1. Hevron attack

ARUTZ7 1/4/99: "Arab terrorists opened fire on a van carrying seven people to Hevron this morning, wounding two women. 55-year-old Fanny Eliezra is very seriously wounded from shots to the chest - although her life is not in danger - and Flora Hofi is in moderate condition.

The attack occurred near the Machpelah Cave, on a narrow, winding route traversed by the van several times a day. The terrorists apparently shot from the roof of one of the many Arab buildings that closely crowd the street leading to Me'arat HaMachpelah. Sources in the Hevron Jewish Community report that over 20 bullets hit the car, noting that "miraculously, only two people were hit."

The Israeli Army has declared a curfew in the area, as well as in the Arab neighborhoods of Israeli-controlled Hevron. Arabs rioted and threw stones at IDF soldiers throughout the day in various areas of the city...Labor party leader Ehud Barak called upon the Palestinian Authority to arrest and try the terrorists. Transportation Minister Sha'ul Yahalom said, "Hevron has become a city of refuge for murderers of Jews.

The IDF must go into every corner of the city to search out the terrorists." Communications Minister Limor Livnat said, "It was clear ever since the signing of the Hevron agreement, which I voted against, that the situation would be very difficult and complex, because of the Arab terrorism there".

David Bar-Illan, Director of Policy Planning and Communication in the Prime Minister's Office, blamed the Palestinian Authority. "Today's attack in Hevron was the 13th of its kind in the recent past," he said.

"This is a clear indication that the Palestinian Authority is totally ignoring the commitments it made in the Wye and Hevron agreements. Arafat is simply unwilling to prevent attacks of this nature or to capture the perpetrators."

Bar Illan said that the attack proves the correctness of the government policy of not retreating from areas that can later serve the terrorists."

2. State delay

ARUTZ7 1/4/99: "Senior figures in the Palestinian Authority have reported that Egypt and Jordan are pressuring it to delay its declaration of a state. Arutz-7 correspondent Haggai Huberman reports, "Of late, Arafat is under real pressure from the Arab states not to declare a Palestinian state on May 4th.

They seem to feel that this might play into the hands of Netanyahu, who may respond by annexing large portions of Judea and Samaria. These countries prefer that any such declaration should be issued when Israel finds itself in greater isolation. Moreover, many Arab countries are not particularly thrilled with the idea of a Palestinian state.

Jordan is certainly against the idea, and Syria sees Israel as 'Southern Syria' and the Palestinian ambitions as an irritant. A few days ago, [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak dumped a pail of cold water on his Arafat's head, by also advising him to avoid the May declaration.

Mubarak was quite insulted when Jordan's King Hussein was given the honor of participating in the Washington signing ceremony after the Wye talks." Huberman reports that the Palestinian Authority may go along with the wishes of the Arab states, declaring only their 'right' to a state, and not an actual state itself...."

3. Conversion reversion

ARUTZ7 1/4/99: "A proposal to legislate the Ne'eman committee recommendations into law did not receive a majority in the Knesset Law Committee today. The hareidi parties objected to the recommendations, which call for conversion only according to Halakhah [Jewish Law], but also allow the Reform and Conservative movements to teach the future converts. The conversion laws will therefore not be changed before the next Knesset convenes, after the elections in May."

4. Hussein & Bill

AP 1/5/99: "With Mideast diplomacy in low gear, King Hussein of Jordan is calling on President Clinton at the White House on his way home from six months of cancer treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Despite his illness, the king played a supporting role to Clinton at the talks in Maryland in October that produced a West Bank agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

At peace with Israel, the king has tried to persuade both sides to come to terms on an overall settlement. Hussein has been at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., since mid-July. Hussein plans to go to London when he leaves Washington, and then home to Jordan in mid-January...

In the meantime, the Wye accords have been shelved, with Israel insisting that Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority first collect illegal weapons, reduce its police force, curb incitements to violence and renounce intentions to establish a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians, with support from the Clinton administration, have rejected the demands as new conditions that were not part of the agreement reached at the Wye River Conference Center in rural Maryland. [ZINC EDITOR NOTE: Those provisions were most certainly part of Oslo I & II which are still in effect.]

5. Golan bill

HA'ARETZ 1/5/99: "The Knesset plenum last night voted in favor of the first reading of a bill that would require any Israeli withdrawal from the Golan to be approved by an absolute majority of 61 MKs and by a simple majority of citizens voting in a national referendum. The bill was supported by 55 coalition MKs and opposed by 35 opposition MKs. Eighteen Labor MKs abstained.

Meretz faction chair Haim Oron managed to manipulate the parliamentary proceedings to humiliate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and coalition leaders before the vote. Oron moved to turn the vote into a no-confidence vote - which would automatically have delayed the vote one week.

Netanyahu huddled with Likud MKs Tzachi Hanegbi, Moshe Katzav, Meir Sheetrit and Reuven Rivlin over how to play Oron's gambit, while Knesset Speaker Dan Tichon called in the Knesset's legal adviser to determine whether Oron's move was legal. The adviser said it was and the plenum plunged into a frenzy, only calming down after a recess was called.

The Netanyahu camp feared that if they called Oron's bluff, and turned the bill into a confidence motion, the vote would then be held immediately - but should 61 MKs vote against it, the government would topple instantly, leading to national elections within 60 days.

Jurists in the hall began debating whether a no-confidence vote would trump the early elections bill passed just minutes earlier, or vice versa. Either way, Netanyahu decided to bite the bullet and turn the vote into a confidence motion. In the end, the Golan bill passed 55-35, leaving the early elections bill intact. Second and third readings are likely only after May 17."

6. Elections bill

HA'ARETZ 1/5/99: "The Knesset yesterday approved the second and third readings of the bill dissolving the Knesset and setting early elections for May 17. The bill was approved by a majority of 85 to 27 MKs, with only one abstention - Likud MK Uzi Landau. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not show up for the vote, entering the plenum later to vote on a different bill.

Immediately following the vote, grinning with joy, Labor Chair Ehud Barak approached Haim Ramon, one of the bill's sponsors, and warmly embraced him. Almost all Labor and Meretz MKs went over to Ramon to congratulate him.

The government votes were split:

Ministers Yitzhak Mordechai, Limor Livnat, Moshe Katsav, Rafael Eitan, Avigdor Kahahlani, Natan Sharansky and Yuli Edelstein voted in favor of early elections, while Tzachi Hanegbi, Yehoshua Matza, Eli Yishai, Yitzhak Levy and Shaul Yahalom voted against the bill...

The bill won the support of all opposition parties, as well as votes from some members of the Likud, Yisrael b'Aliya, Gesher, Tsomet, the Third Way, Moledet and United Torah Judaism. It was opposed en bloc only by the National Religious Party and Shas, who were joined by some members of the Likud and United Torah Judaism...

[Meanwhile] Former Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo met yesterday in private with Mordechai to convince him to quit the Likud and join Amnon Lipkin-Shahak's party. Mordechai is reportedly still undecided on his political future. In recent weeks, he has refused to meet in private with Netanyahu, talking to him on the phone or in the presence of others, but only on security related issues. Meanwhile, Limor Livnat, also still contemplating her future in the Likud, met yesterday with Shas's spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef at his Jerusalem home.

Officially, the meeting was said to be about legalizing a Shas-affiliated pirate radio station, but the conversation apparently also touched on political topics. After this meeting, Livnat met with Ariel Sharon at his Knesset office.

Also yesterday, Shahak and MK Dan Meridor tried to diffuse the tension between them by issuing a joint statement saying that "in any case" their paths would converge - despite the fact that the two have yet to decide who will lead the party, how the leader will be chosen and when. Shahak is slated to announce his candidacy for prime minister tomorrow."

7. Peres blames Peres

HA'ARETZ 1/5/99: "Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres blames himself for failing to persuade Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to rein in Islamic militants and prevent bombings that cost him the 1996 election.

"I believe we lost it basically because of the attacks by the Hamas. I believe that the PLO did not do enough to prevent it," Peres told reporters yesterday, explaining he was at fault for not impressing Arafat with the need to rein in Hamas with force, if necessary. By the time Arafat did act, after a spate of suicide bus bombings, it was too late for the 1996 Peres campaign.

Peres was speaking yesterday at a news conference promoting the second annual meeting of the Peres Center for Peace. The meeting will open Jan. 10 and feature former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Rev. Desmond Tutu of South Africa. The three-day session will be attended by some 200 guests, including nearly half of the Palestinian cabinet ministers, the Egyptian foreign minister, two Jordanian ministers and five representatives from Morocco."

8. US closure

ISRAEL TV 12/31/98: "Based on past terrorist attacks on US embassies, the United States today decided to close its Tel Aviv Embassy. Our army affairs correspondent Roni Daniyel is in the studio.

What kind of threat could have made them do it, Roni?

[Daniyel] First of all, you have to know that the entire affair originated in Washington. That is where the warning came from, to be carried out at the embassy in downtown Tel Aviv. As I said, it is a completely American story without any Israeli involvement. Washington received a warning saying that Iran might send a terrorist squad that would place a large car bomb right here.

After a warning was received from Washington, the US ambassador decided to evacuate the building. The situation is expected to be in effect until Monday. I have to add that this reaction raised some eyebrows in Israel. Israeli elements felt the Americans reacted too quickly and excessively, and that there was no cause for such fuss."

9. Bill & Yasser

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE 12/31/98: "US President Bill Clinton will meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Washington in March or April, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday.

"A summit meeting between the two presidents will be held in either March or April to examine the state of the peace process," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.

Erakat also said that US peace envoy Dennis Ross will come to the region on January 9 and that his assistant, Aaron Miller, will arrive three days earlier in an attempt to restart the second phase of the stalled Wye River agreement..."

10. State date stated

Ramallah's AL AYYAM 12/30/98: "There is not much time between 17 May, the date set by the Israeli parties to hold the general elections, and 4 May, the date set for the conclusion of the transitional phase.

But Ahmad Quray', the Palestinian Legislative Council speaker, stressed to "Al-Ayyam" that there are no changes in the Palestinian decision to consolidate the Palestinian state on that date.

He said:

It is an historic, serious, and important date and the Palestinian decision on it has not changed. Abu-'Ala' [Ahmad Quray'] stressed that the competition between Israel's Labor and Likud Parties for the premiership of the Israeli Government will not cause a change in the Palestinian position on this date in order to appease one party at the expense of the other.

He said:

We do not bribe the competing Israeli parties. Peace is our cause and we hope that the elections will end up with the Israelis respecting our legitimate rights. With the peace process apparently stalled because "neither secret nor public negotiations" with the Israeli Government are of any use, according to Abu-'Ala', the situation requires the strengthening of the Palestinian internal situation, a serious national dialogue, and the holding of local councils elections, something which the Legislative Council is pressing for now.

The two major Israeli Parties, Labor and Likud, agreed to hold early elections on 17 May 1999 as a compromise after Labor insisted on holding them in April and Likud in June. The decision appears to be almost a deal that took the date of 4 May into account in order to embarrass the Palestinian Authority.

But according to observers, it was also a blow to Amnon Shahaq, the former Israeli chief of staff and the candidate of the Center Party, who needs much time to arrange his cards and announce his political program which is still unspecified.

According to Palestinian observers, the Likud Party chose that date to justify its failure to implement the agreement and to deal a blow to those who seceded from it.

The Labor Party realized that a second round of elections will be held in June when most secularists go on their summer holidays after that date.

But the choice of this day showed that the Labor and Likud Parties have a united stand toward the expected Palestinian declaration of a state on 4 May 1999.

That was the date set by the Oslo agreement for the end of the transitional phase and will fall 13 days before the date chosen for the early Israeli elections...

The Israeli Government tried to justify its intransigence in the negotiations by citing the Palestinians' refusal to hold high-level meetings with the Israeli side. It pointed out in this respect that PLO Executive Committee Secretary Mahmud 'Abbas, alias Abu-Mazin, is refusing to meet Israeli Foreign Minister Ari'el Sharon.

Following Israel's decision to stop the peace process and halt implementation of the Wye Plantation agreement, 'Abbas told "Al-Ayyam" that "there are no meetings with Sharon." In this respect, Abu-'Ala' said: So far, they have been wasting time.

They deal with the agreements and the peace process as a game. The time that remains does not allow the Israeli Government to look at or care about the peace process amid the election campaign. He added: The peace process is in a real crisis. Elections and staying in power are the priorities for the Israeli Government."

11. ZINC Comment

ZINC is brief today as your ZINC editor just returned from Israel late last night.

One observation:

The May 17, 1999 elections are up for grabs as there is incredible fragmentation in the right, left and center. Some segments on the right now regret their relentless pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu which went a bit too far as his government toppled; now, they fear a new government will be less supportive.

Remember, however:

...in all fractious election campaign, the incumbent usually has an advantage.

        It is very possible that Bibi will be reelected--but Likud will diminish in size dramatically. A Likud PM with a Labor-led Knesset coalition? Those ARE uncharted waters.