The Jewish Chronicle Blog

Katsav takes leave

Israeli President Moshe Katsav's request for a leave of absence following his indictment on rape charges was approved by the Knesset this afternoon, but last night he took leave of his mind. In a highly emotional, at times hugely embarrassing televised speech to the nation, President Katsav let fly at all his enemies, supposed and real. Rather than make a dignified statement to the nation, denying all charges, Mr Katsav resorted to the "attack is the best form of defence" strategy, and, talking in terms of "witch-hunt" and "McCarthyism", accused the media of working hand-in-hand with the police to unseat him. Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz was also not spared the president's wrath, but while Avi Dichter, the minister in charge of the police demanded that the president apologise for his remarks, Mr Mazuz chose not to respond. The most bizarre moment of Mr Katsav's address came towards the end, when he renewed his attack on the assembled journalists, and said that unlike his decades'-long marriage to Gila, many of them had proved unable to maintain a stable marriage. That may be so, but just how is that relevant to Mr Katsav's claims of innocence? One hopes, for his sake, that he will prepare a better defence when his case comes to trial. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, minutes after the president's speech, yesterday was a sad day for Israel.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Discussions by the beach

The great and good of Israeli policymakers gather each year in Herzliya to ponder the state of the nation. This year’s Herzliya Conference takes place under the shadow of the Iranian nuclear threat, and the American speakers in particular have been very clear to stress that the United States

has no intention of allowing Tehran to go nuclear. The major dissenting voice came from Vice Premier Shimon Peres, who cautioned that the threat should not be exaggerated in view of the poverty and weakness of the regime. “Even if they do enrich uranium, what will they give the children of Tehranfor breakfast - enriched uranium?” He said Iran could be brought to its “natural proportions” by diplomatic and economic measures. In hindsight, the first hint that Dan Halutz was about to hand in his resignation as the IDF’s chief-of-general staff came when he suddenly cancelled his scheduled appearance at the conference. Both the Jerusalem Post website and ynetnews.com, the English-language site of the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, are providing live feeds to the conference and it might be worth clicking in tomorrow night at around 6pm UK time to hear Prime Minister Ehud Olmert deliver the conference’s closing speech. In the past, Ariel Sharon chose the Herzliya Conference as the venue for major policy speeches. While Mr Olmert, scarred by the failure of last summer’s Lebanon war and facing questioning in a corruption probe, is hardly in the position to launch a major new diplomatic initiative, he might seize the opportunity to try and reshape his stuttering premiership.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Shachar Peer does Israel proud

Great tennis from Shachar Peer in the quarter finals of the Australian Open tonight! Although she lost to Serena Williams (6:3, 2:6, 6:8), she gave the former champion a real run for her money and was, at one stage, just two points away from a win (almost becoming the first Israeli to reach the semi-final of a grand-slam). She showed great fighting spirit and in true Israeli style, her 5-odd supporters in the stadium managed to sound louder than the rest of the crowd combined.

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv

Surprise resignation

Dan Halutz’s surprise resignation as Israel’s chief of general staff could not have come at worse time for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Defence Minister Amir Peretz. In his resignation letter, Lieutenant-General Halutz said he was standing down out of a sense of responsibility. However, General Halutz was not the only person responsible for the decision to launch last summer’s war against the Hizbollah and so the pressure will now grow on both Mr Olmert and Mr Peretz to follow the army commander’s lead and step down. Indeed, the pressure is mounting on all fronts against Mr Olmert and Mr Peretz. On Tuesday, the state prosecutor ordered a criminal investigation into Mr Olmert’s actions, while finance minister, during the sale of Bank Leumi, and there are two other possible criminal investigations against the prime minister hovering in the background. Mr Peretz, meanwhile, has lost the confidence of both the country and the Labour party he leads. The Labour party leadership elections are in May and Mr Peretz is trailing way behind Ami Ayalon and Ehud Barak in the opinion polls. Mr Olmert and Mr Peretz have to put their mutual distaste for one another to one side over the next few days to decide on a successor to General Halutz, but that decision might be one of their last major decisions before one, or both of them, follows General Halutz out of the national limelight.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Shameful YouTube videos

Aside from highlighting prat falls and pop videos, the YouTube website does have a serious side. Human rights observers and Palestinian residents in Hebron, for example, have filmed the violent antics of settler children and that of a Hebron resident, Yifat Alkobi, and posted them on the site. Israel’s Channel 10 television published these films last week, leading the government to decide on Sunday to establish a special inter-ministerial committee to tighten law enforcement in Hebron. The short videos are chilling, making one wonder about the wisdom of allowing Jewish settlement in Hebron. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet: “When I saw these pictures on the TV, I was ashamed.”

This post was written by Jeff Barak

They drive me crazy

ISRAELI DRIVERS are notoriously bad, but at least they admit it. According to a Haifa University survey conducted published this week, 24 per cent of Israeli drivers admit to cutting in front of other cars in order to merge into the traffic lane they want. Some 19 per cent will block the road if they just need to jump out of their car to do a quick spot of shopping while another 12 per cent will block parked cars if they feel they need to. And yes, they’re not that patient either. Nearly a third (28 per cent) of Israeli drivers toot their horns when stuck in a traffic jam.

Paradoxically, though, the number of traffic fatalities in Israel dropped in 2006 to its lowest level in 40 years, with 446 people dying in road accidents.

According to figures released by the traffic police, this decline is part of a trend.  In 2005, 482 people died on the roads, which itself was then the lowest number of fatalities for two decades. The police explained the fall in traffic deaths as due to a combination of an improved driving culture in Israel (they obviously hadn’t seen the above survey) and greater law enforcement on the more dangerous roads.

Road 40, from Kfar Saba to Eilat, was the country’s most lethal road, with 23 fatal accidents, followed by Road 4, the old Haifa-Tel Aviv road, with 16 such accidents. The safest major road was the Ayalon freeway, which suffered five fatalities.

The city with the most fatal accidents was Tel Aviv, with 26, followed by Jerusalem with 13, and Haifa, 12. Rishon Lezion, with three fatal accidents, was the safest city in which to drive.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Cosmetic, or real change?

In his letter yesterday announcing his return to Israeli politics and the battle for the Labour Party leadership, Ehud Barak wrote:

“It is possible that I became prime minister too soon. I made many mistakes, and my lack of experience was to my detriment. Today I know that there are no shortcuts, certainly not in public and political life, and that leadership is a shared burden, not a solo mission. It is impossible to succeed alone and coherent thinking, will and talent on their own are insufficient to run a state.” Although Mr Barak has had the prominent mole on his face cosmetically removed since leaving the premiership, one does wonder whether a leopard can really change his spots. The words “Ehud Barak” and “shared leadership” don’t naturally go together.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Gloomy assessment

If you’re looking for good news, look away now. Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons is only a matter time, according to Dr Zvi Shtauber, the director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. He said Teheran was determined to achieve this aim and “I don’t see the same determination on the other side to stop them.” Speaking at a press conference this week to mark the publication of the institute’s Middle East Strategic Balance 2005-2006, Dr Shtauber also said this summer’s Lebanon war damaged Israel’s deterrent image and exposed weaknesses in the IDF and the decision-making process in Israel. Dr Shtauber, a former Israeli ambassador to the UK and a retired brigadier-general, noted that the “cost of a nuclear Iran will be much greater than the cost of military action against Iran,” but he also noted the difficulty of taking action against Teheran. Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council and a member of the INSS management, said that if Israel were to attack Iran’s nuclear plants, it could only do so with the prior political agreement of the United States and with American military support. And if the news surrounding Iran isn’t bad enough, the prestigious INNS report also said that the threats to Middle East security and stability in 2006 had worsened due to the lack of progress in the resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the absence of significant achievements in the war against global terror and Islamic extremism, and the failure of American efforts to stabilise the situation in Iraq. Yiftah Shapir, one of the authors of the report, argued that while Israel enjoyed military superiority over its neighbours, both in terms of equipment and personnel, some of this superiority was “irrelevant for the type of conflict Israel faces.” Stressing the vulnerability of the Israeli home front, he said that Israel’s failure to combat Hizbollah’s short-range rockets during the Lebanon war had been noted by the Palestinians, who were now seeking similar weapons. It's not a report to be read at bedtime.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Whistling in the political wind

Don’t expect any political aftershocks in the wake of this week’s Magidor Committee recommendations into the reform of Israel’s political system. The committee’s most revolutionary proposal is that half of Israel’s 120 Knesset members should represent a constituency so as to increase the links between voters and their elected representatives. Such a welcome change would also have the effect of drastically reducing the influence of Israel’s smaller parties, which is why it will never happen. If it was ever discussed in the Knesset, not only would the small parties vote against it, but so would the larger parties, due to their short-term needs to keep the small parties on side. The report, which was commissioned by President Moshe Katsav and has no official standing, defined a number of central weaknesses in the present system, including: government instability due to the large number of parties in the Knesset; no norm of responsibility and deficient parliamentary scrutiny over the government’s activity. And yet, despite the claims that Israel’s leaders are hamstrung due to their coalition commitments, we should not forget that when a prime minister really wants to do something, he can. Ariel Sharon, for example, overcame both opposition within his Likud party and his coalition to push forward his disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Claims of government instability are often simply an excuse for lack of leadership.

This post was written by Jeff Barak