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Newsletter : 9fax0503.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN May 3, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 82
Israeli Elections Two Weeks from Today
By David Gollust (VOA-Jerusalem)
Campaigning for Israel's crucial May 17 general election has moved into its final two weeks with opinion polls giving Labor party leader Ehud Barak a modest lead over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Weekend newspaper polls gave Barak as much an 8 percent lead in a
one-on-one matchup with Netanyahu, whose political camp is said to
alarmed by the slide. But Netanyahu came back from a similar
disadvantage to win the premiership three-years ago and few Israeli
political analysts are ready to write him off.
Israelis vote May 17 to choose a new parliament and a new prime
minister on separate ballots. The election is being waged in large
part over the issue of Middle East peace, and can be seen as a
referendum on Netanyahu's hardline policy in dealing with the
Palestinians.
It is widely believed Netanyahu owes his narrow victory over
Labor's Shimon Peres in 1996 to Jewish voter reaction to a series
of terrorist bombings by the militant Palestinian group Hamas, and
an election boycott by many Israeli Arabs.
Mindful of their effect on the Israeli electorate, the Palestinians
have kept a low-profile in the current campaign. That was
underscored by last week's decision to postpone a threatened
statehood declaration May 4.
But Hebrew University political scientist Reuvain Hazan says
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat will have to do more if he hopes
to see an Israeli government more amendable to peacemaking --
including a discreet effort to mobilize Arab voters in Israel:
"If the Arab citizens of Israel once again do not show up at the voting booth, this could be a victory for Netanyahu. So while Arafat has been able to remove the declaration of an independent state from the agenda and thereby maybe not give Netanyahu something to run on, he now has to do two more things.
"He has to get the Arab citizens of Israel out to vote. He has to
get them to vote against Netanyahu. And in the meantime, he has to
coordinate with the security services so that we do not have any
more terrorist attacks like we did before the previous elections,
because they too could swing the elections for Netanyahu."
Polls indicate the race is evolving into a two-man contest between
Barak and the prime minister. But with five candidates in the
race, including Centrist former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai,
it appears neither of the two main contenders will get an outright
majority -- necessitating a Netanyahu-Barak run-off June 1.
Analysts say a national unity government led by main parties would
be preferable to another coalition of the right or left, and
necessary in pursuing a permanent accord with the Palestinians and
peace with Syria. But it is unclear whether they will be able work
together after a bruising campaign, one that stands to become even
more bitter in the coming weeks.
Rabbinical Court & Cellular Phone Find Get-Refuser
By Arutz-7 News Service
A woman who has been searching for her husband for three years so that he could grant her a Jewish divorce (Get) has finally found him -- with the help of his cellular phone.
After many fruitless searches, the woman finally turned to a Rabbinical Court in central Israel, asking for its help. The court's president issued an order to the Pelephone Company, asking it if the recalcitrant husband's name appeared on its list of customers. The answer was affirmative, and within a short time, the husband was found.
The man was brought to court, warned that he must not disappear
again, was served with papers forbidding him from leaving the
country, and the divorce hearings have begun.
An Active Remembrance
By IsraelWire
The Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance and Online Multimedia Center is the complete, online resource for students and teachers of the Holocaust. You can access the Museum's extensive Holocaust resources -- all from your home computer. Survey the more than 3,000 text files or search through the tens of thousands of photos from their library. Or study the more than 90 topics featuring 13,785 documents in English, German and Hebrew from the Institute of Documentation in Israel.
There is a complete Teacher's Resource Center, including a
glossary, timeline, bibliographies, 36 questions and answers about
the Holocaust, and curricular resources for all levels of
educators. Learn more about the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the
Museum of Tolerance from
http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/clients/wiesenthal/
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