Israel Update for January 2008

Analysts said Lieberman realizes that PM Olmert is not nearly strong enough to secure support for such enormously controversial peace process concessions from many of his own Kadima party legislators, let alone from Yisrael Beiteinu or the Orthodox Shas party-even if the feeble PA was strong enough to sign a final peace accord. And the fact is many Israeli leaders and security analysts, including Lieberman, suspect the PA may crumble this year in the face of growing Hamas popularity, bolstered by Iran's threat to wipe Israel off of the world map. So why remain in a disintegrating government and risk losing future electoral support from his core voters? The Russian immigrant politician understands that his backers are hardly looking to bolster Bush's legacy by agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state next to their homes, which most assume would only end up pouring deadly rockets down upon them.

Shas Threatens To Bolt As Well

Avigdor Lieberman's dramatic action was a major blow to PM Olmert's rule, taking his coalition from a very comfortable 78 majority in the Israeli Knesset to just 67 seats. However that number would still be more than enough to carry on-if another large party was not also threatening to leave over Olmert's peace process positions. But the Sephardic Shas religious party, with 12 Knesset seats and four government ministers, is doing just that.

Analysts say that if Shas bolts, Olmert would find it impossible to govern, let alone push through a final peace accord. This is despite the fact that some non-coalition left-wing and Arab parties say they would support his continued rule in future no-confidence motions as long as he seriously pursues the final status treaty that Bush wants to see finalized this year.

Shas leaders are well aware that their party lost some of its public backing after they failed to strongly oppose Ariel Sharon's 2005 pullout of Israeli soldiers and civilians from the Gaza Strip and portions of northern Samaria. They realize that a vast majority of Shas voters are totally opposed to a Palestinian state arising in Judaism's historic heartland, let alone in any part of Jerusalem, especially if there is even the slightest possibility it will end up under Hamas control.

Therefore party leader Eli Yishai, also serving as a Deputy Premier, demanded an urgent meeting with Olmert soon after President Bush left the country. He made clear he wanted to discuss the reported peace concessions the PM had agreed to offer the Palestinians during private talks with the American leader.

During their January 22 meeting, PM Olmert was said to have argued that Shas needed to remain in the government to lend him a legitimate excuse to resist some of the more excessive PA negotiating demands, especially for control over parts of Jerusalem and for millions of Palestinians living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the contested territories to be granted a "right to return" to pre-state family locations inside of present day Israel. Israeli media reports said Yishai responded by demanding that Olmert disclose what concessions he might have authorized Foreign Minister Livni to offer the PA negotiating team. He argued that all government coalition partners had a right to know in advance what Israel was preparing to offer the Palestinians, especially concerning the supremely sensitive issue of Jerusalem.

Yishai's warnings were later underlined by Shas spiritual leader and party founder Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who basically sets the party's policies and agenda. "I want everyone to know that Shas will not divide Jerusalem, and will not sit in a government that divides Jerusalem," Yosef announced in a written statement. Analysts say although Shas leaders are loath to lose the large government largess they currently rake in for sitting around the cabinet table, they understand their future electoral success may well depend on how firmly they stand now over an issue crucial to most conservative religious voters-the unity of Jerusalem under full Jewish control.

Rockets Galore

While President Bush was meeting Abbas, some of the PA leader's top aides told local and international journalists they possessed hard intelligence evidence showing Iran and Syria had banded together to support Hamas in its attempts to gain complete control over the West Bank, as the Islamic group did last June over the Gaza Strip. The fact that Hamas has the ability to destroy the renewed American-backed peace process-as they effectively wrecked the previous Oslo accords through a series of terrorist attacks in the 1990s-was amply illustrated when the militant group gained the international spotlight by sponsoring various violent actions in the weeks following the Bush visit.

The Hamas counterstrikes actually began a few days before the President's entourage arrived at Ben Gurion airport, when a Katyusha rocket was launched for the first time from the Gaza Strip, landing over ten miles away in the northern part of the coastal city of Ashkelon. Israeli security officials had warned that the fundamentalist group was importing more powerful longer range rockets via the southern border with Egypt, paid for and supplied by Iran and the Lebanese Hizbullah militia. The Katyusha landed almost half way between Gaza and the southern outskirts of metropolitan Tel Aviv, Israel's largest urban area.

While Bush was busy talking with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials, a barrage of Kassam rockets and mortar shells were lobbed at the town of Sderot and at other Israeli civilian locations. In Gaza City, Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders warned Abbas not to meet with the hated American President, with some calling for him to be assassinated while visiting PA controlled territory (echoing an Al Qaeda call issued earlier in the week). This was quickly followed by a nighttime rocket assault on the American International School in the city. The anti-tank rocket attack heavily damaged the building for a second time since early last year. As the perpetrators would know, the school is operated by local Palestinians and has nothing to do with the United States.

The mortar and rocket barrage further escalated in the days following the President's departure, prompting IDF forces to step up their operations to take out the men firing the occasionally deadly weapons. In the process, the son of former PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar was killed, along with 18 other Muslim fighters. This gave Hamas an excuse to unleash over 40 rockets and mortars at the western Negev region four days after Bush left, with most landing in the beleaguered town of Sderot. Later in the week, one struck a factory there, prompting its owner to announce he was shutting his doors for good.

Under increasing pressure from the Israeli public to do more to halt the blitz, the Olmert government sealed all border crossings into the Gaza Strip, freezing all shipments of food and fuel into the small Palestinian coastal zone. However media savvy Hamas leaders saw this as a perfect opportunity to checkmate the "Zionist enemy," urging local journalists to send out reports highlighting the 'massive suffering' the move was causing their people. Sensing a rising Arab tide of support for Hamas, Abbas himself blasted the border closures and supported an Arab League call for an 'urgent" United Nations meeting to condemn Israel (a draft Security Council statement was later blocked by Washington, supported by several European countries, who noted that it did not even mention that unprovoked Palestinian rocket attacks had prompted the Israeli action).