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FULL ARTICLES
Tuesday, August 26
German Mediator Met Israeli Citizen Abducted by Hezbollah
The German mediator who orchestrated Monday's handover of two Hezbollah men killed in clashes with the IDF has confirmed that Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli man captured by Hezbollah three years ago, is still being held by the Shi'ite organization.
Channel One reported that mediator Ernst Uhrlau, co-ordinator of the German secret services, said that Tannenbaum was in reasonable health. Retired IDF General Ilan Biran, who heads the Israeli team in the negotiations, is due to return from Germany in the coming days to give a full report on Tannenbaum's condition.
The release of the bodies was in response to the Lebanese group letting the German mediator visit Tannenbaum earlier this week, an anonymous security source said.
The source confirmed the Channel One report that Uhrlau met Tannenbaum, a reservist officer captured in late 2000, in Lebanon two days ago. The mediator was the first intermediary to see the Israeli alive since he was captured, the source said.
The security source said "proof of Tannenbaum's well-being is an important step in negotiations" for a possible prisoner exchange between Lebanon and Israel.
No further details about the visit were provided.
In January, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Hezbollah, said that Tannenbaum was alive.
Interviewed by Lebanese TV, Nasrallah said that his organization was holding "four prisoners, one of whom is known to be alive - the Israeli colonel, Colonel Tannenbaum - and three, whose fate is not known."
It was the first time since the kidnapping on October 15, 2000, that Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the Hezbollah, has stated that Tannenbaum is alive. Tannenbaum, a reserve colonel, is in poor health and needs a constant supply of medicines.
In his original statement announcing that Tannenbaum was being held in Hezbollah's hands, Shiekh Nasrallah said the Israeli had arrived in Beirut of his own free will and was not kidnapped, but he never explicitly stated the businessman was alive.
The German mediator's comments come hours after Israel repatriated the bodies of Hezbollah fighters, Ammar Hammoud and Ghassan Zaatar, to representatives of the Red Cross at Rosh Hanikra on the Lebanese border on Monday afternoon.
A security source in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonimity, said that in exchange for the bodies, Israel would get information on the fate of some of the Israeli soldiers and citizens believed to be held by Hezbollah. "Israel will hand over two bodies in exchange for information on Israeli hostages," an Israeli security source said before the handover.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed would receive the bodies at 4 P.M. (1300 GMT) and would hand them over to family members. The organization stressed, however, that the move was not part of an immediate prisoner exchange deal.
"This is definitely not a swap," said Antoine Bieler, ICRC head of delegation in Lebanon. "At least for today, this is a unilateral move from one side to the other."
But both Hezbollah and Israeli sources said the move came in the context of talks between them that could lead to further developments. Israeli sources called the handover a goodwill gesture intended to promote prisoner exchange, Israel Radio reported.
A security official in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bodies were being transferred to Lebanon as "part of negotiations taking place through coordinators to make a deal to bring back missing Israeli soldiers and citizens."
Following a short prayer service, the simple, flag-draped wooden coffins carrying the guerrillas' remains were placed in two Hezbollah ambulances and taken to a hospital in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, before being sent to their respective home towns.
Sheik Nabil Kaouk, the Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, delivered a short speech saying the hand over was "in line with Hezbollah's commitment to bring home the bodies of all our martyrs." He thanked the ICRC for handling the coffin transfers.
Hammoud was killed after carrying out a suicide attack against an Israeli military convoy on the Qlai-Marjayoun road in southern Lebanon on Dec. 30, 1999, according to a Hezbollah statement faxed to The Associated Press. It was one of the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group's last suicide attacks on Israeli soldiers ahead of Israel's withdrawal in May 2000 from south Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.
Zaatar was killed in clashes with Israeli troops in November 1998 in Iqlin al-Tuffah in southern Lebanon.
On Sunday the chief of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement said progress was being made on an exchange of prisoners with Israel.
"I will speak a few words about the detainees... This file will be concluded, God willing," Nasrallah said, according to a Hezbollah transcript of the remarks faxed to Reuters on Sunday.
"Today we are closer than at any time in the past to this result," he said at the opening of a hospital in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Nasrallah did not elaborate, but said that mediations between his movement and Israel had resumed.
Israeli officials last Tuesday confirmed they had granted Germany indirect contact with Hezbollah on the issue.
The Itim news agency on Sunday quoted an Israeli source as saying that there had been some progress in German-mediated talks between Israel and the militant Hezbollah on a prisoner swap, but no deal had been finalized.
Hezbollah is holding four Israelis, including three soldiers and a retired colonel. The Israeli soldiers were captured in the disputed Har Dov area near the border with Lebanon in October 2000, while the reserve colonel was seized overseas during a "complicated operation," the movement said.Israel is holding about 18 Lebanese detainees, among them Hezbollah official Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid. Earlier this month, Nasrallah threatened to kidnap more Israelis if the Jewish state does not move on the issue of the prisoner swap.
Last week Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel is willing to engage in a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, but that Hezbollah cannot demand a mass release of prisoners in return for information.By Haaretz Service and agencies
German mediator met Israeli citizen abducted by Hezbollah
Editorial: Face the Terrorists
A NUMBER OF FACTORS have pushed the latest Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the edge of that "cliff that both sides will fall off," as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell put it last week. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian administration has fulfilled its obligations under the "road map," the U.S.-backed plan that both sides nominally endorsed; instead they have done the minimum necessary to avoid a rift with the Bush administration, while demanding that Washington force the other side to comply fully. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has been hamstrung by President Yasser Arafat, who has done his best to thwart a process designed in part to strip him of power. Israel's Ariel Sharon once again has proved unwilling to take any substantive action against Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Yet the fundamental reason Israelis and Palestinians now face another descent into open warfare is the same one that wrecked the Oslo peace process three years ago and that since then has prevented the two-state peace settlement both peoples want. That fundamental cause is the practice of terrorism by Palestinian extremists and the failure of moderate Palestinian leaders to confront it. No peace process is possible while suicide bombers are slaughtering Israeli civilians in the heart of Jerusalem; the current thaw began only because of Mr. Abbas's emergence as a leader committed to ending such crimes. Unless Mr. Abbas can now deliver on that promise, there can be little hope of avoiding the plunge off the cliff.
Mr. Abbas seems genuinely committed to stopping the bombers. Yet his method for doing it -- pressing the extremist groups to observe a "cease-fire" -- has not worked. Though violence was sharply reduced during the seven weeks the cease-fire lasted, the Islamic groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad were never committed to it; they used the time to build up their arsenals while working to create a climate that would allow them to return to terrorism. Among other things, they goaded Mr. Abbas into demanding Israeli concessions, such as the release of 7,000 Palestinian security prisoners, that do not figure in the road map. Mr. Sharon made the work of the spoilers easier by avoiding or minimizing Israeli steps and by continuing to authorize military operations against the groups supposedly observing the cease-fire. But Hamas's return to suicide bombs was inevitable: The idea that a group that aims at the extinction of Israel and exults in the slaughter of small children could be quietly converted into a peaceful political movement, as Mr. Abbas suggested, was a dangerous illusion.
Under heavy pressure from the Bush administration, Mr. Abbas's forces are now taking the first, largely token, steps toward neutralizing the terrorists. They claim they would do more were they not undermined by Israel's assassination of several Hamas leaders since the Jerusalem bombing. In fact, the larger obstacle is Mr. Arafat, who blocked Mr. Abbas's plan for a crackdown before the Israeli reprisals and who refuses to give up control over Palestinian security forces that could be used to stop the terrorists. The Bush administration could do more to salvage the situation: In particular, the administration could work more aggressively to mobilize Arab and European pressure on the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon should be pressed to restrain the Israeli military. But the real imperative for action remains, as it has for three years, with the Palestinians. If they will not act against the evil in their midst, the outside world can do little to help them.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
FM Shalom Discusses Iranian Nuclear Arms and Road Map with Japan
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom lobbied Japan Tuesday to put a pending $2.2 billion business deal with Iran on hold as a means of pressuring Tehran not to produce nuclear arms.
Shalom, the first Israeli foreign minister to visit Japan in six years, met separately Tuesday with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, and Japan's Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi.
According to a senior ministry official traveling with Shalom, the Foreign Minister raised the Iranian-Japanese business deal in both meetings. Iran and Japan are in the final stages of putting together a deal whereby Japanese companies would develop Iranian oil fields.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi is slated to arrive in Japan on Wednesday, with this deal one of the issues on the agenda.
According to the Foreign Ministry official, the Israeli delegation had no illusions that the Japanese would immediately heed the request. However, the official said, the message was received by the Japanese, and it is possible that if pressure is applied by the US -- Japan may reassess the deal.
Shalom asked Koizumi and Kawaguchi to freeze business deals with Iran until the Iranians commit themselves to signing the "additional protocol" to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Tehran is under strong international pressure to prove it is not secretly developing atomic weapons by signing the "additional protocol," which would allow snap UN inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities.
The Iranian nuclear case will be reviewed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors at a key meeting in Vienna on September 8. Japan is one of the countries on the IAEA board of governors.
Shalom's efforts in Japan came on a day of reports U.N. inspectors found traces of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium at the Natanz Iranian nuclear facility.
Shalom, in his meeting with the Japanese leaders, used both the nuclear threat Japan faces from North Korea, and Japan's history as the world's only country to suffer a nuclear attack, to bolster his argument that Japan needs to do all it can to ensure Iran does not get nuclear weapons.
Shalom told the Japanese that if the Iranians begin to enrich uranium it will be only a short time before they will possess nuclear weapons.
"I think there is a greater appreciation in the world today to the Iranian danger," Shalom told Israel Radio. He said that while in the past Europe and Russia looked on a nuclear Iran only as a threat to Israel, today they understand it is a threat to them as well.
In addition to discussing Iran, Shalom also pressed Japan to place Hamas on the country's list of terrorist organizations.
Shalom also called for greater Japanese involvement in the international effort to pressure the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the terror infrastructure and fulfill its road map commitments, saying the fact Japan has provided the Palestinian Authority with $680 million dollars more than any other country -- gives it leverage with the Palestinians.
"The time has come for Japan to stop solely being a source of money, but also to take advantage of the situation to influence the PA to dismantle the terror infrastructure," Shalom said.
Foreign Ministry officials said Kawaguchi responded to Shalom's appeals by saying she spoke this week with PA Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath and said the PA must fight terror, and that the road map is "extremely important" and must not be allowed to fail.
Shalom also asked Japan to work to change automatic, anti-Israel voting patterns in international organizations.
"At a time when there is widespread agreement about the need to end Palestinian incitement against Israel, there is also a need to stop diplomatic incitement against us in international forums," Shalom said. Kawaguchi, according to Israeli foreign ministry officials, said Japan will help in this effort.
By HERB KEINON
Israel trying to scuttle giant Iranian-Japanese business deal
New York Mayor Makes Solidarity Trip to Israel
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited survivors of a suicide bombing Tuesday and lit a candle at the spot where the blast tore apart a bus, saying Israelis have no choice but to "stand up and fight back" against terrorism.
"When somebody has a gun to your head, you can't negotiate," Bloomberg told reporters at Hadassah University Hospital where he met wounded survivors. "You have to stand up and fight back."
He said Americans share a common struggle with Israelis against terrorism following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
"I'm not afraid, the Israeli people aren't afraid, New Yorkers and Americans aren't afraid," he said. "We are all in this together."
At the hospital, Bloomberg met bombing victims Chana Nathansen, 26, originally from Monsey, New York, and her Israeli husband Metanya, 27, who had been on the bus with their three daughters. One of them, 2-year-old Tehilla, was killed.
"Thanks God for healing me," said Chana Nathansen, in a wheelchair after being wounded by ball-bearings packed into the bomb.
Bloomberg gave her two teddy bears for her two other daughters, ages 6 and 5 months, who survived their injuries.
The mayor examined an X-ray of a boy's blast-damaged lungs, and stopped at the bedside of a 1-month-old boy, the youngest of 10 victims at the hospital.
Bloomberg left New York Fire Department T-shirts as mementos, and then went to the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, to retrace the steps of those killed and wounded in the attack.
Wearing a yarmulke adorned with U.S. and Israeli flags, Bloomberg wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and pushed it into a crack in the wall. After posing for photos, he leaned forward and kissed the wall.
Bloomberg then took a bus along the No. 2 route on which the bomber struck. Sitting next to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, he said he felt it was "as safe as" New York City subways.
At the bombing site, a crowd of rescue workers, government officials and passers-by broke into singing the Israeli and American national anthems while Bloomberg joined a memorial candle-lighting ceremony.
The mayor was accompanied by senior members of his staff, former New York mayor Ed Koch; New York City Councilman Simcha Felder, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who represents the Boro Park district; and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, rabbi of one of New York's largest Orthodox synagogues, Kehilath Jeshurun.
Bloomberg has made previous trips to Israel, including one with New York Governor George Pataki in 2001 that came shortly after two suicide bombers struck at an outdoor mall, killing 11 people.
By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies
Israel Comic Festival Gives Amateurs Opportunity to Showcase Their Work
There were dolls representing Superman, Spiderman and X-men, crates full of comic books featuring Batman, Wonder Woman, Hulk and the other American super heroes, book stands run by publishers like Keter, Am Oved and Modan, dozens of colorful comic books in Hebrew and English on chromo paper, computer games, a television journalist wandering among the stands - dressed up as Catwoman - fingering the furry ears on top of her head as she chatted with children and teens smiling shyly at the camera, and excited children who pull their tired parents from one stand to another.
In the hustle and bustle of the third Israeli Comics Cartoon and Animation Festival held at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque lobby last week, only the sharp-eyed would have noticed the pale poster with the colored felt marker letters indicating the location of the alternative comics exhibition on the upper floor, above the washrooms. The lights at that exhibition were a bit dimmer, while the stands - which primarily displayed amateurish, homemade looking comic books without colors or chromo paper - were set up close to each other beside the staircase. The throngs of festival visitors did not reach the alternative exhibition, nor did the cool climate-controlled air from below. Two large industrial fans stood on the floor doing their best to move the humid air a bit, occasionally lifting a rogue comic book into the air, where it fluttered and fell to the floor.
Miri Kluner, who offered editions of her comic book, "Anti," recalled how for a moment in the afternoon, a cool breeze had swept through the area. That happened, she says with sparkling eyes, when the movie ended, and the air-conditioned theater's doors opened. "After that, we tried to open the doors again to enjoy some of the air conditioning, but we couldn't."
This year, for the first time, the festival's management decided to give the alternative comics their own space in order to enlarge the variety of cartoon styles on display at the festival. "It is important for us to provide a stage for the youngsters who are fresher and uncensored, who cannot publish professionally," says Nissim Hizkiyahu, the festival's art director. The cartoonists were asked to pay only a symbolic fee for their stands at which they sold their creations during the the three days of the festival. The display was comprised of 10 stands, and most of the salespeople were the creators themselves.
On the festival's second day, they got fed up with the intense heat and their distance from the visitors below, and realized that, as always, there must be an alternative. Assi Halfon, 16, was the spearhead, and the others followed him. One after the other, they gathered up their stands, took them down the stairs, and set them up at the cinematheque entrance. Next year, says Hizkiyahu, management will try to find a solution to the problem of the air conditioning too.
NIS 1 per page
"Format: A4, illustrated on both sides of the page. Means: Photocopy machine. The mandate: The small group has complete freedom not to accept decisions. Anarchy. All are invited. Let each person draw as he sees fit. Pluralism. Deviance. Tits and ass. No selections. No direction. No God. Everything is distributed, the strong sells." This is how the independent A4 comics group defined itself on the inside cover of the six comic books it published for the festival.
At the group's stand, beside the books, there was also a stack of A4 paper with black-and-white comics depicted on them in a print quality that could not be described as enviable.
"Part of our concept is the fanzine look," explains Yuval Caspi, one of the group's founders and coordinator of festival activities for the alternative exhibition. "We are a group of pluralists that accepts anyone who draws cartoons. We never refuse anyone." Each comics page sells for a shekel, and every 16-page comic book costs NIS 15.
The group has its own web site (www.aaaa4.tk), which, Caspi says, registers about 200 visitors a day. The site has an active forum that cartoonists can use to upload their works, and therefore, join the group.
"We already have about 150 cartoonists," says Caspi. "One or two new ones join each day. We have sold about 3,000 A4 pages so far." Caspi notes that all revenues are used toward printing costs and for hosting events at which the comics are sold. Alongside known artists who are members (Dudu Geva, Zev Engelmeier, Uri Fink), the group includes young artists, mostly aged 15-16.
The group does not censor content. Thus, for example, one can find an A4 comic book with stories about an Israel Defense Forces soldier who is a suicide bomber, dubious connections between Ilan Ramon and Omri Sharon, the adventures of a talking cup, and a tour of Chen Blvd. in Tel Aviv with a dog who prefers his own kind.
"We are not mainstream," says Caspi. "Anyone can write about sex, violence, drugs, politics or even a simple love story."
More than an industry of individuals
The group was founded about five months ago at the initiative of Caspi, Geva, Rani Levanon, Boaz Kadman and a few others. "We wanted comics to be more than an industry of a few individuals, that it should become something more popular, that anyone who wanted to express himself could put out a comic book," Geva says. "[We wanted] to give an opportunity to every child, every old woman, everyone who couldn't afford to publish works on his own."
Geva took upon himself the printing of the first 100 of the group's cartoons on his home photocopier. "I made 50 copies of each page, on both sides of the page, which comes out to about 10,000 copies," he says. "I felt like a print shop owner, a small Communist contributing to mankind."
Another group of artists that exhibited in the alternative comics exhibition was the Dimona group, whose five members have been operating together for a year-and-a-half. The five - Sagi Morad, Michal Baruch, Merav Shaul, Yifat Cohen and Amitai Sandy - studied design at either Jerusalem's Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design or Vital, the Tel Aviv Center for Design Studies.
"We preferred to work in a group, because a group has much more power, both in the economic sense and from the perspective of dividing the work load," says a group member. "Putting out a book independently is a lot of work, and this way we split up the tasks: one distributes (whoever has a car that day); one is in charge of printing; another is responsible for public relations. We have no fixed roles, switching with one another all the time. Beyond that, Dimona is also a kind of support group. We meet, show one another what we have done, and share ideas."
In the beginning, they approached regular publishers, who were not enthusiastic about the group of young inexperienced artists who insisted on drawing cartoons. The group refused to be discouraged, however, and decided to do everything on its own.
"We discovered that it is great to publish on our own," says another Dimona member. "It gives us a sense of independence. We have no restrictions on the content we put in the books. Each one of us can do what he wants on his pages."
The group's members agreed to write their cartoons in English so they could distribute the comic books overseas, and they chose the name Dimona because they wanted an Israeli name that non-Israelis could pronounce easily. The have published two books, participated in the International Comics Festival in Angoul, France, and had their works published in two anthologies - one in German and the other in Slovenian. This week the five are going to the Internationales Berliner Comicfestival.
Every so often, they pack copies of their books, "Dimona" ("We picked it up from the printer a day before our trip to France) and "Dimona Israeli," which came out last week ("on the first day of the Cinematheque festival we ran to get it from the bookbinder") into Baruch's car, and distribute them to small bookstores like Prose, Ha'ozen Hashlishit, Tolaat Sfarim, and Salon Mazal in Tel Aviv.
"You won't find our books at Steimatsky's," they say. "We don't distribute to chain stores."
By Nirit Anderman
