Abu-Mazin gives "best wishes" on Orient House

Ramallah's AL AYYAM 5/5/99: "PLO Executive Committee Secretary Mahmud 'Abbas, alias Abu-Mazin, wished success to the Palestinians in their endeavor to protect the Arab nature of Jerusalem and rescue their institutions from the Judaization threat, especially the Orient House, on which the Israeli authorities will make their final decision concerning the recent warning of closing three offices in it.

In a message sent from the hospital in the United States to about 1,000 Palestinians who gathered at the Orient House yesterday to show their rejection of the Israeli decision, Abu-Mazin said:

I send my sincerest greetings and wishes of success to you in your relentless efforts to protect our institutions and Arab Jerusalem so that it will remain lofty and the Orient House will remain a shinning place in the city."

Meanwhile, Orient House officials said that Faysal al-Husayni, PLO Executive Committee member and the official in charge of the Jerusalem file, last night decided to stay at the Orient House because he feared the Israeli authorities would close the Orient House offices at night. The officials said that Legislative Council member Hatim 'Abd-al-Qadir joined al-Husayni and decided to do the same."

THE JERUSALEM POST 5/10/99: "The security cabinet convened late last night to debate a compromise negotiated with Palestinian officials over the government's demands to shut two offices in Jerusalem's Orient House. The meeting was called hours after Internal Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani signed closure orders for the offices.

Initially, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave Kahalani until yesterday evening to carry out the orders, but feverish talks to resolve the dispute continued past the deadline. "If the Palestinians want, they will do it [close the offices] with our agreement, and if not, the offices will be closed without their agreement," Netanyahu said yesterday at V-E Day celebrations in the capital.

At the meeting, which was still going on at press time, Kahalani briefed the other ministers on the compromises he has worked out with the parties, including that the US consul general in Jerusalem oversee the closing and moving of the PA offices in question. Kahalani's office said he had received a phone call from US special Mideast envoy Dennis Ross last night, who wanted to hear first hand what was going on.

A source privy to the security cabinet discussions said that much criticism was leveled at Kahalani, with some ministers saying he was keeping the conflict burning artificially in order to stay in the news during the week before the elections. Kahalani, in response, reportedly maintained he has consistently tried to reach a compromise and avoid violence, and would continue working for this objective.

The source said if the meeting ended without a conclusion, the security cabinet would reconvene this morning. Kahalani met earlier with Faisal Husseini, the PLO executive committee member who presides over Orient House, at Jerusalem police headquarters in the Russian Compound. Later Orient House attorney Jawad Boulous met with Internal Security Ministry representative Yossi Levy.

Officials said that Boulous later returned to Orient House with a new proposal that he planned to put before Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. The officials wouldn't say what the proposal was. As the 7 p.m. deadline passed, Palestinian officials threatened that a closure of the offices could lead to violence...

[A] reported sticking point is an Israeli demand that Husseini not receive ambassadors and foreign dignitaries at Orient House. Israel says such meetings violate peace agreements. Palestinians rejected the demand, arguing that Husseini is a representative of the PLO and not of the PA..."

"Where's Yossi Beilin?" (Election ad)

AP 5/10/99: "Trying to offset the tough, military image of his main challenger, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has linked the Labor party's liberal policy mastermind to its leader, Ehud Barak. With the May 17 election nearing, Barak and Netanyahu are taking increasingly more similar stands on Israel's security.

Yossi Beilin, the architect of historic peace accords which turned over land to the Palestinians, has become the divider between them. Noting that the Beilin and Barak have not been seen together in public for months, a Netanyahu ad asks: ``Where is Yossi Beilin?''

As someone tries to burst out from a locked treasure chest, a voice brimming with suspicion answers: ``Ehud Barak has him locked away until after the elections.'' Other Netanyahu television ads show the 48-year-old intellectual -- whom some view as wimpy, others as elitist -- popping out from behind Barak. Red-painted letters exclaim that voters for Barak will really be getting Beilin...

As a minister in the dovish government of Shimon Peres, Beilin also negotiated a plan meant to end the biggest dispute between Israel and the Palestinians -- the future of east Jerusalem. The compromise plan envisioned a demilitarized Palestinian state with its capital in a village east of the city.

In exchange, Israel would annex 10 percent of the West bank to retain most its settlements. It was embraced by a senior member of Netanyahu's own government but flatly rejected by the premier, who has made Israel's hold over all of Jerusalem a central theme of his campaign. Trailing in the polls, Netanyahu is now using Beilin -- and the plan he helped draft -- to sway voters worried about Jerusalem's future.

Barak has been careful to side-step questions about how closely he will follow Beilin's advice, but party insiders say quietly that if Barak is elected, Beilin's role will be just as important as it was in the previous government.

Although Beilin is the No. 3 member of his party, he is not on the campaign trail and not out clearing his name. Barak has dismissed every Israeli newspaper report that he is purposely keeping Beilin away from the cameras. But it hasn't stopped his critics..."

Avigdor Lieberman's troubles

THE JERUSALEM POST 5/10/99: "The police have recommended charging Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman with insulting senior police officers, making threatening statements against them, and slander.

Police spokesman Ofer Sivan said the investigation was completed yesterday and its findings were passed on to State Attorney Edna Arbel, who will determine whether to indict. Police began the investigation 12 days ago after receiving the go-ahead from Arbel.

Lieberman was questioned on April 27 for four hours about suspected threats and insults he made against senior police officers during a meeting with Yisrael Beiteinu staffers in early April. At the meeting, he allegedly called police officers antisemites and racists and charged that they deliberately leaked information for political reasons.

Police said Lieberman was uncooperative during the questioning and evaded investigators' questions directly. Lieberman's response to the investigation was to lodge a complaint with the Justice Ministry's police investigations division, charging that heads of the national investigations unit, Cmdr. Yossi Sedbon and Dep.-Cmdr. Moshe Mizrahi, were abusing their positions and were intent on settling a score with him because of statements he made against the police in the past..."

Jerusalem's gold, NIS 400 Million

THE JERUSALEM POST 5/10/99: "Despite objections from Finance Minister Meir Sheetrit, the cabinet yesterday overwhelmingly approved the transfer of NIS 400 million to the Jerusalem Municipality. Sheetrit, the only minister to vote against the proposal, argued that he does not know where the money - to go toward infrastructure in east Jerusalem - would come from.

In the course of the heated meeting, another proposal - to give NIS 20,000 grants to those purchasing new apartments in any new Jerusalem neighborhood during the coming two years - was also approved. It will be some time, however, before either the municipality or the happy house hunters will see any money, as both proposals still have to be approved by the Knesset Finance Committee, a body which may well undergo a change in composition after the elections.

A third proposal, to transfer some NIS 500m. to the health system, was shot down on the grounds that the budget could not stand such an expenditure. Several senior Finance Ministry officials, who stood beside Sheetrit against the two measures approved, were subjected to harsh criticism from the ministers, who claimed they were acting out of political and not professional considerations.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, in turn, rejected suggestions that it was the approval of the funds for the city, and not the opposition which was political. He said that the behavior of the Finance Ministry officials was "unprecedented" and accused them of "abusing their positions as civil servants so as to do harm to the prime minister."

Olmert insisted that the plan for transferring the funds was a three-year-old project, and that the infrastructure would benefit both the Jewish and the non-Jewish populations of the city..."

Settlers taking more hilltops

THE JERUSALEM POST 5/10/99: "Fearful that One Israel leader Ehud Barak will be elected next week, settlement leaders are stepping up their conquest of hilltops, possibly with government connivance. There is no blanket government endorsement of settler expansion, but any new encampments that are coordinated between the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza and Amana, the settlers' housing agency, do receive the government's support, council spokeswoman Yehudit Tayar said yesterday.

Most of the sites fall within the communities' master plans and not in areas where their legality is debatable, she said, adding that many overlook existing communities and are meant to prevent "hostile parties" receiving the land in the future.

Council sources said expansion also included industrial zones and new roads. However, reports that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has overruled the Defense Ministry and the IDF to prevent illegal outposts from being uprooted were denied by his communications adviser, David Bar-Illan, yesterday.

"On the contrary, the army has taken down trailers erected outside any settlement's outline plan, as well as those without the required permits," he said. He added that some trailers were allowed to remain, as they were in the community's overall plan and permits were already in the pipeline.

Military officials say that not only settlers but also Palestinians are taking advantage of the political uncertainty. Palestinians have attempted to cultivate areas under Israeli control that border on Area A and have built roads to link up their villages, the officials said.

Meanwhile, 10 families yesterday moved in to a recently established encampment containing 15 trailers at a site called Bruchin, so-called because of the nearby village Burkin, near Alei Zahav. Civil administration spokesman Capt. Peter Lerner said the encampment was within Alei Zahav's planning scheme and therefore legal.

Five caravans, set up 1.5 kms. east of Kochav Hashahar in the Jordan Valley, are inside the settlement's jurisdiction, said Lerner. But, he said that settlers living in three trailers set up on Mitzpe Erez near Ma'aleh Michmash received 24-hour evacuation orders yesterday.