Subject: Israel in the News - June 25-28, 1998 (Jerusalem Post) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 00:52:04 +0000 To: "Arutz-7 List"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Thursday, June 25, 1998 1 Tammuz 5758 Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition Netanyahu pushing hard for referendum By MICHAL YUDELMAN and news agencies (June 25) - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday made intensive efforts, including via a telephone marathon, to muster support for a referendum, accusing those who oppose it with wanting to harm the government. By last night, however, the number of coalition MKs, including many in the Likud, who oppose the referendum was estimated at 48, while only 15 were in favor or had not yet decided. Netanyahu called a meeting of coalition party leaders, putting his whole weight behind a referendum. He told them he could hold a referendum two months after a decision is made. He said the referendum is a tool intended to help the government, and would help bridge the differences among the population. Political sources said that Netanyahu intends to announce the planned referendum today, if he is assured of sufficient support. Those objecting to the proposal include Agriculture Minister Rafael Eitan (Tsomet), Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai (Likud), coalition whip Meir Sheetrit (Likud), Shas, Gesher, five of the seven Yisrael Ba'aliya MKs, United Torah Judaism, Moledet, and two of The Third Way's four MKs. The objectors said their main reason is not knowing whether Netanyahu wants the referendum to advance the peace process or as a means to delay a pullback decision. Shas leader Aryeh Deri said his party tends to object to a referendum, fearing it would set a precedent for issues of state and religion. "Tomorrow someone will get up and say they want a referendum to separate state from religion. Every month it will be something else. What's the Knesset for? We have a principled stand that the government and Knesset should reach a decision [on the pullout]. This is what they were elected for," Deri said. "In any case, a referendum should not come instead of a decision. If there's any place for a referendum, it's only to prevent a rift in the nation and help reach unity. "If we are convinced it would not delay the pullout and contribute to unity, then we'll support it." Deri said Shas will not demand any political benefits in exchange for its support. In Washington, the US State Department urged Israel again yesterday to approve a US proposal for turning over 13 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority and said a referendum may not a good idea if it adds to the delay. "If it involves significant delay of any breakthrough, that would be of concern to us," a statement said. "Our emphasis remains on the need for rapid progress to reach agreement on implementing the further redeployments," State Department spokesman James Rubin said. He tempered the statement, though, by saying it was up to Israel to decide what to do, and that it was "not obvious" that a referendum would produce delay in reaching an agreement and reopening negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. By some accounts, a referendum would delay a withdrawal for at least two months because parliament would have to pass special legislation first. Arafat is urging the administration to step up pressure on Israel. In a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called for public disclosure of the US withdrawal plan. But Rubin said "it wouldn't be helpful at this time to take that step. And so we're not going to do so." *********************************************************************** Thursday, June 25, 1998 1 Tammuz 5758 Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition Israel threatens to spurn UN bodies if PLO upgraded By HERB KEINON JERUSALEM (June 25) - Israel would retaliate against a UN decision to upgrade the status of the PLO by cutting back on cooperation with UN bodies interested in becoming more involved in the Middle East, a senior Foreign Ministry official warned yesterday. The official said the Palestinian move to upgrade its UN status is a violation of the "spirit of Oslo," since the accords state that neither side should take dramatic unilateral actions that alter the status quo prior to a final-status agreement. Although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the resolution would "severely damage the peace process" if passed, the Foreign Ministry official did not say what action Israel would take against the Palestinian Authority. A debate in the General Assembly on the proposal was scheduled for Friday, but has been postponed. Israel has been lobbying intensely against the move. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called PA Chairman Yasser Arafat on Tuesday and discussed the issue. Netanyahu also spoke with British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the matter. The Foreign Ministry official said the Palestinians are interested in the upgrade because it will provide them with the status of "a state minus," and enhance their position in the international community. Such a move, he said, would not only have symbolic consequences, but tangible ones, since the Palestinians would be able to draft resolutions and participate in all debates on the Middle East. "Their ability to maneuver against us at the UN will be radically enhanced," the official said. Yitzhak Lior, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director-general for international organizations, noted that since Israel has been boxed out of regional groupings at the UN, it can never dream of full representation on the Security Council or other prestigious UN bodies. An enhanced status for the Palestinian delegation could paradoxically give "Palestine" more clout at the UN than Israel, he said. ********************************************************************* Friday, June 26, 1998 2 Tammuz 5758 Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition PM: Referendum only after pullback agreement finalized By HERB KEINON and MICHAL YUDELMAN TEL AVIV (June 26) -- Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took some of the air out of the referendum balloon yesterday, saying it will be brought to the cabinet for a decision only when an agreement with the Palestinians is in hand. "I believe that a referendum is a way to prevent rifts in the nation," Netanyahu said, in a speech in Tel Aviv to the Moshe Dayan Forum for Political and Social Affairs. "In order for there to be a referendum, there has to be something to have the referendum on. "When and if we reach an agreement [with the Palestinians], we will bring the [referendum] options to the government, and the government will have to decide on the agreement, and the question of the referendum." Netanyahu thus put to rest speculation that the cabinet would decide on the referendum issue at its upcoming meeting on Sunday. President Ezer Weizman yesterday added his weight to the mounting opposition against the referendum on the pullback. Weizman said he did not think it was right to hold a referendum on "something partial and incomplete. The nation has to be presented with something completed, as the Camp David accord and the peace treaty with Egypt were presented to the Knesset. Here it's a particle of something and it's not clear how it will end." Coalition chairman Meir Sheetrit called on Netanyahu to give up the referendum idea and bring the pullback agreement to the cabinet and Knesset for approval. Sheetrit said there is no majority in the Knesset for a referendum, but there is a majority for the redeployment, even if all the MKs belonging to the Eretz Yisrael Front vote against it. He noted the National Religious Party is not likely to bring down the government, despite its objection to the pullout, because the alternative - a Labor government - is much worse. Netanyahu, meanwhile, blamed the Palestinians for the delay in reaching an agreement. "The media has reported that I am dragging things out and holding them up," Netanyahu said. "We are not dragging anything out. We have made significant progress. Most of the gaps have been closed; there is one specific gap that has not been closed, but it is possible to do so." Netanyahu took the Palestinians to task for not fulfilling their obligations under the agreement, saying his government is "no longer willing to be satisfied with promises or commitments on paper. We want real implementation, dates, and a way to supervise the implementation." Netanyahu said he wants the Palestinian police, "which is turning into an army," to shrink back to the size allowed for under the Oslo Accords. "We want a list of the police allowed for under the agreement, and the list of the police that were released." The same is true of the confiscation of weapons, and annulment of the Palestinian covenant. "We don't want to hear that they will collect weapons on a particular, undefined date. We want to know when they will be collected, who will collect them, who will move them out of the territories, and who will supervise it. The same thing is true regarding the annulment of the covenant." If and when an agreement is reached, Netanyahu said, it will be done in stages in order to create "concrete reciprocity." "They will implement, and we will implement, they will implement and we will implement," he said. This way, he said, the entire agreed-upon territory to be given the Palestinians won't be transferred until they fulfill their obligations, a process that could take a few months. ************************************************************************ Friday, June 26, 1998 2 Tammuz 5758 Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition PM met with two PLC members By STEVE RODAN and MOHAMMED NAJIB JERUSALEM (June 26) -- Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu secretly met with two senior Palestinian legislators and discussed final-status solutions for the territories, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The meeting took place on Monday night in Ramat Aviv and involved Netanyahu, Marwan Barghouti, a PLC member and the head of Fatah in the West Bank, PLC member Hussam Khader from Nablus, and the MK who arranged the meeting. Much of the 45-minute discussion was taken up by the issue of final status. Netanyahu, according to sources, said he was willing to eventually grant the Palestinians more than the 13.1 percent withdrawal the US is now urging, as part of a final-status solution. But he said he will never accept an independent Palestinian state and will never concede Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. Sources involved with the meeting said Netanyahu discussed the current stalemate in efforts to effect a redeployment in the West Bank and the government decision to expand the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem. Neither Barghouti nor Khader agreed to comment on the report, nor would a spokesman for Netanyahu. The two PLC members were quoted as telling Netanyahu that they and their colleagues want to advance the peace process and reach a settlement with Israel. At the same time, they warned that continuation of the stalemate would lead to an explosion in the Middle East. Sources said Netanyahu and the Palestinian legislators agreed to hold more meetings. The prime minister also empowered an envoy to represent him at future meetings with the Palestinians. One such meeting is scheduled to be held in Rhodes from July 1-5 and will discuss the peace process. The sources said Barghouti and Khader had already met with the MK in Ramallah and later visited the Knesset. The sources said the purpose of the contacts is for both sides to know each other's thinking and for the Israelis to have open access to Palestinian rank-and-file leaders. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was not informed in advance of the meeting, the sources said. But Arafat agreed to allow PLC members to meet with Netanyahu's representatives in Rhodes next month. ********************************************************************* Sunday, June 28, 1998 4 Tammuz 5758 Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition PM dumps referendum for Mideast parley By HERB KEINON, MICHAL YUDELMAN, and news agencies JERUSALEM (June 28) - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has lost interest in holding a referendum on a West Bank pullout and instead favors holding another international peace conference on the Middle East, sources said yesterday. A source in the Prime Minister's Office said Netanyahu would like to see more talks held along the lines of the 1991 Madrid conference dealing with regional - not bilateral - issues. Netanyahu was quoted as saying in an interview with the conservative Spanish newspaper ABC yesterday that such a peace conference would be a positive thing. The interview was published on the eve of the scheduled arrival in Jerusalem today of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. The proposal to convene a conference that would deal with regional issues, such as water and the environment, is one Netanyahu has supported recently during visits both to England and the US. He was quoted in ABC as saying that such a meeting could be helpful in resolving multilateral issues, while bilateral talks with the Palestinians would continue to take place in the US. In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday dismissed the proposal to convene another international conference as a ruse to harm the Oslo Accords. Mubarak, who met with Aznar yesterday, said that with this proposal Netanyahu wants to "do away with the Madrid and Oslo processes, as well as the principle of land for peace." Aznar said in Cairo that he would support convening another international peace conference on condition that it would be a continuation of the Madrid conference, and that it would encourage the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. "I am not opposed to another conference, as long as it does not destroy what was achieved up to now, and will work toward furthering the peace process," he said. In his interview with the Spanish newspaper, Netanyahu said that the peace process "won't move forward as long as we don't have confidence that the Palestinians will fight terror as they promised." Netanyahu also said that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has to decide whether "he prefers signing a peace treaty with Israel or with Hamas terrorists. It is easier to do this with Hamas, but I am trying to compel him to choose the other option." Regarding the referendum, which was the subject of intense discussion last week, political sources said over the weekend that Netanyahu abandoned the initiative last Thursday, when it became clear he does not have a Knesset majority for it. The prime minister feared he might lose his coalition, especially due to the opposition of Shas and the haredi parties, the sources said. Shas leader MK Aryeh Deri made it clear he was not about to agree to a referendum without an adequate exchange, such as a number of haredi national radio stations. The religious parties also decided to object to a referendum when they realized the next issues to be determined by referendum might be religious ones, such as separation of state and religion, conversion, and civil marriage. Nevertheless, Communications Minister Limor Livnat, who was charged last week with the technical preparations for holding a referendum, has received no instructions to cease her intensive activity, Israel Radio reported yesterday. Labor Party leader Ehud Barak yesterday again attacked the referendum idea as a trial balloon. "What we had here was a 'referendum interruptus' whose results were known in advance, whose intention was merely to stall, and whose price could be bloodshed," Barak said. Barak noted, however, that if "this strange government, in which anything is possible, does hold this public opinion survey it calls a referendum," Labor would call on its supporters to vote in favor of the redeployment. "We'll show Netanyahu and the country that the radical right wing and settlers are isolated in their objection to the pullout," he said. ***********************************************************************