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This is Gaza, Its Tough

January 10, 2007 12:00 PM

It has been almost two months since a series of Israeli shells hit the Beit Hanoun neighborhood in Gaza. 18 people were killed, including six children and two women.

As journalists, we often rush to the scene to get our story and then rush back to our bureaus to report it.

I just got back from Gaza. This time there were no deadlines; just a chance to visit, meet people and see some friends.

My first stop: to catch up with Raed. He is a soft-spoken gentleman with a warm and welcoming face.  He drives a taxi, usually counting on foreigners coming from Israel for rides. He has not had a fare in 15 days.

"Most people are afraid to come here", he told me, "worried about being kidnapped."

Raed seems different to me these days -- there is less pleasure when he speaks. His eyes seem a bit deadened. It is not surprising.

Fourteen members of his family were killed in Beit Hanoun when the shells hit his home. When I showed up there that morning he was stumbling around the scene, glassy-eyed being comforted by his many friends.

"Everyone is so angry -- my children are so angry now… for what happened", as he described the fall-out from that day in November.

"People are angry. Hamas is angry at Fatah and Fatah is angry at Hamas. The situation is very, very bad" he said shrugging his shoulders.

Gaza has become incredibly tense since violence flared up between Fatah and Hamas. Most neighborhoods are now demarcated by men with machine guns.

The Hamas foreign minister's home has sandbags on its roof, ready for a gunfight. President Abbas's residence is surrounded by pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns.  One neighborhood, controlled by the Dagmoush family, has cut off entire streets to traffic to thwart would-be attackers.

The fighting is not just Hamas versus Fatah. There are personal vendettas, families settling scores and gangsters and politicians (sometimes indistinguishable) vying for power -- all of them by the power of the gun.

I stopped by the home of Jamilla Shanti – the 49 year-old member of the Hamas government. She was welcoming friends after her return from Hajj.

Dozens of plastic chairs were set up in her yard and people were sharing tea and talking politics.

"I don't want to talk 'business'”, she said to me smiling; clearly not want to talk about Palestinians killing each other in the recent weeks.

I last saw Jamilla when she was leading some women as human shields against Israeli air strikes. On November 7th she asked women to surround a mosque in Gaza where Palestinian militants were cornered by Israeli soldiers.

The women swarmed the mosque. Many of the men escaped, wearing women's clothes but two unarmed women were shot and killed by Israel gunfire. Four days later the Israelis hit her house with a missile. She survived but her sister-in-law was killed.

She told me it was impossible, even on her Pilgrimage to ignore the news from 'back home', clearly upset it was now Palestinians killing one another.

On the drive back to the border-crossing to go home, a man waving a machine gun jumped out in front our the car… leaning forward he was cautiously approaching the car, squinting through the windshield… and for a split second I feared I would be another kidnap victim, bartered for a job or to get attention to some internal Palestinian squabble.

The man was looking for someone specific and waved us on.

My friend who was driving me turned, shrugged and said…

"This is Gaza. It is very tough. What can you do?"

January 10, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (3)

A Massive Tax Scandal

January 05, 2007 1:09 PM

BY SIMON MCGREGOR-WOOD

Israelis are in a very bad mood. In five years on assignment in Israel I have never known such widespread public anger.

The cause? Yet another corruption investigation by Israeli police. But this is no ordinary corruption scandal.

This week several dozen senior officials form the Israeli Tax Authority and some of their business associates were arrested. Also arrested, the woman who runs Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office. The Police accuse them of using the Tax Authority as a private club to provide jobs for the boys, and illegal tax discounts for the lucky few.

For Israelis, who don’t like paying taxes at the best of times, this is the final straw. The daily newspapers have been having a field day with dire predictions about the collapse of the state, and commentaries on the moral quagmire of Israeli politics and standards of public service.

For Ehud Olmert himself this is very bad news and the whiff of scandal is drifting inexorably in his direction. He is already under investigation for other potential misdemeanors, and now his office director, a woman named Shula Zaken who has been with him for thirty years is under house arrest. This is the person who organizes his diary and manages his office. Today she is can’t even get to the office. It doesn’t look good, although the police are keen to stress there is currently no suspicion linking Olmert to the investigation.

Israelis I know are throwing up their hands in disbelief. You have to understand that in Israel people have got used to a certain level of public corruption. They are used to their politicians being investigated for giving kickbacks to party organizers or providing jobs for political allies and members of their families.

But this? This is different. The country’s tax collecting body being run for personal gain, by people with political connections to the Prime Minister’s office? You can understand the anger.

The tax affair comes at the end of a bad year for Israel. The loss of Ariel Sharon, the bungling of the war in Lebanon, the recriminations about who was responsible, the election of Hamas to run the Palestinian Authority, the growing Iranian threat. Israelis are not looking forward to the new year and there is a discernable sense that things are going badly wrong.

The political leadership has never had such low polling and there is a palpable sense of drift. Ehud Olmert’s personal approval rating is at rock bottom. There is no diplomatic initiative on the table and there is a crisis of confidence in the Prime Minister’s leadership, and for the first time, in the country’s military leaders.

Investigations into the perceived mishandling of the war with Hezbollah are continuing, but no one has resigned and the public has grown exasperated with what they see as a culture of blame and evasion of responsibility. Both the Defence Minister and the Chief of Staff are pilloried daily in the domestic media, both seen as desperately clinging to their positions despite their failures.

And now this tax scandal. Is that sound of straw breaking the camel’s back?

January 5, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

Endless Series of Scandals and Troubles

January 05, 2007 11:05 AM

BY WILF DINNICK

So there was another scandal in and it is a very bad year for Israelis.

It has been one year since Ariel Sharon suffered his second stroke and slipped into a coma. Ehud Olmert took the Prime Ministerial reigns.

Even in the rapidly changing Middle East news cycle, there seemed to be an endless series of scandals and troubles.

Israel’s President Moshe Katsav will reportedly be indicted this month on a rape charge. The Justice Minster had to step down because of his own sex scandal.

For the first time, Israel’s Prime Minister has no military experience, the Defense Minister is a civilian and the leaders of the IDF often publicly chastise the political echelon.

The IDF went to war in Lebanon and did not ‘win’ as the Israeli public expected.  Today there are dozens of government investigations into the IDF’s conduct into the war.   

At the urging of the United States, Palestinian elections took place and the militant group Hamas surprisingly swept to power. Hamas refused to recognize the state of Israel.  Almost immediately, a US –led effort tried to force the collapse of Hamas. It has clearly failed. Hamas successfully turned to Iran for more and more support. Meanwhile Secretary Rice will visit next weekend and offer more US money to prop up rival President Abbas.  Not surprisingly, Palestinian in-fighting is expected to get much worse.

The idea of peace talks anytime soon seems impossible.

January 5, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

New Year wish? Syrian – Israeli peace

January 02, 2007 11:17 AM

BY SIMON MCGREGOR-WOOD

Several years ago I stood at the top of the Golan Heights in an old Israeli military position. There was a sign pointing to Damascus, only about two hours drive away. Damascus is one of my favourite places, and I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be great if me and my Israeli wife could jump into the car and just follow the sign!

But listen to Israeli pundits and crystal ball gazers about what’s around the corner in 2007, and you might as well stay in bed. Family holidays to Damascus seem a distant dream.

The first thing that everyone is agreed on, is that 2007 will see a war between Israel and Syria!

As if to insure against the possibility that people might get caught out again by a surprise conflict, like the one last summer with Hezbollah, everyone here has decided that 2007 will be the year of certain war with Syria.

The theory goes like this. The Syrians and all the Arabs live in awe of Hezbollah’s so-called Divine Victory against the Israelis. No doubt about it. In the Arab world, it was a clear victory. Hundreds of rockets slamming into northern Israel, hundreds of thousands of Israelis forced to abandon their homes, and the movement itself, along with its charismatic leader Hasan Nasrallah, lived to tell the tale, stronger than before. Not many Arabs, past or present, can make that kind of boast.

And so, in Damascus, high up in the Presidential Palace, we are told, young Mr Asad is thinking about having a go himself. He wants the Golan Heights back, and is prepared to play high stakes and sees his Israeli adversary weaker than ever before.

“Why not provoke the Israelis”, he says to himself. “I have the missiles; thousands of the things, from Russia, Iran and North Korea. Why don’t I see if I can catch the Israelis by surprise? Let the International Community impose a ceasefire when the flames get a little high, and in the aftermath of another Israeli domestic political meltdown, ask for the Golan Heights back. Why not? It worked for Sadat and the Sinai”

The Israelis themselves seem to be taking the threat seriously enough. In successive leaks form military intelligence and other shadowy organizations, we read of secret Syrian preparations. How the Syrian army is going through some kind of top down shake up, a complete restructuring to better learn the lessons of Hezbollah’s success.

Instead of unwieldy Soviet style armored divisions, the Syrians are breaking their font line units into small, semi-autonomous mobile bands of anti tank rocket supplied guerillas.

The Syrians, it is said, finally realize they are no match for the kind of traditional tank warfare that characterized previous rounds of Syrian-Israeli hostilities. Their tanks are old, and the Russians have grown tired of unpaid bills.

The Golan Heights, by the way, are still littered with the broken  hulks of old Syrians tanks from the Yom Kippur War. These days they are part if the Israeli military history and tourism experience. Small children clamber over blown up T-55s, and marvel at the neatness of the holes drilled into them by Israeli missiles of yesteryear.

The Syrians have learnt their lessons. For the next war, they are preparing their anti tank rockets for unsuspecting Israeli reservists, just as Hezbollah did with deadly effect this summer. Asad went to Putin in December and asked for more rockets.

So if Assad is preparing for war where does he get off with all these confusing offers of peace talks?

The people in Syria I speak to swear he’s genuine. He wants a deal and the deal is simple. Just like the Egyptians got in 1979 at Camp David. All of the Sinai for full peace. The Syrians want all the land of the Golan, every bit of it, for full peace. No fudges. No UN policed buffers, no lease back of the shores of the Sea of Galilee to the Israelis. Every last inch of the Golan Heights. Asad junior, just like his dad before him, wants the shoreline, and wants to go fishing.

The Israeli questions are valid. What does full peace for all this land mean?

They know what they woud like it to mean. No more sponsorship of Hamas, Hezbollah or Islamic Jiahd. No Palestinians living the good life in Damascus while co-ordinating suicide bombers from Nablus. That means Khaled Meshaal and the gang, packing their bags and going to live somewhere else, Tehran perhaps?

And as for Iranian and Syrian friendship? Under a full peace deal, that’s a no, no, as far as the Israelis are concerned. A deal would mean the severing of the Iran – Syrian – Hezbollah axis. Not a bad result for the West.

That’s a lot for Syria to give up, but the Golan’s restoration would go a long way in convincing most Syrians to part company with Palestinian rejectionists and the mullahs from Iran. As we have seen in the past, for Arabs, the Palestinian cause is one that can be dropped for the greater national good, ie land and honor restored.

As for Syria’s natural affinity for Shia Islam? There isn’t one. Most Syrians are sunni and remain slavishly secular, and look to the West for their cultural and economic inspiration. Syrians may well look down their noses at their flashy cousins in Lebanon, the spoilt children with their plastic surgery, high heeled Porsche Utilities, and European aspirations. But truth be told, Syrians yearn for that kind of life.

So far the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert is turning a blind eye to the young Syrian President’s advances. But maybe, just maybe, behind all the headlines of Israel’s rejection, somewhere in Europe people are starting to talk in secret. Talks about talks even…..just something to get us started.

What will the process be called this time? The Geneva Formula? The Stockholm Guidelines? The Helsinki File? Who knows, I just hope someone, somewhere is talking.

I think an Israeli – Syrian Peace is about the best thing that can happen here at the moment. So many things could follow on from it, including a family holiday in Damsacus with my wife traveling on her Israeli passport.

So much better than another war, don’t you agree?

January 2, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (1)