AxisMundi Jerusalem

Writing on the walls

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip may just feel a little less isolated today. Israel is bowing to international pressure and rejigging its embargo on the  enclave in the wake of the bloodshed 3 weeks ago when it enforced a longstanding maritime blockade.

But earlier this month, taking my leave at the end of a 3-year assignment,  I reflected while walking the half-mile (700-metre) cage  (picture, right) that separates Gaza from Israel on  how the barriers that surround and divide this region have, if anything, grown higher, deepening the isolation of the rival parties. That may make any kind of reconciliation more difficult as time goes on. I wrote about this earlier today.

Since Israel pulled out troops from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas took control in 2007, the 1.5 million people in the 40-km (25-mile) sliver of Mediterranean coast, have been cut off. But they’re not the only ones. Israel is itself a virtual island in the Arab world. Though it has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, contact with them seems if anything to be retreating. Relations look little more vigorous at times than they are across the frontlines with Lebanon and Syria. Israeli dreams,  backed by some serious cash lately, of re-establishing a regional rail transport hub, seem far-fetched.

The frontier lines weave their way around and among Israeli and Palestinian populations that live lives in parallel but now rarely meet after a decade in which peace hopes faded amid bloodshed. New divisions among Palestinians, between Hamas and Fatah, have left Gaza virtually at war with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Israelis, too, have seen sharper confrontations within their nation, notably between secular and religious Jews. Inside the West Bank and across Jerusalem,  I’ve also watched new physical barriers going up and the battle for territory has heated up.  Today’s revival of Israeli building plans in the annexed Arab east of the city is the latest development to stir angry passions.

In three years based in Jerusalem, I’ve been impressed by examples of Israelis and Palestinians who do reach over these rising barriers — not least my colleagues in Reuters . But it does seem to be getting harder for most ordinary folk to cross those lines without risking a backlash from their own community.  So although the embargo on goods reaching Gaza looks set to ease, the long divide between the peoples on either side of the wall is unlikely to diminish any time soon.

Breaking Ranks

Its been two months since Israel ended its 22-day offensive in Gaza – two months during which Israel has been weighing up the costs and the benefits of what was achieved in the fierce fighting.

Strong international condemnation of the offensive – and the slew of boycotts, bans and blunt dioplomacy that have followed – has been met with a mix of incredulity, anger and resignation in Israel.

Much of the condemnation of the offensive has been attributed in Israel to the standard leftist, anti-Israeli, anti-semitic rabble-rousing from the usual quarters along with a failure elsewhere in the world to understand the gravity of the rocket fire from Gaza on southern Israel which Israelis feel forced the army into action.

Within that narrow prism – Israel has, in large part, dismissed the criticism and a large tranche of public opinion is still supportive of the war despite questions about the achievements of a campaign which left Hamas in power, rockets still falling on southern Israel and Sgt Gilad Shalit still a captive somewhere in Gaza, 1,000 days after he was captured in 2006.

But internal criticism, from the very heart of Israel’s most venerated institution, is another matter entirely.

The publication of transcripts of conversations with soldiers who served in Gaza has whipped up a storm of controversy in Israel far beyond anything the international outcry stirred up.

Top job in the new government? No thanks!

By Tova Cohen

Though it’s considered one of the top three cabinet posts in Israel’s government,  in these troubled times there seems to be no takers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party for the job of finance minister, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

Netanyahu, who is in the process of putting together a government after last month’s general election, is seeking to give the finance post to someone in his own party, but senior members are reluctant to step into this “honey trap”, the country’s top selling daily reported.

“It’s not a secret that these days no one wants the Treasury,” the paper quoted a Likud member of parliament as saying. “Only a Shiite suicide (bomber) would take on this job. Everyone knows that Bibi ( Netanyahu) will rise or fall on the financial issues so who wants to get into this mess?”

A senior Likud member who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for finance minister was quoted as saying that if he took the post in these times, he would be a  “marked man”.

Two senior Likud members expecting ministerial positions in the new government have served as finance minister – Dan Meridor and Silvan Shalom. But they both are said to prefer the defence ministry to avoid having to deal with a looming recession and the global financial crisis.

Foreign Affairs

Israeli newspapers are abuzz this morning as they mull over the possibility that ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman could be appointed foreign minister in the government that Benjamin Netanyahu is working to stitch together.

The strong showing by Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel our Home) party in last month’s election – where it won the third most Knesset seats ahead of the Labour Party - has put the Moldovan-born former nightclub bouncer turned bureaucrat in a strong position in the lobbying for top ministerial posts in the new government.

With Israel’s coalition building process such a tortuous and drawn-out affair, speculation, much of it wild, about who will get what job is inevitably rife in the local media.

As we reported yesterday – Netanyahu has ruled Lieberman out as a future defence minister, one of the top jobs in an Israeli government.

Lieberman is also understood to be interested in other key jobs for himself and his people including Justice, Interior and Internal security.

His aides, though, play down talk of all this horse-trading and deal-making.

“He has said he wants the defence portfolio, but he has also said cabinet positions are not a deal-breaker. What’s really important is that we agree on basic policy lines,” Yisrael Beiteinu spokeswoman Irena Etinger said.

Because it’s there…

Despite living in a region steeped in so much history – history central to the beliefs of billions of people around the world – we at AxisMundi would like to think we have an eye on the future as well.

With that in mind – we opened a Twitter account today http://twitter.com/reuteraxismundi.

We are the first to acknowledge we’re not sure why we did this. We also admit that there’s something of the herd mentality here if the number of people we have seen announcing on Facebook “I finally broke down and opened a Twitter account” is anything to go by.

But we have already seen Twitter and other social networking platforms like Facebook or Second Life become ever more popular forums for people interested in our region to express their opinions or share information.

The Israeli Consulate in New York famously hosted a Twitter debate during Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza which gave rise to comments like this from the team of ‘tweeters’ at the consulate (pretty grammar it ain’t but isn’t that part of the point?):

Heaven or Hell

To be in the right place at the right moment – this is every photojournalist’s dream. To be on the scene to record the “decisive moment” with your camera.

Most photojournalists around the world consider Israel and the Palestinian Territories as ”heaven” for great stories providing great pictures. Well they are wrong.

For a long time this place has produced some of the most memorable news photos ever but at a high cost, and not just to the millions of Israelis and Palestinians who have suffered in their daily lives through the conflict of the past two decades or so. A number of photographers and camera operators lost their lives or been badly injured while trying to convey the story and a great number of others have psychological scars from being exposed to scenes of death and destruction over long periods of time. 

Yes, Israel and the Palestinian territories are full of great images, but how easy is to find them and record them? 

Well – the ’finding’ part is not too hard. Beepers are constantly beeping, SMS messages are constantly being sent keeping the large international press corps up to date on even the most obscure goings-on.  The Israeli Government Press Office, the Palestinian Authority, NGOs, the Israeli Defence Forces, settler groups, religious groups; all have very sophisticated media operations that fill your e-mail inbox, mobile phone and beeper with a constant stream of information.

Like a hurricane…

Amid fears that voters would stay away from Israel’s polling stations because of bad weather, apathy born of a coalition-based political system that forces elections every two years or so and a lacklustre campaign overshadowed by the Gaza war – you knew at least these guys would show up at the ballot box.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Olmert and Avigdor Lieberman all voted early - hoping that their supporters would follow them to the polling stations.

Lieberman – who voted near his home in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Nokdim – said even a hurricane could not keep his supporters away.

Early voter turnout numbers suggested he’s right with some estimates suggesting voting was proceeding at a higher pace than in the last election held in 2006 under sunnier skies.

And anyone who missed the handshaking, baby-kissing and ‘on message’ soundbites of a political campaign in the build up to the elections need not fear. After casting their ballots the candidates are all spending the rest of election day working the crowds in a blizzard of visits to as many different polling stations as they can get to.

Meanwhile, it seems another storm was averted when police intervened to keep far-right Jewish politicians out of an Arab-majority town in the north of Israel.

from Global News Journal:

Twittering from the front-lines

Who remembers the Google Wars website that was doing the viral rounds a few years back – a mildly amusing, non-scientific snapshot of the search-driven, internet world we live in?

It lives on at www.googlebattle.com where you can enter two search terms, say ‘Lennon vs. McCartney’ or ‘Left vs. Right’, and let the internet pick a winner by the number of search hits each word gets.

As we reported here – the virtual world has become a real battleground in the ongoing Gaza conflict – with all sides deploying significant resources.

For Israel – where hasbara or PR has often been frowned upon as unnecessary pandering to international opinion that never turns in Israel’s favour anyway – the second Lebanon war underlined the need for a coherent media and PR strategy coordinated at the centre of government.

The post-mortem of the month-long war with Hezbollah in 2006 - known as the Winograd Commission - recommended a centralised approach to hasbara to avoid spokesmen from different ministries, the army or the police telling different or conflicting stories to a voracious local and international media.

Notwithstanding the fact that the head of the new National Information Directorate did not make it to a scheduled interview with our reporter on the story above  – as my colleague Dan Williams reported here the strategy certainly seems to be working for domestic consumption.

Sources inside the Israeli government have said they are generally happy with the way the strategy has worked internationally as well despite growing international calls for a ceasefire and increasingly angry protests around the world.