Promise and Uncertainty in the Middle East--Talking Points

Israel: Changing of the Guard, March 28^th 2006 Elections without Sharon

Kadima

· The party is made up of prominent defectors from both sides of Israel's traditional left-right divide, forming a new centrist movement that could win wide electoral support.

· The key question is: Without the glue provided by Mr Sharon's leadership, will the Kadima members - they don't even have a collective name yet - stick together to see through his vision, or fall apart squabbling?

· At the moment, Kadima is led by acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, considered a capable and seasoned politician, but with none of Mr Sharon's charisma or the heroic status he has secured among Israelis.

Likud

· The right-wing Likud party, co-founded by Mr Sharon after he left the army in 1973, was dealt a severe blow when he abandoned it - having already split the party with last year's withdrawal of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip.

· Binyamin Netanyahu won back the leadership, and - after being repeatedly outmanoeuvred by Mr Sharon - is considered to have greatly improved chances against Mr Olmert.

Labour

· Labour is under new leadership of former union boss Amir Peretz, which makes it hard to predict the party's future prospects.

· Labour's long-standing platform, separation between Israel and the Palestinians, has been trumped by Mr Sharon's presumed vision - although he never spelt it out explicitly - of drawing Israel's borders to the country's advantage unilaterally, without negotiations.

· That seems to be the view of a large proportion of the electorate, according to the latest polls which suggest Kadima will still get 36-42 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, even without Mr Sharon.

Source: Manoeuvres to fill post-Sharon void, By Martin Asser

BBC News website, Jerusalem

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4590580.stm

US Influence in Israel

· Officially, neither the White House nor the State Department is offering much diplomatic direction for the post-Sharon era, suggesting that doing so would be distasteful as the prime minister fights for his life. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice postponed a trip to Australia in order to be in Washington at a crucial juncture in Middle East affairs, while diplomatic sources said the White House was quietly making contingency plans in the event of Sharon's passing

· Nothing groundbreaking is likely to happen in the short weeks before Israeli elections are held March 28 - weeks that will be under the stewardship of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

· "Under Sharon, he was the architect, and the US was basically following," says Stephen Cohen, national scholar at the Israel Policy Forum in New York. "But with somebody like Olmert, there is more of a chance of the US being more of an architect."

· But taking a leadership role in the process would be a departure for the Bush administration. It has primarily taken a "wait and see" approach to the conflict since it decided early on that it could not work with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Source: Peace prospects after Sharon

Israeli moderates may be key to any progress if the US keeps its involvement modest.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 09, 2006 edition –

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0109/p01s01-usfp.html

U.S. Aid to Israel

· Israel had been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance for almost 30 years, and since 1985 has received about $3 billion in military and economic aid each year.[205] In fact, as much as 17% of all U.S. foreign aid is earmarked for Israel.[206] And, U.S. foreign military financing makes up 20% of Israel’s defense budget.[207]

· In 2004, Israel received $2.14 billion in FMF. In 2005, the nation’s military received an additional $2.20 billion. President George W. Bush’s budget request for 2006 includes $2.28 billion FMF aid for Israel.[208]

Source: http://worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html#14

Palestine

Elections January 25, 2006

· The Fatah faction is holding on to the lead in the Palestinian Authority’s legislative election, according to a poll by the Birzeit University Development Studies Programme. 35 per cent of respondents would vote for the Fatah list in next week’s election.

· The List of Change and Reform—which includes the members of Hamas—is second with 31.3 per cent, followed by an independent group headed by Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative with 5.7 per cent. Support is lower for the List of Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa, the independent Third Way, and the Alternative coalition.

· Fatah has been the dominant force in Palestinian politics for several decades, under Yasser Arafat and current Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas was the top party in seven of the 10 Gaza Strip municipalities that held local elections in January 2005.

Polling Data

Which party list would you vote for?

• Fatah 35.0%
• List of Change and Reform (Hamas) 31.3%
• List of Independent Palestine (Mustafa Barghouti) 5.7%
• List of Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa 2.0%
• The Third Way (Independent) 2.0%
• Alternative (coalition of DFLP, People’s Party and FIDA) 2.0%
• Undecided 21%

Source: Birzeit University Development Studies Programme

Methodology: Interviews with 1,500 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, conducted from Jan. 5 to Jan. 7, 2006. Margin of error is 5 per cent.

Fatah List Barely Edges Hamas in Palestinian Ballot

January 17, 2006

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/10571

Palestinian Authority

· The Palestinian Authority, the largest employer in the territories, is facing a fiscal crisis that could result, as early as next month, in it being unable to pay the salaries of its 130,000-plus officials and security staff, Nigel Roberts, the World Bank's man in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said in an interview to Haaretz.

· According to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in the territories exceeds 20 percent, with a rate of about 30 percent in the Gaza Strip, over 40 percent in the southern part of Gaza and among young people (ages 16-25) in southern Gaza, the favorite source of cannon fodder for Islamic Jihad, unemployment reaches the alarming rate of 70 percent.

· Roberts notes that the amount of assistance the Palestinians are getting - $5 billion in five years, or $300 per capita annually - is the highest granted to any entity since World War II.

Source: World Bank official: Palestinians on verge of bankruptcy

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent

www.haaretz.com

Fatah and Hamas

· The Fatah General Congress -- the supreme body within the movement empowered to select the two governing party organs, the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council -- has not met since 1989. As a result, the most powerful elements of the formal party apparatus have remained the preserve of those who, prior to the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, directed the PLO from exile in Tunis. During the long tenure of Yasser Arafat as head of Fatah and the PA, the party’s various committees and councils, with no real authority, were reduced to instruments of personal gain. Arafat again and again put off convening the Congress in the name of national unity, despite vociferous demands from the Fatah Higher Movement Committee, led by the veterans of the 1987-1993 intifada.

· This trend reached its apogee in December 2005, when Hamas captured a whopping 73 percent of the vote in the traditional Fatah bastion of Nablus. The success of Hamas’ well-oiled political machine confirmed suspicions -- and, in some quarters, substantiated fears -- that the Islamists will take a sizable number of seats in the upcoming Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections.

· As the January 25 elections approach, donor governments seem to be hardening their stances. Congress was first out of the blocks, calling in a non-binding resolution for Hamas to be excluded from the elections and threatening to cut off Washington’s subventions to the PA should Hamas participate in the government. Given existing constraints on US aid, however, the vote was largely symbolic.

· If the EU does follow through on its threat, member governments may find a workaround, as a European Commission official in Jerusalem has informally suggested. Instead of going directly to the PA, EU monies would be channeled to the World Bank, which would in effect become a stand-in paymaster for PA accounts of all kinds.

· The dilemma faced by the Palestinian president is that those whose gains he hopes to exploit may end up weakening his own position if they perform too well. Palestine could very well emerge from the January elections with internal checks and balances on the power of the PA executive, but because they will have come about through ad hoc politicking rather than serious institutional reform, they may produce a paralyzed Palestinian Authority rather than a more democratic one.

Source: Broken Ranks in the Palestinian National Movement

by Robert Blecher Media Monitors Network

(Tuesday January 03 2006)

· Israel's President Moshe Katsav said on Tuesday that talks with Hamas might one day be possible if the Palestinian Islamic group disarmed and abandoned its commitment to destroying the Jewish state.

· Even if there was no chance that Hamas would meet such conditions any time soon, the comments from Israel's ceremonial president appeared to be a sign of shifting attitudes ahead of Palestinian elections.

· Hamas, behind dozens of suicide bombings since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, has consistently refused to disarm. But it has respected an 11-month-old truce to a greater extent than other Palestinian militant factions.

· Under Western pressure to ensure that the Palestinian election takes place as planned, Israel has agreed to allow Palestinian voting in Arab East Jerusalem, but barred Hamas from listing candidates on ballot slips.

Source: Israel may one day talk to Hamas, says president

17 Jan 2006 17:30:04 GMT

Source: Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17253331.htm

U.S. Aid to Palestine

· U.S. economic aid to the Palestinians has averaged about $85 million per year since 1993; there has been no military aid. (See Table 3, page 6.)

· The President has requested $150 million in FY2006 and an additional $200 million in FY2005 supplemental aid for the Palestinians.

· About 80% of U.S. aid to the Palestinians is channeled through contractors and 20% is channeled through private voluntary organizations, both groups selected and monitored by USAID.

Source: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45198.pdf

Iran

· With Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map," Israeli officials have special reasons for concern now that Iran has defied the West and said it will resume enriching uranium.

· The Israelis are engaged in a careful effort to press the United States and the Europeans to deal more urgently with Iran

Source: Israel Wants West to Deal More Urgently With Iran

By STEVEN ERLANGER

The New York Times

January 13, 2006

· Israel's acting leader says his country will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Ehud Olmert is accusing the Islamic republic of secretly trying to build an atomic bomb.

· Asked by reporters if Israel could launch a military campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities, the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, replied that Israel cannot allow a country with hostile intentions to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

· Israel is believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, and 25 years ago Israeli warplanes bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

· Israel has now come to regard Iran as its number one outside threat, a fear heightened when the Islamic republic's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, last year called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

· Iran denies it is trying to build an atomic bomb, saying its nuclear program is designed solely for the generation of electricity.

Source: Israel vows Iran won't get nuclear weapons http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1549689.htm

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