UN report accuses Israel of using human shields

Likud-Labor talks start, take Netanyahu close to government

DEBKAfile Special Report

March 23, 2009, 11:30 AM (GMT+02:00)

Their guidelines are based on a joint effort to rescue the economic from recession and mass unemployment and also embody a commitment by the government headed by Binyamin Netanyau to hold diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria. There is no reference to the two-state formula espoused by Kadima.

Defense minister Ehud Barak hopes his Labor party will agree to join the government in which he will retain defense. Negotiations are led for Labor by Ofer Eini, trade unions strongman, who is determined to take the party into government to ease the pressures expected to cause massive layoffs. The economy will be Netanyahu's priority as prime minister. He has prepared a comprehensive recovery program with Eini and business leaders.

The deal signed with the ultra-religious Shas before dawn Monday March 23 gives the prime minister-designate 53 out of 120 Knesset seats after Israel Beitenu signed on last week assigning foreign affairs to its leader Avigdor Lieberman.

Barak's Labor party is deeply riven over his commitment to join the Netanyahu line-up and stay on as defense minister. The second ultra-religious party United Torah Judaism (5) is expected to finalize negotiations by the end of the day. Defense minister Ehud Barak's Labor party is deeply riven over his commitment to join the Netanyahu line-up.

He jumped the gun Sunday by setting up a team of his supporters to kick off negotiations with Likud Monday morning, hoping to have a finished draft accord to present to the party's central committee Tuesday. The session may be delayed for Barak to build a majority to endorse his proposal. If he fails, he is considering defecting from Labor and joining the government regardless. If he succeeds, he will have five senior cabinet posts to hand out to his party plus the chairs of two of the most powerful parliamentary committees. Labor may also face a split. By the end of the week, this process will have worked its way to a conclusion one way or the other.

Shas has come away with four cabinet posts, including interior for its leader Ellie Yishai, housing and the National Lands Authority, as well as a pledge to raise child allowances and allocations for the yeshiva seminaries.

The second ultra-religious party United Torah Judaism (5) is expected to finalize negotiations by the end of the day.

With Labor, Netanyahu will have a comfortable majority of 71 seats without the two nationalist parties which are still waiting in the wings. With them and without Labor, he has 65. He has until the end of next week to present a viable government to the president. It looks like a romp.

  An explosion in southern Lebanon on Monday killed a senior Fatah official and three of his bodyguards as they were leaving a Palestinian refugee camp, Lebanese and Palestinian security officials said.

Palestinian men carry a dead body away from a burning car near the site of explosion where a senior Fatah official and at least three bodyguards were killed in what appeared to be a roadside explosion outside the Mieh Mieh refugee camp. Photo: AP

SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region  |  World

The blast, apparently from a roadside bomb, struck a two-car convoy carrying Fatah's Kamal Madhat as they left the Mieh Mieh camp near the southern port city of Sidon, killing him and the bodyguards, the officials said. A fourth bodyguard was wounded. Madhat's car was completely gutted in the explosion that left a 5-meter wide crater, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The blast was heard across Sidon. Witnesses said pieces of torn flesh were scattered near the bombing site, as ambulances and civil defense rushed to evacuate the victims. The Mieh Mieh camp and the nearby Ein el-Hilweh camp are mainly controlled by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group. Madhat was a military, political and security aide to a Palestinian representative in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, who is close to Abbas. No one claimed responsibility for the bombing and Lebanese authorities released no official statements. It was not immediately known if Zaki could have been the target, since he had left the camp only a few hours earlier. It was also unclear if the blast was related to a reported power struggle among Fatah members in Lebanon. Madhat was known to have enemies within and outside Fatah, mainly extremist Islamic groups opposing Abbas' peace deals with Israel. Rivalries and fighting, mainly between Fatah gunmen and extremist Islamic groups in Lebanon's refugee camps, have claimed the lives of scores of Palestinians in the past. Lebanon has 12 Palestinian refugee camps, which are off limits to authorities under a Lebanon-Palestinian deal. Some fugitives are believed to live inside the teeming Ein el-Hilweh camp, located outside Sidon.

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Jerusalem police foil mobster hit

  Four Israelis, including a fire brigade commander, are under arrest for allegedly planning to carry out a criminally-motivated attack in central Israel against a suspected local mobster boss, police said Monday.

The explosives police say were planned to be used in an underworld hit. Photo: Channel 2

SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region  |  World

The four suspects, who were apprehended over the last month, have been remanded in custody by a Jerusalem court. The four men, including fire brigade commander Moshe Lili, are suspected of being hired by a Jerusalem crime family to attack a rival suspected prominent mobster family in Israel, the Abergils. Lili denies the allegations against him, but police say they have sufficient evidence to prove that he hid the explosive device in order to pay off a black market debt of tens of thousands of shekels. The hit was thwarted last month when police found a medium size bomb in the car of one of the suspects in the case during a search of his vehicle on the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. The suspect, Avi Elimelech, 52, who has a past criminal record for drug-related offenses, is not cooperating with police in the investigation. The names of the two additional key suspects in the case will not be released until a Wednesday court hearing. A court gag order, which was partially lifted on Monday still bars publication of additional details in the case. Israeli gangsters control extortion, gambling, prostitution, and drugs, and periodically try to kill each other. Police have identified six major organized crime families operating in Israel, who are fighting for control in the underworld of gambling, prostitution, and drugs, operations which are estimated to be worth about NIS 14 billion a year.

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Yemeni Muslim sentenced to death for emailing Olmert

A court in Yemen on Monday sentenced a local Muslim to death on charges of seeking to spy for Israel's Mossad spy agency, reported Reuters. The court ruled that an email the man allegedly sent to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently proved his intent to conduct espionage on behalf of the Jewish state. Two other local Muslims connected to the convicted man were given light jail terms. Upon hearing his sentence, the defendant cried out that he was being unfairly mistreated, and insisted that the charges against him were false, the fabrications of a police officer with whom he had an ongoing argument

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Jewish-Arab showdown in northern Israel scheduled for Tuesday

A group of 100 Israeli Jews will march with Israeli flags through a northern Israel Arab town known for its hostility toward the Jewish state on Tuesday. The demonstration is the result of a Supreme Court decision allowing the organizers to exercise their freedom of speech. The group had wanted to march in the Lower Galilee town of Umm el-Fahm during the pre-election campaigns, but was denied permission by police for security reasons. The demonstrators argue that if Arab citizens of Israel can gather in Jewish population centers carrying the flags of enemy nations and terrorist organizations, then they should be permitted to march in Arab towns carrying the flag of their own country. But they will meet violent opposition. Arab leaders in northern Israel put out the call last week for thousands of Israeli Arabs to descend on Umm el-Fahm and physically block the demonstrating Jews. Security for the demonstration is expected to be boosted after a right-wing Knesset member announced his intention to lead the march.

The Associated Press

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