AxisMundi Jerusalem

Gridlock in the Mideast

Want to know how it feels to be George Mitchell, President Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East? Try getting from Jerusalem to Ramallah on a typical weekday at the rush hour. And experience stalemate, frustration, competitive selfishness, blind fury and an absence of movement that even the most stubborn and blinkered of West Bank bus drivers might see as a metaphor for the peace process that is going nowhere fast right now.

It took me 2 full hours to drive the 100 metres (yards) or so from the Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank barrier around Jerusalem to reach the relatively open main street through Qalandiya refugee camp, the gateway to Ramallah. The reason? Well, at its simplest it’s traffic chaos caused by anarchy, a vacuum of law and order. Look further, as with much else in the Middle East, and you get a conflicting and contrasting range of explanations.

Traffic coming through the Israeli checkpoint must merge with that arriving on a main road that follows the West Bank barrier on the Palestinian side. Just beyond the checkpoint, where these two flows merge, they must also cross with traffic going in the opposite direction, from Ramallah, either into the checkpoint or along the barrier. The snag? No traffic lights, no traffic police, no nothing (barely smooth tarmac and certainly no painted junction lines) at the crossroads. The result? Check out the picture above.

Why does it happen? For many Palestinians, the cause as in so many other respects is Israel. Take away the checkpoint and the Jewish settlements protected by further military posts and traffic would circulate much more easily. For Israelis, the checkpoints, barrier and so on are the result of Palestinian violence during the Intifada of the first part of this decade. Bad traffic is the price ordinary Palestinians are paying. Dig further, and each side will come up with a long line of causes and counter-causes going back many decades, if not millennia. Stuck in a jam at Qalandiya checkpoint, you have time to muse on all of them, believe me.

There are a few nuances. Palestinians point out that the violence of the Intifada has died away. But Israelis note that a security guard was wounded in a stabbing at Qalandiya only on Sunday.  As I sat imprisoned in a car on Monday, boys aged 14 or less took advantage of the inability of Israeli jeeps to drive out and grab them to lob stones into the checkpoint.  Palestinians complain that Israeli troops have authority over the roads around the checkpoint under the Olso accords of the 1990s, but in fact show little or no interest in managing traffic beyond the confines of the checkpoints search bays. Palestinians argue that they manage traffic pretty well in Ramallah itself. A minor economic upswing in the past few months in the West Bank, grudgingly attributed at least in part to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of easing security roadblocks, seems to have contributed to bringing more cars onto the roads. Traffic lights and traffic cops keep reasonable order in the Palestinian cities. But out in the no man’s land close to the Israeli barrier, they are not allowed to operate.

What else can you learn sitting tight for a couple of hours breathing other people’s exhaust fumes? 1. Yasser Arafat is still popular, as attested to by some nifty graffiti art on the wall itself. 2. It’s an ill wind that blows no good in the Middle East – enterprising young men were hawking gum, cigarettes and sunglasses with rather more success than usual to the stranded motorists. 3. Brutally selfish pig-headedness seems to pay, after a fashion, in these parts. The guys with the baddest attitude and least regard for their fellow man or woman, seem to get to the front of the queue, and no one seems able to stop them.

That’s a pretty sad lesson to take away, but one that Mr Mitchell may be becoming familiar with as he struggles to coax anything looking like compromise from any of his interlocutors. However, if one can find any positives, perhaps it is this. I did eventually get across the crossroads, even if it did take a big chunk of my afternoon. And I did so quicker than I might have done if total anarchy had prevailed. For, in time, at least, in this small, ugly, scarred spot of the Middle East, ordinary people did come to the rescue. Groups of men from the refugee camp, with no obvious authority but the odd chequered headscarf, leather jacket or a don’t-mess-with-me moustache, started directing the traffic, blocking everything from cheeky Suzukis to belching 16-wheelers with their bodies and forcing apart the gridlocked mess to start the process of clearing the backlog. A few thousand years after Moses and the Red Sea, another miracle in the Middle East. Mr Mitchell may have to hope for one. But at least the good folk of Qalandiya camp showed that, just maybe, such things really can happen around here.

Settlement Freeze Still the Hot Topic

Months on, and the buck still stops with the settlements.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is now in Europe to meet in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today and US peace envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday. He will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Thursday.

According to our latest article , the settlement freeze controversy  will dominate discussions, though Netanyahu is also keen to coordinate with Britain and Germany on opposition to Iran’s nuclear program.   (For more information on Netanyahu’s Europe trip, check out our factbox.)

In the midst of the debate, some organizations say that settlements continue to grow.

“On the eve of the visit,” says Reuters Allyn Fisher-Ilan, “Peace Now, an Israeli group opposed to Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory, said on Sunday that despite a government moratorium announced last week on approving new housing in the West Bank enclaves, more than 40,000 more homes could be built under plans already ratified.” Settler groups complain that families living there are being constrained by hindrances to building.

Even touchier than the settlement issue in the West Bank has been settlement building in East Jerusalem. An article in Ha’aretz says that Israel’s Jerusalem municipality is reviewing plans to construct 104 apartments there.

The report comes in the wake of rising tensions in East Jerusalem after the eviction of some Palestinian families from their houses. (See our report on that here, and a blog with video clips of protests against the evictions here.) Israel captured East Jerusalem along with the West Bank in the 1967 war. Palestinians want the capital of a future Palestinian state to be in Jerusalem.

The Mysterious Mr. Mitchell’s MacGuffin

It’s a bit like a Hitchock thriller. Nobody knows where he is — not even the U.S. State Department — and nobody knows when he will show up in Israel. All we know is, suspense is building and it’s time to watch out for surprises.

President Barack Obama’s Middle East peace envoy Senator George Mitchell is somewhere in transit — probably – and expected in Israel and the Palestinian Territories next week –  sometime.

A State Dept. spokesman at Wednesday’s regular briefing could not say much at all about Mitchell’s movements beyond he has left Washington.  Could he be in London meeting the Syrian foreign minister? Don’t know.  Is he going to Turkey as well? We will try to find that out. When is he going to be in Israel? Can’t say exactly.

Mitchell is famous for playing his cards very close to his vest and his vest very close to his skin. He gives out very little information when he is engaged in high-stakes mediation.

There is an unmistakable aura of mystery about what is going on at this delicate stage of talks with Israel and the Palestinians to get stalled peace negotiations started again, by resolving what looks like a standoff between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and Washington’s demand that it cease.

Poisonous Plans:Revealing the Truth? Or Taking Down Mahmoud Abbas?

This week, Farouq al-Qadoumi, general secretary of the Fatah party’s Central Committee, set off a firestorm in the Arab media. He released documents that he claims links Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to a plot to poison Yasser Arafat. The episode not only stoked controversy among Palestinian political factions, it led to the shutting down of the Arabic news broadcaster Al-Jazeera in the West Bank.

Al-Qadoumi has only released some parts of the document in question. According to Al-Jazeera, Al-Qadoumi says that Arafat gave him a record of the secret meeting before his death, and that a plot existed in which Abbas and security adviser Mohammed Dahlan met with former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and some US intelligence agents.

The parts released include a quote from Sharon arguing for assassinating Arafat using poison, to which Abbas replies “If Arafat dies before we’re able to gain control of the ground, and all the organization including Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Brigade, then we will face huge difficulties.” Abbas also supposedly suggests passing Israeli plans for “cleansing” Palestinian resistance leadership through Arafat himself. Al-Jazeera also quotes a part of the document where Dahlan allegedly told Sharon that he was working on penetrating the ranks of Palestinian organizations. (See AL-Jazeera’s report here. Note: this is in Arabic)

Abbas supporters in Fatah say the documents are false: “Qadoumi is trying to split Fatah and prevent the holding of the 6th Congress,” the Central Committee added in [a statement], referring to plans to hold a much delayed party assembly in the West Bank on Aug. 4, the first such congress in 20 years.” (Read the entire report here).

Al-Qadoumi, who resides in Tunis, is against holding the conference in land under Israeli occupation. Qadoumi and his supporters think the conference should be held abroad, as it was previously.

In the wake of these accusations, the Palestinian Authority closed down the Al-Jazeera news station in the West Bank, arguing that it was “spreading falsehoods” and “inciting viewers against authorities”. Many speculate that the reason has to do with Al-Jazeera’s lengthy coverage of Al-Qadoumi that day, as well as a feeling among Fatah members and the PA that Al-Jazeera is biased against them. Al-Jazeera rejected the claims, arguing that all Arabic stations were covering al-Qadoumi.

Israel’s New Ambassador to the United States

With disagreements between Israel and the United States over the issue of settlements getting public attention in recent weeks, and a peace process lacking momentum, Michael Oren has his work cut out for him. He’s Israel’s new ambassador to the United States.

Reuters correspondent Adam Entous and producer Labib Nasir talked to Mr. Oren Tuesday in Jerusalem. You can read Adam’s story here. You can watch their entire interview below.

Vacation with a difference

Modern vacation tastes have long-since evolved from the ‘sun, sea and sangria’ beloved of our forebears. 

Niche holidays are all the rage these days and a cursory browse of the web quickly throws up an eclectic mix of possibilities from this Elvis Presley-themed trip to the United States,  to a pleasant vacation in Germany looking at tractors and other farm machinery, right through to this combination “boat trip on the Seine/making a quilt” holiday. (And those are all from just one web site).

But even these high-adrenalin holidays pale by comparison to the week-long tour of Israel we spotted on the web being offered by Shurat HaDin Israel Law Centre whose motto is “Bankrupting Terrorism – One Lawsuit at a Time”.

Their “Ultimate Mission to Israel” offers a range of unusual activities sure to put the smile on any vacationers face, to whit:

- Briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet.

- Inside tour of the Israeli Air Force unit who (sic) carries out targeted killings. 

Following the money from Washington to the West Bank…

By encouraging foreign investment in the Palestinian economy, and notably the part of it controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas rather than the Hamas Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip, the United States and its allies hope to create conditions more conducive for long-stalled peace talks with Israel to succeed.

Israel, too, led by the government installed this month under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is hoping for an “economic peace” with the Palestinian Authority.

Reuters has reviewed aid and investment promotion programmes developed by Washington, the European Union and other donors. 

In a series of stories running this week, Reuters will explore U.S. aid contracts won by firms run by Abbas’s sons, a shift in the structure and governance of a Palestinian investment fund, and the role of a small group of politically-powerful Palestinian companies linked by a web of cross holdings. 

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.

A covert challenge to Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

Israeli officials aren’t talking, but Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper is quoting intelligence experts and an unnamed former CIA agent as saying that Israel is waging a covert war of sabotage inside Iran in an effort to delay its suspected attempts to build a nuclear weapon.

An intelligence source in the Middle East has told Reuters the Israeli campaign includes sending letter bombs or anthrax-tainted mail to scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme and sabotaging related infrastructure. European countries and the United States are also part of the cloak-and-dagger war, the source said.

It could all be disinformation, of course, to keep pressure on Iran to halt uranium enrichment which Tehran insists is aimed only at generating electricity. But scientists working for Israel’s enemies have been targeted in the past.

In the early 1960s, Wolfgang Lotz, later known as the Israeli Mossad’s “champagne spy”, was living the high life of a rich, German exile in Egypt. He was actually a German-born Israeli tasked, among other things, with keeping a close eye on German scientists working in Egypt. The Mossad feared they could help Cairo, then in a state of war with Israel, to build long-range missiles.  The spy agency wrote letters to the scientists, making sure to mention the names of their wives and children, and urged them to halt their work if they wanted to keep their loved ones safe.

In 1990, Gerald Bull, a Canadian ballistics expert, was shot and killed in Belgium, a “hit” widely believed to have been the work of the Mossad. Bull’s Brussels-based company was helping Saddam Hussein’s Iraq build “superguns” — artillery designed to fire projectiles more than 1,200 km (750 miles), making Israel an easy target.

In a renewed expression of concern over Iran, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Iranian atomic weapons would pose an “existential threat” to the Jewish state and to “world order”.