PA-Labor contacts

Abu Dhabi's AL ITTIHAD 1/29/99: "Although the Palestinian leadership wants to postpone the declaration of a Palestinian state at the end of the interim phase on 4 May, Palestinian President Yasir 'Arafat, who is coming under strong international pressure to officially postpone the declaration, is maneuvering to obtain international guarantees that the postponement should not go beyond the end of this year and that the United States and Europe should pledge to recognize the state.

Palestinian sources told Al-Ittihad that, before the postponement, the Palestinian leadership is seeking binding international guarantees that Israel will implement the Wye River accord, that the postponement should not go beyond the end of this year, and that the international community should be ready to recognize the future state under an agreement signed with Israel that the interim phase should not be extended for more than six months.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials interested in the Israeli file are trying to reach an agreement with the main rivals of Netanyahu, namely, Labor Party leader Ehud Baraq and Center Party leader Yitzaq Mordekhay. Palestinian sources, who refused to be named, said that Dr. Ahmad al-Tibi, adviser to the Palestinian president for Israeli affairs, and Sufyan Abu-Zayidah, official in charge of the Israeli file at the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, held several meetings with Yosi Beilin, number three man in the Labor Party and former Israeli negotiator, and also met secretly with candidate Ehud Baraq.

Other contacts are also under way to arrange for similar meetings with the leaders of the Center Party through Roni Milo, one of its leaders and Tel Aviv mayor."

Laborgate?

YEDIOT AHARONOT 1/29/99: "It is a Watergate affair, but it is their Watergate," said Netanyahu. The two break-ins into the Washington offices of Stanley Greenberg, Ehud Baraq's pollster, alarmed Netanyahu.

He is sure the burglars were sent by Labor. "If they are caught, that will be the end of the election campaign," he said. Netanyahu talks about Labor's "dirty tricks department" which comes to life whenever election season approaches.

He points to one Steve Rabinovich, [Ed. note: Rabinowitz] an aide to Greenberg, who was also involved in the attempt to portray Netanyahu as an impostor on the eve of the last elections. Netanyahu has not forgotten the Joe Sullivan affair. When the fanciful accusations against Netanyahu were published three years ago, the prime minister tried to uncover the Israeli-American connection against him, but failed.

One should not rule out the possibility that he failed because the facts refused to support his theory. It is a fact that he was hounded, but hounding does not always justify paranoia.

Labor reacted with surprising restraint to the break-ins in Washington. The thrust of the effort was undertaken by the backbenchers in the Knesset, led by Ori Or, who knew at once that Netanyahu was behind the break-in. How he knew it, he did not say. Netanyahu enlisted his men to gather information.

David Bar-Ilan, director of policy planning and information in the Prime Minister's Office, asked "friends" in America to investigate the affair. Bar-Ilan worked for Netanyahu in the Sullivan affair as well.

"We have found hard evidence," Netanyahu promised, with a gleam in his eye. The hard evidence never arrived, however. "At this point, it is only wishful thinking," Bar-Ilan stated this week."

No Deri?

MA'ARIV 1/29/99: "The first reference to the possibility that SHAS [Torah Observing Sephardim] might support Yitzhaq Mordekhay for prime minister in the coming elections appeared in the SHAS organ yesterday.

The newspaper Yom Leyom usually expresses SHAS' position, and the column referred to is written by "Hayim Buzaglo," a pen name for one of the senior SHAS Knesset members [MK's].

The column said that Mordekhay himself is worthy of support but that he will not receive it because of his partners in the party: Roni Milo (over his remarks against the ultra-Orthodox), Dan Meridor (over his support for certain Basic Laws which the ultra-Orthodox view as antireligious), and Alex Lubotsky (over his activity against the religious councils law this week).

The column said: "There is a very good reason to support the center party (that is what it said):

Itzik Mordekhay; he is Sephardi, traditional, and does not hate the ultra-Orthodox. But there are at least four excellent reasons why not to vote for that cocktail."

In the meantime, it has been learned that when Mordekhay visited the rabbi's home last week, Rabbi 'Ovadya Yosef criticized him for leaving the Likud.

"You shouldn't have left the Likud and joined that mixture of a party with Roni Milo and Eyal Arad, who fight the religious people," Yosef told Mordekhay. Mordekhay said that he refuses to discuss his conversations with the rabbi.

Meanwhile, SHAS is worried about losing Knesset seats in the next elections because of Arye Der'i's announcement that he will no longer head the list. In closed meetings, SHAS ministers and MK's told Rabbi 'Ovadya Yosef that they fear that SHAS will not win again the six seats it currently has if Der'i does not head the party.

Similar remarks were made by SHAS MK's to other members of the Council of Sages, Rabbis Shalom Kohen and Shim'on Ba'adani. All the SHAS ministers and MK's signed a letter to Der'i -- and also sent it to Rabbis Yosef, Kohen, and Ba'adani -- in which they wrote that "the Knesset faction without your leadership will lose its parliamentary strength.

The list without you at its head will lose much of its electoral power." At the end of the letter the ministers and MK's threaten not to add their names to the list of Knesset candidates if Der'i does not also sign it.

"Each of us will not sign the papers bearing our candidatures for the Knesset elections if you do not do so." SHAS sources claimed that the letter is aimed at persuading Rabbi 'Ovadya Yosef that Der'i is vital to SHAS even at the price of giving Der'i sole authority to decide on the appointment of SHAS ministers in the next government.

These sources claimed that Der'i wants to torpedo the appointment of Minister Eli Yishay for a second term. On the other hand, sources close to Yishay and Der'i claim that relations between them are good..."

Jordanian terrorists

Amman's SHIHAN 1/30/99: "Security organs succeeded late last year in arresting a group of individuals, most of whom are closely related, for setting up an Islamic terrorist group under the name of Repudiation and Renunciation Organization [al-Takfir wa al-Tahjir].

The organization aims at carrying out military acts of terrorism in Jordan by attacking vital targets and political personalities. Shihan has learned from informed sources that the aims of the organization, which consists of six persons, include blowing up Shaykh Husayn Bridge in the northern Jordan Valley.

This is the passage used by Israelis to enter Jordan. They have chosen this bridge in particular because all of them live in that area.

According to the same sources, the Repudiation and Renunciation Organization intends to assassinate the US Ambassador in Amman. Its members made such an attempt when the US ambassador and several UN representatives visited the region of Waqqas, where the members of this organization live.

However, the security organs succeeded in exposing the organization, following its members, and arresting them before they carried out what they had planned four days before the month of Ramadan in the town of Waqqas in northern al-Shunah.

The interrogation of the members of the organization by the authorities concerned continued for 20 days.

The members of organizations spoke against each other by saying that they planned to carry out military acts of terrorism.

They indicated in their confessions that they are against the state and the government in some of their political decisions, especially concerning the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty.

They also said that they are against the imprisonment of Ahmad al-Daqamisah, the Jordanian soldier who killed several Israeli school girls in the region of al-Baqurah, which is close to the site where the members of this organization tried to carry out their acts of terrorism.

The same sources said that a member of the organization called "Fadi" was a soldier in the Jordanian Armed Forces, in the same unit in which al-Daqamisah served, and that he was dismissed from military service as a result of the al-Daqamisah incident...

Meanwhile, Shihan has learned from informed sources that all the members of the organization have gone on a hunger strike in al-Juwaydah prison, and that nothing is known about the reasons that made them do so."

Nazareth 'Palestinians'

London's AL SHARQ AL AWSAT 1/29/99--Interview with Jamil al-Tarifi, the Palestinian Authority's Civil Affairs Minister:

[Al-Sharq al-Awsat] Will the independent Palestinian state be declared on 4 May or will this declaration be postponed? What are the gains that could be achieved in either case?

[Al-Tarifi] We regard the principle of declaring the Palestinian state as a sacred one. We have to exercise it because it is one of the Palestinian people's national objectives after their long years of struggle and the rivers of noble and pure blood they have shed.

They have always seen the right to self-determination and the establishment of a state with Jerusalem as its capital as unshakable and noble objectives.

May 4 was certainly underlined on several occasions as the date for declaring the state because it is the date set for completing the final-stage negotiations.

This date remains valid for us. But there are discussions with the Europeans, Americans, and our Arab brothers that revolve about the fact that there are Israeli elections and other conditions and events which affect and are affected by the Palestinian decision.

The discussions also revolve around whether it is possible to postpone the declaration in return for their firm commitment to guarantee recognition of the Palestinian demand for a state, especially as this date is not only Palestinian but also international under the Oslo agreements' conditions and stipulations.

These agreements were signed at the White House in the presence of US President Bill Clinton, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, King Husayn, and other leaders from Europe and Japan.

So how can we possibly say that the state will be declared on, for example, 4 November and not 4 May?

If we do so, then it means that we are giving the green light for any Israeli prime minister to say:

Why 4 November? Make the declaration on 4 January 2000.

The Palestinian leadership is still discussing the issue and there are contacts with the EU countries and the US Administration, which are focusing on one point only, namely what price will we get for the postponement?

Will there be a commitment to stop the settlement activities? Will these countries commit themselves to recognizing the independent Palestinian state officially and promptly on the day that is agreed on for declaring it?

This is why I am asserting that the state will be declared on 4 May and this will not be given up...

[Al-Sharq al-Awsat] What is your comment on Netanyahu's accusation that the PA interfered in Israel's internal affairs during the recent incidents in Nazareth?

[Al-Tarifi] First, Nazareth is a Palestinian city and its people are Palestinians and therefore any dispute between any two sides there concerns us.

We are also eager to see that relations between our brothers in the city are equal. Netanyahu undoubtedly used the Israeli Government's malicious hands to sabotage relations between the Palestinians.

We played a positive role and we do not care about what Netanyahu says but about what our brothers in Nazareth say.

They highly appreciated President Abu-'Ammar's move to bring about the reconciliation that will happen very soon. We achieved our objective of ending the problem..."

PBC director fired

Dubai's AL BAYYAN 1/29/99: "Palestinian President Yasir 'Arafat fired Hisham Makki, director of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation [PBC], after authorities foiled an attempt by Makki's wife to smuggle a large sum of money to Egypt.

Informed sources told Al-Bayan that the decision to dismiss Makki was taken on the spur of the moment after Makki's wife was caught red-handed trying to smuggle $4 million to Egypt in her bag via the Rafah border crossing.

The sources said Palestinian police confiscated the sum of money that Makki's wife was planning to deposit in her and her husband's names in Egyptian banks."

Virus?

YEDIOT AHARONOT 1/28/99: "The Health Ministry is keeping the variola virus, one of the most virulent viruses in the history of humankind, in its laboratories in a major city in Israel.

An expose by Yedi'ot Aharonot reveals that the Health Ministry is keeping the virus in contravention of international treaties signed by Israel and under inadequate safety conditions, thereby endangering the health of the public, which has not been inoculated against the disease.

"I am astounded. If true, this makes one's blood boil," Professor Eytan Rubinstein, a Tel Aviv University expert on contagious diseases, said in response.

"Somebody has the temerity to keep viruses that are extremely violent and dangerous."

The Health Ministry said in response: "No work is being done with the variola virus in Health Ministry laboratories."

For thousands of years, the variola virus was considered one of the most horrendous "serial killers" in the world. Dubbed the "spotted death," it killed millions of people.

In the late 1970's, after hundreds of years of fighting the disease, the World Health Organization [WHO] announced that variola had been eradicated and that people would no longer be vaccinated against it.

Some time later, all WHO member states, including Israel, decided to destroy the virus specimens and vaccinations in all laboratories worldwide.

WHO decided to allow only two laboratories, in Russia and the United States, to go on keeping the virus under unprecedented safety measures.

These labs, too, were ordered to destroy the virus by May 1999. The decision was made to preclude an accident in which the virus would "leak" into the outside world and jeopardize millions of people who have not been vaccinated.

Somebody in the Israeli Health Ministry, however, decided to bypass the decision and secretly go on keeping it, along with dozens of other dangerous viruses.

Despite the clear threat to public health, the virus is being kept under inadequate safety conditions and in worrisome proximity to a densely populated area. Until a few months ago, the virus was kept at a lab on Yafo Street in Jerusalem.

Today it is being kept in the heart of a crowded industrial zone in a major city. Any person can walk into the Health Ministry laboratory where the virus is being kept.

Dr. Lindsay Martinez, a WHO expert on variola, said in response:

"The decision to destroy the virus is binding on all member states. If a lab holds specimens or strands of this virus, this is a serious and dangerous deed."

Russia/Israel nuclear

GLOBES 1/28/99: "Russia will gladly co-operate with Israel in nuclear energy development and auxiliary fields". "Globes" heard this today from Sergey Kraganov, chairman of Russia's Security and Foreign Relations Council.

"If Israel genuinely wishes it, Russia will co-operate with her in developing nuclear industry. I, personally, will do the most lobbying for such co-operation, and all because we need the money", he added.

Kraganov emphasised that, for economic reasons, Russia will not stop co-operating with Iran in nuclear development.

He said that even if Russia is offered alternative financial assistance from the US, which is doubtful, Russian-Iranian co-operation will presumably continue.

This is because, aside from the government's interest, the energy and nuclear field has a very strong lobby in Russia.

"Russia is continuing to build up Iran's nuclear industry, for economic reasons. And for the same reasons, it is negotiating co-operation in the nuclear energy field with other countries too, such as China and European nations", he said.

Kraganov, who attended the inaugural session of the annual conference of the World Economic Forum today in Davos, warned against investing in Russia in the next two years.

He said the Russian crisis will probably get worse, and its economic aspects will not be resolved until a solution is found to the country's political problems.