army and the political echelon. The National Union MK's said moving the families into the building was a response to the disengagement plan. However, soldiers evacuated one Jewish settler family from the site the day after they moved in. (Arutz-7, 10/25/04; Ha'aretz, 10/25/04; & Jerusalem Post, 10/26/04)

BOND VOYAGE: The Israeli Finance Ministry issued new 20-year bonds last week for $750 million in American capital markets using the U.S. loan guarantees to back up the issue. Israel hadn't raised money overseas for six months prior, but the new issue was the second time this year that Israel has raised money using the U.S. guarantees. So far, Israel has raised $4.1 billion through the guarantees. The move comes at a time when Israel Bonds in the U.S. is intensifying its lobbying of state legislatures to change laws banning state pension funds from buying bonds of foreign countries. Louisiana recently said that three state pension funds would buy $5 million of Israel bonds. New Jersey, New Mexico, and Indiana have also purchased Israel bonds in the past year. The Israel Bonds initiative at the state level is being used to foil efforts by the Presbyterians and other groups to apply financial pressure on Israel. (Globes, 10/24 & 27/04; Ha'aretz, 10/27/04; & Jerusalem Post, 10/28/04)

BARAK BLASTS ISRAEL ON HOUSE DEMOLITIONS: Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak blasted Israel for failing to respond to charges from the UN and international human rights organizations that Israel has violated international law by carrying out massive and unnecessary destruction of Palestinian homes in Gaza. "These reports are being read all over the world and serve as the factual basis regarding us," Barak told attorney Aner Hellman. "We don't live on an isolated island. We can go on like this, but the problem will fester without a solution. The army does not receive proper guidance and the world celebrates at our expense. Why not make the effort to investigate if there was really a need to destroy the thousands of homes that have been razed?" Barak made these comments at a hearing on a petition from Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, demanding that the state explain the term "immediate military necessity." The state has argued that Israel will grant the right of appeal to Palestinians whose homes it wants to demolish except in cases of "immediate military necessity," a term used in international law as the only justification for demolishing the house of a protected civilian in occupied territory. Adalah charged that Israel exploits this term without justification to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes. For example, a report from the UN Commission on Human Rights concluded that during the IDF's Operation Rainbow in Rafah, 289 buildings housing 3,800 people were demolished. During Operation Days of Penitence, UNWRA found that the IDF demolished 91 houses and left 675 Palestinians homeless. UNWRA also estimated that the house demolition rates in 2004 have reached "alarming levels." An average of 45 Gaza residents per day, or 1,360 a month, are left without a roof over their heads, according to UNWRA. It estimated that 24,547 Gazans have been made homeless during the Intifada. When Hellman protested that it would be difficult to investigate individual instances of home demolitions retroactively and that it would involve painstaking work, Barak replied, "These UN reports, they are terrible. The world reads these reports and Israel does not have an answer." (Jerusalem Post, 10/26/04)

LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE WEST BANK-WHAT A CONCEPT: A report from attorney Talia Sasson, who was appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to find a legal way to evacuate outposts in the West Bank, says that Israel should apply planning and construction laws to West Bank settlements to close the legal loophole that allowed numerous outposts to be established and prevented their removal. Previous Justice Ministry attempts to apply Israeli construction laws in the settlements were thwarted by ministers, since the existing situation was convenient for the governments set on building settlements. Ottoman-Jordanian law enabled Israel to declare hundreds of thousands of West Bank dunams "state lands." Sasson also recommends tightening the supervision on the expenses of the settlements authorities, to make sure they spend the funds only on purposes intended and prevent diverting them to unauthorized settlements. Sasson found there are 60-70 outposts in the West Bank today (Peace Now puts the number closer to 100), most of them built during Ehud Barak's government (Peace Now finds that over 50 outposts have been built since March 2001, when Sharon first became prime minister). In addition to the outposts, large scale illegal building was found inside the settlements. Sources say that it is not clear whether the cabinet will do anything about this, since Israel promised the U.S. only to evacuate outposts and freeze construction beyond the settlements' built area (neither of which it's done). The planning and construction laws in the West Bank are based on the Ottoman law and on the British Mandate law, which was adopted by Jordan. Unlike Israeli law, they do not enable criminal sanctions for illegal building, do not enable immediate demolition of illegal structures that have been standing for 30 days or more, and do not require permits from the local authority for the construction's completion. Therefore, new structures in the settlements may be linked to water and electricity immediately. (Ha'aretz, 10/24/04)

THE COST OF QASSAMS: The Israeli property tax department has paid NIS 500 million in compensation to individuals and factories for damage caused by Qassam rockets and mortar fire. The compensation involved damage incurred during military operations in the Gaza Strip and in adjacent Israeli territory, including Sderot and moshavim and kibbutzim since the outbreak of the Intifada. Each time damage has been caused by Palestinian fire or IDF activities, property tax assessors fan out to the site to assess the amount of compensation to be paid for the damage. The compensation paid for damage from the Intifada in these areas greatly exceeds the compensation paid to residents of Kiryat Shmona and the northern Galilee from damage caused by Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon. Most of the damage in the greater Gaza area has been caused by Qassam rockets, mortar bombs, and roadside bombs, which have wrecked parts of the Erez industrial zone, damaged border crossing points, and extensively damaged public property, including roads, fences, traffic signs, street lights, and public buildings. (Globes, 10/26/04)

DEFICIT MENDING: Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said that Israel will cover damages awarded to Israeli plaintiffs suing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and will deduct the funds from the PA only thereafter. Mazuz is asking Israeli judges who adjudicate such cases to stop imposing temporary confiscation orders on PA funds. Israeli judges have customarily imposed seizures on Palestinian funds in response to Israeli citizens' damage suits against the PA in recent years, before the court has reached a verdict. The state has decided to guarantee the financial awards after the courts have ignored numerous state requests that they not issue confiscation orders. The reason the courts gave for confiscating the funds was concern that the PA would collapse before it could pay out the money. About half of the PA budget deficit was caused by seizures imposed by Israeli courts on PA funds, according to Palestinian sources. A PA treasury source says the sum of confiscated funds reached some NIS 1 billon in October, consisting of levies, taxes, and customs collected by Israel for services and merchandise intended for the PA. The cumulative deficit this year is $490 million, while the PA's current budget is $1.4 billion. PA Finance Minister Salam Fayyad is expected to cover some $330 million with help from donor states, but has not found funding for the remaining $160 million. The deficit makes it difficult for Fayyad to continue implementing some of the administrative and financial reforms that the PA is obligated to make. The temporary seizures of the last two years contradict Israel's commitment to the U.S. to transfer to the PA, under the Road Map, all the customs and tax money taken by Israel for merchandise and services intended for the PA. (Ha'aretz, 10/25/04)

STRELA STRATEGY: The Israeli security establishment warned last week that Palestinian terror groups in Gaza may have anti-aircraft missiles in their possession, possibly Strela (SA-7) missiles. For some years, the Palestinians have tried to smuggle such missiles from Egypt through tunnels. However, until now no reliable intelligence confirmed the existence of the missiles. A senior military officials said that Israel's working premise now is that such missiles do exist in Gaza and the air force is responding accordingly. Combat helicopters are flying with minimum expose to danger, as was the practice in southern Lebanon. Helicopters carrying senior officers have stopped landing inside Gaza, but rather on landing pads outside the Strip. (Ha'aretz, 10/25/04)

SHIFT WITH THE RIFT: Jordan and Israel are making an historic change in the route of their shared border in favor of establishing a joint scientific research center. The center, called BTR (Bridging The Rift), will stretch out over six hundred dunams in the Arava region, and both countries have already contributed equal amounts of their own land to it. Over the coming weeks a section of the border fence approximately two kilometers long will be removed, and instead a wall surrounding the compound will be built. The center itself will be an international area with special legal status, and entrance will be allowed for Israelis, Jordanians, and foreigners with a magnetic card, without a passport. Students in advanced degree programs in computer science and life sciences will be able to carry out specialized research there, and its first project, a survey documenting the life forms in the Dead Sea, is expected to begin this coming December. A joint committee of Israel, Jordan, and the BTR fund is working on the technical details for moving the border and building the surrounding wall. Security personnel from both countries are also participating in this process. The large center is being built in partnership with American businesspeople and with the academic sponsorship of Stanford University and Cornell University. The preliminary cost of the project is approximately $30 million. The moving spirit behind BTR is Israeli businessman Matti Kochavi, who called Jordanian cooperation "unprecedented." "King Abdullah is very involved in it, as is the Jordanian leadership," he said. "Nearly every university in Jordan is interested in sending lecturers." Two major issues about the project that will need addressing are the question of the criminal law code that will be used there, and how research discoveries will be registered as a patent. (Ma'ariv, 10/24/04)

JERUSALEM CSI: It was busy on the police beat last week. The Israeli Military Police arrested the officer involved with the "kill confirmation" procedure that he allegedly committed on a Palestinian girl in Gaza. The arrest came just ten days after the chief of staff accepted the commander's account of the events. The officer ran into trouble in his account of how many bullets he fired at the girl. Moreover, his version "doesn't match the evidence that was found on the scene." The young girl, 13-year-old Aiman el-Hams, was shot some three weeks ago by troops in the Givati Brigade after she approached a military outpost in southern Gaza. The troops saw she was carrying a backpack, thought it was a bomb, and shot her dead. One of the soldiers in the company subsequently charged that his commander executed the "kill confirm" procedure on the girl, emptying an entire gun magazine into her body. The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will soon hold a special debate to evaluate IDF investigation procedures. Meanwhile, Yehosua Elitzur, a settler from Itamar, was charged with manslaughter based on the accusation that he killed a Palestinian who was driving on a road near his settlement. Finally, settlers at an illegal West Bank outpost prevented an ambulance from reaching a Palestinian teenager shot by the outpost's security officer. The young man died before the ambulance arrived. The settlers had placed spikes in the road to the outpost, which punctured one of the vehicle's tires. The settlers also clashed with IDF troops at the scene. The settlers gave conflicting stories about why the Palestinian was shot. (Ma'ariv, 10/25 & 27/04; Jerusalem Post, 10/27/04; & Ha'aretz, 10/27/04)