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Mitzna
stands in front of a poster of his rival for the Labor Party’s
leadership Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, November 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Israel’s
center-left Labor party chooses a new leader Tuesday, November 19, to
battle out January elections with the right-wing Likud of Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, who once again sent his tanks to raid Gaza overnight,
leaving three Palestinians injured.
Labor’s
primaries were expected to be won by dovish Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna, a
former general who favors a swift resumption of talks with the
Palestinians. But Mitzna is likely to find himself heading an opposition
party after the January election, which Likud is tipped to sweep, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
A
last-minute poll published in the daily Ha’aretz showed Mitzna, 57,
well ahead with 53 percent of intended votes. His closest rival, hawkish
former defense minister and current party chief Binyamin Ben Eliezer, is
tipped to garner 35 percent.
The
third candidate, moderate deputy Haim Ramon, is expected to draw just 11
percent. A candidate has to win more than 40 percent of the vote to
avoid a runoff.
The
balloting ends at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT), with the first results expected
before midnight.
Mamduh
Nawfal, an advisor to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said
“Mitzna's victory will mean there is a partner for peace again and his
failure will signify that there is no more hope and that the current
deadlock is to go on.”
He
said Arafat and other Palestinian officials were following “with
interest” the Labor primary elections, opposing the dovish Mitzna and
hawkish former defense minister and incumbent party leader Binyamin Ben
Eliezer, as well as moderate MP Haim Ramon.
Were
Ben Eliezer reelected, this would mean he could “accommodate again”
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who heads the right-wing Likud
party and who collaborated with Ben Eliezer for 20 months in a national
unity coalition until the Labor chief walked out last month, said
Nawfal.
Palestinian
Labor Minister Ghassan Al-Khatib said for his part that the Labor
primaries will place Israelis and Palestinians at “a crossroads.”
“We
hope the Israelis will realize that a military solution won’t bring
about peace and draw a lesson after two years of conflict,” he told
AFP.
The
center-left party has undergone an identity crisis since former prime
minister Ehud Barak lost to Sharon in February 2001 after failing to
strike a peace deal with Arafat at the July 2000 U.S.-brokered Camp
David talks.
Mitzna’s
program, if he becomes prime minister, includes withdrawing from the
Gaza Strip, evacuating Gaza Strip settlements, withdrawing from most of
the West Bank, dismantling isolated Jewish settlements in the West Bank
and reaching a compromise on the prickly issue of east Jerusalem, the
Arab part of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 war.
Labor,
which launched the Oslo peace process, is deeply divided after almost
two years of close collaboration with Sharon in his national unity
coalition, where Ben Eliezer oversaw the largest invasion of the West
Bank in 35 years before walking out in October.
Polls
show the Likud could almost double its seats in the January 28 polls.
First, it must choose between Sharon and his bombastic foreign minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said the first item on his agenda as premier
would be to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Since
his cabinet lurched to the right following Labor’s walkout, Sharon has
been under increasing pressure to take tougher measures against the
Palestinians, especially after an ambush last week in the West Bank city
of Al- Khalil (Hebron) cost the lives of 12 Israeli security officers.
He
is also under huge U.S. pressure not to stir up tensions ahead of an
anticipated U.S. war on Iraq, while Netanyahu has said such a conflict
would provide the ideal opportunity to expel Arafat, accused by Israel
of deep complicity in two years of anti-Israeli attacks.
The
Al-Khalil shooting drew international condemnation as a “terrorist”
strike. In response, the Palestinians have argued that the denunciations
were a “distortion,” given that all the men killed in the attack
were armed combatants, including three settler security officers buried
in military funerals this week.
As
a result of the attack, Israel mulled extending the area under its
direct control in Al-Khalil. Young Jewish hardliners have already set up
a settlement outpost at the site of Friday’s ambush, between the
established settlement of Kiryat Arba, on the edge of the city, and tiny
Jewish enclaves in the city center.
France
criticized the extension of the settlements, saying they went against
international law.
In
the meantime, Israeli forces pressed ahead with raids into the Gaza
Strip, with a second incursion in two nights leaving three Palestinians
wounded by tank fire.
Two
of them, hit in eastern Gaza City, were members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s
Fatah movement, Palestinian officials said. The third was a passerby.
Early
Monday, November 18, four Palestinians were wounded when Israeli troops
clashed with gunmen as they surrounded and then partially destroyed a
base of the Palestinian preventive security forces in Gaza City.
Israel
sent tanks and helicopter gunships against Palestinian security forces
in Gaza accusing them of complicity in “terrorism”.
The
Al-Aqsa Martyrs also claimed responsibility for an ambush near Ramallah
in the West Bank late Monday in which a Jewish settler woman, a mother
of seven, was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen.
Washington
also confirmed it was concerned about the presence of Islamic Jihad
offices in Damascus. Israel earlier said the Washington had asked Syria
to close them down in response to the Al-Khalil attack, which was
claimed by the resistance group.
Syria
retorted that Washington’s policy was a root cause of the violence.
“The
United States is responsible for this bloodbath, since it supports the
Israeli occupation and provides aid to Israel, which is violating more
than 28 resolutions adopted by the U.N. Security Council,” Damascus
said in an open letter to the U.S. ambassador there.
