Opposition - to what exactly?

Prime Minister Netanyahu does not really want Tzipi Livni in his cabinet. He made her and her party a particularly miserable and insulting offer. So insulting that even the most opportunistic members of her party – those who dream of joining the government – even as the deputy sub-minister in charge of unnecessary ministries – were not able to support it.

Still, Livni and her party are in trouble. More than half a year passed since she led the party into opposition, with a loud fanfare. Still she has not managed to make herself at all conspicuous in the Knesset nor did she gather the kind of public support of an adamant opposition leader.

Again and again, Tzipi Livini declares that the way to peace is via the creation of a Palestinian state – but Netanyhau also says that, now. True, Netanyahu's sincerity in these statements (and in general) is open to serious doubt. On the other hand, it is also a fact that for three years Livni held a senior position in the government of Israel, and that in these years she had not brought about any visible advance towards ending the occupation and making peace with the Palestinians. She did, in the same years, become deeply involved in acts which nowadays make it impossible for her to enter Birtain, for fear of a war crimes prosecution.

People simply don't understand what is the big difference between Bibi and Tzipi..

The horse and the rider

Raed a-Sarkaji, Anan Sabah and Raghsan Abu Sharah, inhabitants of the city Nablus - were they responsible for the killing of settler Meir Avshalom-Chai? Maybe yes and maybe not. The question will remain open and no court will decide on it. The Israel Defense Forces and the General Security Service made a shortcut.

Instead of troubling judges and lawyers, army officers and security agents judged the three in a very fast proceeding, condemning them to death and implementing the sentence on the spot, during a colossal show raid into the heart of the city Nablus (which is supposed to be under security control of the Palestinian

Authority ).

Alex Fishman - military commentator for Yedioth Ahronoth, and not particularly leaning towards the opinions of the Israeli peace camp - wrote:  "In such a politically sensitive period, it might have been better for an operation on such a scale to get a prior approval from the political echelon in Israel. There are now quite a few security officials biting their nails over the blunder of having destroyed the Fatah institutions during the Second Intifada .  Wasn't this medicine too aggressive? The operation in Nablus definitely eroded the status of the Palestinian Authority, a rude gesture straight in the face. It could turn out be the proverbial nail which causes the horse to lose its shoe, like in For Want of a Nail.

 

A war is going on there

Last week Rabbi Meir Abshalom Chai of the Shavei Shomron settlement was killed in a Palestinian ambush, while traveling in his car on the roads of the West Bank. All press reports emphasized that he was the father of seven. His fellow settlers made shrill demands to increase the roadblocks and prevent Palestinians from traveling on the roads, "so that they could not harm settlers".

"Nobody talks about the fact that we live in a war, here" complained Menorah Hazani, Rabbi Chai's neighbor at the Shavei Shomron settlement, on the pages of the extreme right "Makor Rishon". Indeed, the settlers live in a war, a ceaseless daily war. To rob the land of another people, trample on them and deny them the basic hope of being free in their own land is certainly an act of war. Meir Abshalom Chai was a soldier in the settlers' army, the army which in the name of God and the Bible conducts a war against the Palestinian people – a war to which most citizens of Israel are not party and don't want to be. A settler army which has made the whole of the Wild West Bank into a big battlefield. But why did this soldier have to travel on the battlefield in a vulnerable civilian car?

And why did he have to bring his seven children to live in the middle of the battlefield?

As we already talk to Hamas…

Yesterday night, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his senior ministers discussed the proposals made to them by the Hamas leadership, and after long deliberations formulated a counter proposal, to be passed back to Hamas. This evening, Netanyahu's proposals will be on the desk of Ismail Haniye in Gaza and that of Khaled Mashal in Damascus. The Hamas leaders will draft their answer and send it to Netanyahu in his Jerusalem office. A regular process of negotiations, even if Netanyahu and Mashal are not sitting at the same table but corresponding via Egyptian and German mediators.

The government of Israel is negotiating with Hamas – openly, in the broad sight of all, with details of the proposals and counter-proposals leaked daily to the Israeli and international media. It is already going on for years. But the negotiations are on one subject and one only – an exchange of prisoners, Gilad Shalit for x Palestinian prisoners.

Why, in fact? When we talk anyway, why not open comprehensive negotiations between the government of Israel and the leadership of the Hamas movement – which won the elections three years ago and which undoubtedly represents a significant part of the Palestinian people? Negotiations with the Palestinians can only succeed when they include Hamas, too. Negotiations aimed at achieving peace, or at the very least a stable, long term cease-fire. (Among other things, it would be the best way to ensure that the Palestinians about to be released in exchange for Shalit will not engage in new acts of violence.)

Undoubtedly, the mediators – Egyptian as well as German – would be ready to pass Binyamin Netanyahu's offers to the Hamas leadership. If he has anything to offer.

Police in the service of robbers

It happened on Friday afternoon. The brave and industrious men of the Jerusalem Police charged head-on at demonstrators who marched through the streets, some of them drumming and others dressed as clowns. Twenty-seven protesters were dragged into the police patrol cars and sent to spend the weekend behind bars at the Russian Compound detention center.

No, these protesters did not riot or block roads, nor did they violate public order. They just walked, quietly and orderly, on the sidewalk, bound to a protest demonstration at Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. A protest on the spot where settlers are, openly and in broad daylight, breaking into Palestinian houses, throwing the inhabitants out into the street and establishing themselves in residence, hoisting the Blue-and-White flag on the roof.

The Jerusalem police is very deeply concerned for the safety of these settler robbers. They must not be disturbed, either during the robbery or afterwards. Demonstrators must not be allowed to get to the vicinity of these houses, the police spokesperson explained – this is strictly forbidden. God forbid, the protesters might have actually prevented some of the settlers from returning in time to the house which they seized, there to hold Shabbat services according to the structures of Jewish tradition and to light Hanukah candles and sing of the heroism of the Maccabees.

Two hours after the detention of the protesters, the settlers and their friends came out to hold a public prayer in the streets of Sheikh Jarrah. Feeling elated by the prayer, they went on to throw stones there, beat Palestinians passing by, break into a house and there beat up two children, who needed medical treatment and were evacuated by ambulance. The Jerusalem police were apparently still tired of chasing peaceniks. For the settler antics the police had no energy left...

P.S. On Saturday night, the 27 detainees were brought before Judge Liran of the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, their fellow protesters demonstrating and drumming outside the building. The police demanded that they be charged with "rioting" and ordered to stay out of the city of Jerusalem for 90 days. The judge rejected this out of hand and ordered all detainees released on their own recognizance.

The police representative complained that "leftist demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah lay a great burden on the police". The court reiterated the obligation of police in a democratic society to allocate sufficient forces to safeguard the holding of political protest.

To be continued next Friday, in Sheikh Jarrah.

Netanyahu buys cheaply

In her debut speech, the new European Union Foreign Minister strongly condemned the expulsion of Palestinian residents from their homes in East Jerusalem, and said that what Benjamin Netanyahu calls "settlement freeze" is "partial and insufficiant".

Ben Kaspit, political correspondent of Ma'ariv known for his extensive contacts in the corridors of power, wrote yesterday in his column: "Israel's diplomatic status is undergoing a rapid collapse, whose like we have never known before. We did undergo crises during the first Lebanon War, the First Intifada and on other occasions - but never did we fall from a such great height to such a low depth, and the bottom is still far down" (Ma'ariv, December 18).

And Kaspit added that "Netanyahu is licking his wounds from the settlement freeze. In retrospect, he greatly regrets it. The price is high, and no goods were delivered.". Daily, the Prime Minister is publicly embroiled with settlers, rabbis the extreme-right Hotobeli Faction inside his party - and yet the world still fails to recognize his merits as a great seeker after peace, the international criticism is still continuing and intensifying. Netanyahu's bureau tends to turn their fire on Attorney Yitzhak Molho, the man who ran the prolonged talks with the representatives of President Obama and cooked up the "freeze deal".

It's not nice to put all the blame on Molho, a faithful messenger and shrewd lawyer, who had gotten personal instructions from the Prime Minister and fully carried them out. He carried on tough and exhausting negotiations with the Americans, and managed to lower the price and obtain a settlement freeze lite, very lite indeed. Not a full freeze, without exception, but a freeze which enables the continued construction of three thousand housing units in the settlements, a freeze which does not include East Jerusalem, a freeze which puts no halt to the continued expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.

Attorney Molcho did get goods for the price which the Prime Minister was willing to pay, a real bargain price. But the goods were no good. So it is not really a good deal even when the price was dirt cheap.

Villain of the week

First we were angry with Turkey and announced a boycott of tourism to Antalya.

Then we were angry with Sweden and announced a boycott of IKEA.

This week it is Britain's turn to be the target of Israeli national outrage.

If this continues in this pace we will soon only be doing business with Micronesia.