Israel Update for November 2005

NUMBERS GAME

Opinion polls taken soon after Peretz won the party primary race revealed that a major political sea change may lie just ahead. Several currently medium-sized parties are forecast to decline significantly in next year's early national ballot, while Labour returns as a major force on the stage. Labour under Peretz would have captured around 28 Knesset seats if the new leader had stood against a Likud party headed by Sharon, who would have won a significant 39 mandates. This is a definite improvement from Labour's current 21 seats, but still would not have been enough to crown Peretz prime minister.

Running under his new party label, opinion polls show that Sharon could capture up to 32 Knesset seats to Labour's 27, with Netanyahu as Likud leader coming in close behind with 25 seats. This would mean that the new Labour leader would probably have to swallow hard and join another Sharon-led coalition government, or else cast his lot with Netanyahu-whose free market economic policies Peretz utterly despises.

Interesting enough, the polls forecast that two currently substantial Knesset parties will shrink dramatically in the next election, partly due to Peretz's unexpected triumph. The Moroccan-born Peretz, who is only 54 years old, is projected to capture the votes of many fellow disaffected Sephardic Jews who normally vote for the Shas religious party. It is expected to lose up to half its current Knesset seats, leaving it with a mere five or six representatives in the next legislature. In a similar way, many centrist voters say they will abandon the Shinui party led by Tommy Lapid and head back to Labour, or to the new Sharon party, leaving Shinui with just five or six mandates, also around half its current total. The ultra-leftwing Meretz party is also projected to shrink to half its current size, winning a paltry three seats.

However the cookie crumbles, Labour's apparent return to center stage means that Sharon will have less power behind him if he remains Israel's Prime Minister. He will probably have to adopt leftist economic policies in order to govern effectively, which could alienate international investors who liked Netanyahu's free market approach. On the other hand, if Sharon emerges as the winner of a plurality of votes as the head of his new party, he will need to satisfy liberal socialist voters instead of the many conservative nationalists that dominate his Likud party. How this would affect his dream of drawing final borders for Israel after enacting further Jewish population pullouts from Samaria and Judea is anybody's guess.

RICE DISHES UP ACCORD

Just before the political earthquake struck Israel, American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice put off a scheduled trip to Korea in order to broker a border deal between Israeli officials and the Palestinian Authority. The mid-November agreement, put together during an all night negotiating session in her Jerusalem hotel suite, will allow bus travel between the Gaza Strip and Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria beginning December 15th. Israeli security officials have long feared that permitting Palestinians to traverse Israeli territory on the ground would lead to increased terror attacks, but PA officials pledged to prevent such attacks. Several Likud party legislators predicted that the PA would fail to keep its word once again, producing more Israeli civilian terrorist casualties.

The accord would also permit up to 150 Palestinian trucks carrying produce and other goods to cross into Israel every day of the week except Saturday by the end of this year. The numbers would increase to 400 per day by the end of 2006 if Palestinian leaders keep their promise to prevent terror groups from using the vehicles to smuggle weapons or men into Israel. Up to 35 cargo trucks were allowed to pass into Israel each day before last August's Israeli civilian and army pullout from the Gaza Strip. Arab economists say the movement is essential to halt growing unemployment in the crowded coastal zone.

Under the agreement, European Union monitors will be stationed along Gaza's southern border crossing point into Egypt. Israel will merely be able to view who is coming and going via closed circuit television cameras, but will not have the final say over who enters or leaves the Gaza Strip. The EU force is expected to be headed by an Italian general. Analysts said the move was a major concession by Sharon to European leaders who have long insisted on having a greater role in the region. Known to be more pro-Palestinian than the Americans, they hope to gain further roles in the years ahead, including sending ground forces to patrol any final international border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. Israel has consistently rejected such demands, although Binyamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres have both suggested that Israel apply to be an associate member of the expanding European Union.

Secretary of State Rice also persuaded Sharon to allow construction to begin of a Palestinian seaport in Gaza City. Israeli leaders fear that such a port will be used to smuggle banned weapons like anti aircraft missiles into the violence-prone Palestinian zone, and also to ferret out terrorists to be dropped along Israel long Mediterranean coastline. However Sharon stood firm against reopening the Palestinian airport in the southern Gaza Strip, which was closed after Yasser Arafat was caught smuggling weapons into the zone in his private jet. Sharon said he would only allow aircraft to take off and land at the partially destroyed airport if Israeli security personnel could be stationed there to inspect incoming cargo-which was firmly rejected by PA leaders.

TERROR STRIKES JORDAN

Many Palestinians expressed shock and anger after Iraqi-based terrorists attacked three hotels in Amman Jordan on the evening of November 9th. Among the nearly 60 people killed in the powerful explosions were more than 20 Palestinians, including PA West Bank Intelligence Chief Bashir Nafeh, along with a Palestinian diplomat and a prominent banker. The high Palestinian death toll resulted from the fact that a wedding involving a Palestinian family from the village of Silet al-Thaher were at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, which sustained the most casualties. Two American Arab citizens, an Israeli Arab and three Asian hotel worker were also killed in the attacks. The blasts were claimed by Abu Zarqawi's Al Qaida terrorist group. The Jordanian-born Zarqawi is of Palestinian descent. A statement posted on the internet said the group had chosen to hit the Jordanian capital because it is "the backyard camp for the Crusader army" which is "now in the range of fire of our holy jihad warriors."

Meanwhile the international Al Qaida terrorist network picked up new enthusiastic holy warriors when nine Hamas members serving time in Israeli jails announced that they were joining the group headed by Osama Bin Laden. In a prepared statement, the Palestinian Muslims said their decision was based on this year's "deplorable decline" in the number of Hamas terror attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. The announcement coincided with Israeli security warnings that Arab Al Qaida operatives have set up shop in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, having infiltrated into the area when the border fence with Egypt was blasted open by Hamas members in September.

Dealing with another warfront, Ariel Sharon met in special session with his defense minister on November 20th to discuss indications that the radical Lebanese Shiite Hizbullah militia is preparing to launch a fresh wave of attacks upon northern Israel. This came after senior army leaders said they suspected that the Iranian and Syrian-backed group is planning to intensify attacks along the border in an attempt to draw attention away from the heavy international criticism of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in the wake of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Officials noted "unusual" Hizbullah activites in the area, possibly signalling that a new offensive is imminent.

With bombshells falling all around both metaphorically and-far too often-in actuality, it is more than reassuring to recall that "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which will never be moved, but stands forever." (Psalm 125:1)