A review of current political and diplomatic
issues.
Iraq is now the biggest threat to the country, but the
Israeli government is not getting involved with US plans to
launch an attack on Iraq, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said.
He also threatened to call early elections if the budget is
not passed.
Sharon said coordination with the US remains at the highest
level ever, and the government is certainly not against a US
attack on Iraq. He did not think that a US attack on Iraq
would help end Palestinian violence.
As for the Palestinians, Sharon said he believes that Israel
must continue to talk with them to advance relations. Sharon
acknowledged that PA officials who meet with Israelis report
back to Arafat. He said more progress could be made if Arafat
were not in the picture.
At a Knesset meeting with Sharon, MK Michael Kleiner (Herut)
called on Israel to end the war with the Palestinians by
bombing terror bases in civilian areas after warning
civilians to evacuate. Sharon rejected the idea, noting that
there was undesirable result when Hamas military leader Salah
Shehadeh was assassinated. He said that he is glad he has
withstood pressure which he intimated came from the IDF to
use all of the IDF's power.
Sharon also said it would be a mistake to retain control of
the PA areas. He expressed support for Defense Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's plan for the IDF to withdraw from
areas in which terror has been halted.
Ben-Eliezer suggested what has come to be known as the "Gaza
First" plan. Israeli soldiers would withdraw from parts of
Gaza and Bethlehem in exchange for Palestinian guarantees
that no attacks would be launched from these areas. Further
withdrawals would take place if peace holds in these first
areas. Sharon said the positive reaction from some
Palestinian officials to the plan was "a trick."
Sharon noted that the PA's security forces in the Gaza Strip
had not been harmed and therefore they could act there
against terrorists. He expressed a willingness to reach a
deal in Gaza now.
Sharon called the Palestinian Authority a "murderous gang"
that should be removed from power. In reply, "This government
is looking only for more escalation for its military plans.
They are not looking to achieve peace," Arafat said on
Sunday.
There were press reports that the Arabs, led by Fatah, may
declare a halt to attacks on Israeli civilians within the
Green Line. They would continue attacks against Israeli
soldiers and civilians living outside the Green Line.
The fact that Arafat's Fatah was reaching out to other groups
to consider even a partial cease-fire shows a recognition
that the war against Israel has failed and that Palestinians
are searching for a way out, some Israeli analysts said.
For several weeks now, the "Supreme Intifadah Monitoring
Committee," an umbrella group of all Palestinian factions,
has been working on a covenant meant to produce a joint,
binding definition of Palestinian goals and the means to
achieve them.
Palestinian spokesmen insist the covenant is not meant as a
concession either to Israel or America. The covenant was to
have been signed in mid-August, but the signing ceremony was
deferred when Hamas officials asked for more time to consider
their position.
Particularly objectionable to Hamas is the document's call
for a Palestinian state only in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza
Strip. Hamas leaders say that even if they sign the document,
they will reserve the right to continue advocating a
Palestinian state not next to Israel, but in place of it.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-
Eliezer denied reports that they conspired to prevent the
government's 2003 budget from passing in order to bring about
an early general election in January. But Sharon said that he
would call early elections if the budget does not pass in its
current form.
Sharon said that he "does not know when elections will be
held," and that they could very well be held as scheduled, in
October 2003, but he warned that if he is unable to advance
the budget, he does not intend to act as his predecessors and
waste time lobbying for support.
He said that after the next elections he would again aim to
form a national unity government with all of the "Zionist
parties." He noted that national unity governments "irritate"
the Arabs, whose interest is for Israel to be divided, and he
doesn't want to be "in the hands of extremists."
Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin, Sharon's closest ally
in the cabinet, said Sharon warned Labor and Shas of the
possibility of early elections on July 30.
"Sharon knows that Labor wants an excuse to make the
government collapse on the economic, not the security issue,"
Rivlin said. "He doesn't want Labor to remain both in and out
of the government, and he also doesn't want to be seen by the
public as dragged by Shas or the Knesset."
Sources close to former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu,
said Netanyahu warned Sharon that the present makeup of the
Knesset is impossible to work with and that the country has
paid the price of Sharon's ignoring Netanyahu's advice.
Opponents of Ben-Eliezer in Labor said the timing of Sharon's
threat was "especially fishy" because it came immediately
before today's announcement by Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna that
he is challenging Ben-Eliezer for the party leadership. An
early election could expedite the Labor primary, which is to
Ben-Eliezer's advantage.
A poll taken by Netanyahu's office early this week revealed
that Netanyahu has increased his lead over Sharon to four
percent among the Right, but that Sharon leads by one percent
among the general public. Conventional wisdom in Sharon's
office is that the Likud is best off with Ben-Eliezer as its
opponent, but the poll found that the two or three additional
mandates Mitzna would bring Labor would come from Meretz and
Shinui, not from the Likud.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told the Cabinet this
week that Israel's new policy of demolishing the homes of
terrorists is beginning to have a deterrent effect. He said
he had reports of Palestinian parents attempting to stop
their children from carrying out terrorist attacks out of
fear their homes would be demolished.
Ben-Eliezer said that during the past week, Israeli forces
had arrested 25 suspected terrorists. During the same period,
Israel had demolished the homes of 17 terrorists, he added.
14 Israelis were killed and 90 wounded by Palestinian
terrorists in the past week.
The night before the Cabinet meeting, an Israeli woman was
killed and her husband moderately wounded in a terrorist
infiltration of a settlement. The terrorist opened fire on
residents of Moshav Mekhora in the northern West Bank after
cutting through the settlement's electronic security fence.
The two children of Yafit Herenstein, 31, and her husband,
Arno, were unharmed.
