Israel Politics

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, back at work after recovering from a weeklong flu, faced a barrage of criticism Sunday for failing to find a military or diplomatic solution to 17 months of fighting with the Palestinians. As Israelis buried three soldiers and two teenagers killed since Friday and Palestinians tried to carry out a second suicide bombing in less than 24 hours, pundits, politicians and folks on the street angrily demanded a new policy from Sharon. "Where is Sharon?"

JERUSALEM - Amid the collapse of a multibillion-dollar natural gas agreement between Egypt and Israel that had been in place since 2005, officials from both countries stressed Monday that the dispute was a commercial one and did not reflect political tensions. But observers viewed the contract spat as the latest sign of souring relations between the two countries and said it could threaten the long-term viability of their historic 1979 Camp David peace accord. Tensions between the two countries have been rising since the ouster last year of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who maintained close ties with Israel despite the relationship's unpopularity with the Egyptian public.

The Israeli government's announcement this week that it intends to expand Jerusalem has created a storm of protest from the United States, the United Nations and others who say it will further damage the beleaguered peace process with the Palestinians. But inside Israel, the plan's most vocal opponents are people whose focus is not on the peace process but on the kinds of quality-of-life issues that might sound familiar to municipal annexation foes in California and elsewhere.

Avinadav Begin, 36, comes from one of Israel's most famous political families. His grandfather Menachem Begin, as prime minister, signed the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt; his father, Benny Begin, a minister without portfolio in the current government, opposes a Palestinian state. The latest Begin to make a splash, Avinadav has written a book titled "The End of Conflict," which urges people to delve deep into the roots of conflict and reject external trappings of identity.

Israel's governing Labor Party on Thursday nominated as its candidate for president Ezer Weizman, a former air force commander and defense minister who became a "super dove" while helping to make peace with Egypt. Weizman, 68, won 52% of the votes from 1,186 members of the Labor Party's central committee, easily defeating another liberal, Arie (Lova) Eliav, and a center-right candidate, Shlomo Hillel.

Tens of thousands of Israelis filled a central plaza to overflowing here Saturday night and called for an end to back-room maneuvering for power and for a redesigned election system to relieve the nation's chronic political stalemate.

The deaths of nine Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon thrust the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin deep into a quandary this weekend over how to fight Iranian-backed guerrillas there without endangering the Middle East peace talks. Rabin asserted again Saturday that while Israeli security remains his foremost concern, ultimately it must come from peace agreements with the country's Arab neighbors.

Meir Kahane, the controversial founder of the militant Jewish Defense League and a fierce proponent of the expulsion of Arabs from Israeli territories, was shot to death after giving a speech here Monday night. Kahane, 58, was answering questions from the audience of about 100 people when a man approached and shot him in the neck. He was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. The assassin was described by one witness as "smiling and looking strange" as he walked toward Kahane.

Ehud Barak, a mike on his lapel and pancake makeup on his cheeks, toured a food-processing factory here and then posed for pictures with the Bamba Baby, a man dressed in fuzzy blue diapers and fuzzy orange slippers. "The Bamba Baby for Barak," Israel's most decorated soldier proclaimed, mugging for the cameras alongside the factory mascot.

For campaign kitsch of the low-blow kind, these could go down in Israeli history: plastic drinking cups inscribed with the assertion that "Israel needs a clear-headed prime minister" signed by a bogus "Committee Against Alcoholism," an allusion to alleged heavy drinking by Yitzhak Rabin, the Labor Party candidate for the post.

Israel's Labor Party voted Tuesday to join the incoming government of Benjamin Netanyahu, lending a moderate voice to a coalition dominated by hard-liners and easing concerns of a head-on confrontation with Washington over Mideast peacemaking. Chants of "Disgrace! Disgrace!"

It's a new year in an old and bloody world. In Israel, politicians jockeying for power have launched the most lethal military assault on Palestinian territory in decades. Israel has justified its bombardment of Gaza on the grounds that Hamas broke a fragile, temporary cease-fire. The Israeli government is right to consider Hamas' rocket attacks on Israeli civilians inexcusable, but the timing of the Israeli military offensive has more to do with politics than anything else.

A few years back in Israel, the people who were against Jewish settlers being forced to move decided that they would adopt orange as their symbolic color. For Etgar Keret, the Israeli short-story writer and director of the new film "Jellyfish" -- which was written by his wife, poet Shira Geffen -- that posed a problem.

Re "Israel's false friends," Opinion, Jan. 6 Where John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt miss the boat is their opining that the key issue (vis-a-vis an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution) is the future of Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967 and still controls. From the perspective of many Americans, including U.S. presidential candidates, the key issue is Israeli security against suicide bombers and other Palestinian opponents of a two-state solution.

ON PREVIOUS election days, the street outside my polling station would be crowded with booths staffed by passionate activists from Israel's three-dozen-plus parties seeking one last opportunity to persuade voters. The sidewalk would be littered with leaflets from right-wing parties promising peace through strength and left-wing parties promising peace through concessions, from secular parties opposing Israeli theocracy and religious parties bemoaning godless hedonism.

Palestinians must take decisive action against militants and get serious about internal reform if they want to move toward statehood as outlined in a new Mideast peace plan, a U.S. envoy told senior Palestinian officials Thursday. But the Palestinians and Israel have expressed reservations about the plan. The document envisions a gradual Israeli troop pullback to positions held before the outbreak of fighting two years ago.

Benjamin Netanyahu, one of Israel's most popular politicians and a contender for leadership of the right-wing Likud Party, was caught up Friday in a sex scandal after charging that rivals were threatening to show a videotape of him cheating on his wife unless he quit the race.

Did he blunder and give comfort to Israel's enemies or was he candidly expressing what he and many Israelis in their hearts believe? Either way, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak's remark last week that if he had been born a Palestinian, he might have joined one of the groups fighting Israel has erupted into a major political flap for the former army chief who wants Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's job.

Last May, after a rash of suicide bombings in Israel and the Israeli army's incursion into Palestinian territory, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had breakfast with some Hollywood players. These weren't his usual conservative hosts but mostly liberals, among them TV legend Norman Lear, "Rock the Vote" co-founder and record executive Jeff Ayeroff, and film director Jon Turteltaub.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon started the week by reassuring Israelis reeling from a string of bloody attacks that they had nothing to fear. "Israel," the hawkish former general told his Cabinet, "has never lost a war and will win this war as well." But between Sunday, when Sharon made that observation, and Wednesday, 10 more Israelis were killed and the prime minister was under attack from across the political spectrum.