Two Israelis are reportedly among a group of 10 to 15 tourists abducted by terrorists in the southern Egyptian city of Aswan on Monday. 

 

According to the Reuters news service, it is believed the terrorists may have spirited the group into Sudan. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

 

Aswan is located in southern Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile River. It is considered a busy tourist and trade center.

 

Israeli counterterrorism officials have been wracking their brains in recent months to find ways to stop Israelis from traveling to Egypt on holiday jaunts.

 

Thousands of Israelis usually flock to the Sinai at the beginning of the Jewish New Year, despite the traditional flurry of terror warnings, but this year in particular, officials have become increasingly concerned due to a growing number of concrete alerts of plots to kidnap Israelis.

 

Earlier this month, officials considered instituting legal measures to prevent Israelis from entering the Sinai Peninsula through the Taba Crossing.

 

Last week Egypt opened its border at the Rafiah Crossing with Gaza in order to facilitate the passage of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Authority Arab residents who were making the annual Ramadan pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

 

Israeli officials expressed deep concern over Egypt’s decision to leave the terminal open to traffic for two days – a move which would automatically also allow free movement for terrorists to travel back and forth from Gaza as well.

Responding to complaints of “irregularities” in Wednesday’s Kadima party primary, workers from the office of State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss will meet with several Kadima members and activists to decide whether to launch an official probe into the election.

Kadima MKs Ze’ev Elkin and Ronit Tirosh are among the supporters of Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz’s bid for the leadership of the ruling party, and they represent a growing faction within Kadima that believes that Tzipi Livni’s victory at the polls was fraudulent.

In the final count from the primary, Tzipi Livni was declared the winner by a margin of 431 votes, or a mere 1.1%.  She has since assumed the position of party head despite growing doubts about the election process.
“To this point, we have not found a reason to disqualify any voting station except for Rahat," said Arbel, admitting to the disqualification of that station, which, along with the 430 ballots cast in Rahat, narrows Livni’s victory margin from 431 votes to a single vote.

On Saturday MK Tirosh said that the primary was plagued by various voting irregularities that were quite possibly criminal. In an interview with Israel Radio, she said that there were MKs from the party present during the vote count.
Tirosh also complained that Election Committee Chairman Dan Arbel was refusing to properly address complaints that she and others filed with the Committee. Mofaz’s supporters had demanded a recount of the ballots on the night of the election, and they were refused by Arbel’s committee. Tirosh suggested that had Mofaz not told outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday that he was “taking a vacation” from politics, she and other Mofaz supporters would have gone to the police with the complaints.

Arbel responded to early complaints by saying , “Everyone is armed with complaints in such a tight race, and every complaint will be addressed." Arbel acknowledged that "there are accusations of wrongdoing in the Ashkelon voting station, in Beit Jean, and we will investigate these claims.

“At this point, we have not found a reason to disqualify any voting station except for Rahat," said Arbel, admitting to the disqualification of that station, which, along with the 430 ballots cast in Rahat, narrows Livni’s victory margin from 431 votes to a single vote.

Yehuda Weinstein, an attorney for Mofaz, believes that such voting irregularities led to a one-vote margin, which he sees as insufficient for Livni to claim victory and assume office as Prime Minister. As such, he has urged Mofaz to appeal the results.

"It is impossible to attain power in Israel by a margin of one vote," Weinstein said.

Tirosh echoed Weinstein’s sentiments, saying, “You can't govern Israel by a one-vote win. It's not right."
“You can't govern Israel by a one-vote win. It's not right."

While Mofaz himself has stayed out of the post-election fray, MK Elkin decided to join Tirosh’s campaign to dispute the unusually close election results. On Sunday he and other activists met with Meir Gilboa, the attorney heading the anti-corruption division in the State Comptroller’s Office, requesting time to collect evidence that they believe can prove that Livni’s declared victory was the result of crimes committed in the election process. In the meantime, they will ask a Tel Aviv District court to postpone the ratification of the results until such proof can be presented to the Comptroller’s Office.

“There are things that must be investigated, that we have in our hands, about biased decisions made on behalf of Livni by the Central Election Committee," said Elkin on Saturday. 
“This is no time for victory celebrations,” he said. “The wounds are still raw and many activists feel cheated by the results."

 
Elkin added to his group’s list of complaints the last-minute extension of voting hours, and alleged that they had in their possession surveillance footage showing “voting irregularities.”

Elkin, who boycotted a Friday Kadima faction meeting in protest over the results, said, "I'm willing to take this to court if necessary.”

“This is no time for victory celebrations,” he said. “The wounds are still raw and many activists feel cheated by the results."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now is officially a lame duck head of government after he resigned Sunday night. He remains in power until newly-elected Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni forms a coalition or is forced to go to the polls. His legal position has changed in that he cannot be suspended from office, but he still can fire Cabinet ministers.

President Shimon Peres received Olmert's resignation by stating he appreciated "the respectful way in which he is handing over his power." The president added that several actions that Prime Minister Olmert made for the "safety of the state of Israel and the welfare of its citizens…will remain unknown."

President Peres invited all of the heads of the 13 Knesset factions for consultations, a formal act before asking Livni, as head of the largest party, to form a new coalition.

Livni already has gone into action to attempt to win over opposition parties, although she has not yet received the formal go-ahead from the President, after which she will have 42 days in which to accomplish her task. If she does not, President Peres can ask another party to form a coalition, which would be highly unlikely, or call for new elections within 90 days.

Livni has made it clear she does not intend to drag out the process. "If it soon becomes clear that a coalition cannot be formed, we will go to elections and we will win," Foreign Minister Livni said. She stated her hope for a national unity government but faces an apparent rocky road.
If it soon becomes clear that a coalition cannot be formed, we will go to elections and we will win.

Likud chairman and Opposition leader Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu has said he will not join a coalition led by Kadima, which he said would be like joining the bankrupt Lehman Brothers financial firm.

The keys to a coalition government remain in the hands of Labor party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Industry Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai, chairman of Shas. The Labor party chairman favors a unity government, but senior party members fear that Livni will establish a power base with a new government and call spot elections.

Shas chairman Yishai has two cards in his hands--the demand for an increase in child welfare payments, or some other alternative way to help lower income families, and the status of Jerusalem. He and Foreign Minister Livni have been verbally sparring back and forth for weeks on the issue of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) over the capital. He has threatened to pull his party out of the government if the Olmert proposal to divide Jerusalem reaches the discussion stage with the PA.

For its part, the PA has repeatedly claimed the issue has been discussed numerous times, but Foreign Minister Livni, the senior Israeli negotiator, has denied the charges. However, the last time the PA repeated the claim was when Prime Minister Olmert, and not Foreign Minister Livni, was present at the talks.

President Shimon Peres has begun the round of formal consultations with the heads of the Knesset factions that will lead the way to his official request that Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni form the next government.

 

The president is required by law to meet with the head of each of the 13 factions in the Knesset before formally ordering Livni to attempt to form a new coalition.

                 

Early Monday morning he had already met with Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) faction chairman Robert HaTov to hear his party’s suggestions for a new government. At 9 a.m. he spoke with Knesset Member Uri Ariel, who represented the National Union/National Religious Party.

 

President Peres is scheduled to meet with left-wing Meretz-Yachad Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On, followed by Pensioners (Gil) party Knesset Member Yitzchak Galanti.

 

The president will then meet with Knesset Members from the three Arab factions, Ra’am-Ta’al, National Democratic Assembly and Hadash, and the representatives from the Justice for the Elderly and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) factions.

 

Following the meetings, Peres is expected to ask Foreign Minister Livni to try to form a new government.  She will have 42 days in which to accomplish her goal. If she fails, Peres then will be faced with either calling for elections or asking someone else to try and form a new coalition within an additional 28 days. If further efforts also fall short, the president is then mandated to call new elections, which must be held within 90 days.

 

Meetings with Kadima, Labor, Likud and Shas Held First

Meetings between Peres and representatives of the parties that are members of the current coalition, as well as the largest Opposition party, have already taken place.

 

Following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation Sunday night, the president immediately held consultations with the heads of Livni’s Kadima party, as well as with the leaders of Labor, Likud and Shas.

 

Both Labor and Likud recommended during their respective meetings with Peres that he task each of their chairmen with forming the new coalition. In the case of Labor, there is a legal obstacle since Defense Minister Ehud Barak is not technically a Knesset Member, and thus cannot become prime minister.

 

Members of Shas announced following their meeting that they had made no recommendations whatsoever as to who should form the next government.

Noted Middle East expert and commentator Dr. Guy Bechor accuses Israel's media of turning itself into an "occupying force" within Israel and behaving like an unelected, yet all-powerful, political machine.

In an article entitled "Down with the Occupation" that appears on his Hebrew-language website, Dr. Bechor – one of Israel's top experts on Middle Eastern affairs and a popular lecturer and interviewee – identifies a process that he says began after 2000.

"With the collapse of the Left in Israel's political system... and the tremendous disappointment from the 'peace process',"  he says, "a strange process began gathering force in Israel's media, which was, to begin with, a closed club numbering about 20 movers and shakers. Strange as it may sound, this media, which is supposed to cover events and report them, took a step forward and took upon itself to represent the Left which had collapsed in the Israeli populace. It became a political party."

Media crossed the lines
"No one gave [the media] this mandate," writes Bechor – who was himself a journalist for Army Radio and other news organizations. "No Divine order was given here, and in this act, it did not represent any
"The more the Left in Israel shrank in size, the greater its influence became in the media."
democratic process, because at its core, the media in Israel is not elected and does not change. It is made up of several 'gurus' who carry on for decades, without any real change in its personal makeup."

The media in Israel, he emphasizes, "has turned into an active political force that serves as a substitute for the political parties of the past. The more the Left in Israel shrank in size, the greater its influence became in the media, although [this influence] was always hidden and camouflaged."

"Thus the Israeli media crossed the lines, and moved away from its western counterparts. Thus it also betrayed the Israeli public, which expected, and expects to this day, that it will cover events."

Anti-sephardic but Arab-idolizing
Bechor claims that young journalists who do not toe the leftist line know that they will not be promoted. While they do not tout themselves as leftists, he says, "their entire essence is just that. The disparagement of patriotism and of the military, the dislike of the government… the self-praise as a 'peace' camp, the revulsion from Middle Eastern Judaism combined with an idolization of the Arabs, and the deep-seated grudge against the Right, against Netanyahu (the Waldemort of Israeli politics) and capitalism.

Even the state-run media – Channel 1 TV, Voice of Israel Radio, IDF Radio and Educational TV – has come under the control of "the party," Bechor notes, as have Channel 10, Ha'aretz and recently Ma'ariv. "As the
"The media in Israel is made up of several 'gurus' who carry on for decades."
Israeli government is weakened and scorned, and talented people stay away from it, a vacuum is formed, into which this party media enters with great force," he says.

The media crowned Livni
The political media served as investigator and judge in the latest war in Lebanon, Bechor states, and now it has decided who will be Israel's prime minister, too, while cancelling democracy, in effect. The media, he says, strengthened Tzipi Livni, "hoisted her up with false polls, and cheered when she appeared to win. It is true that some feeble protests were heard here and there in view of the unbelievable scandals in the latest elections, but the caravan moved on, needless to say. It is easy to surmise how the same media party would have reacted if [Transport Minister Shaul] Mofaz had beat his rival by one percentage point. Indeed, the media is manipulating politicians instead of being manipulated by them."
"The politicians are terrified because these same 'commentators' and 'journalists' are stronger and more stable then they are."

Politicians terrified
The change in Israel's media over the last three decades is one that induces despair, Dr. Bechor says. "The politicians are terrified of this process, which they view with fear, because these same 'commentators' and 'journalists' are stronger and more stable then they are. The politicians depend on them and so they are afraid to talk." Bechor even adds that certain prominent female television reporters, whom he does not name, supplement their incomes by holding news panels on Sabbaths, which the politicians know they must participate in, or else.

"Because we are not a healthy society, this process proceeds smoothly," Bechor sums up. "The more powerful it becomes, the more the undemocratic disease spreads. It is time to say 'no more.'" He recommends abstaining from Israel's Hebrew language mainstream press and says that alternative media channels hold the hope for a better future.

Three large Jewish groups have protested a decision by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to remove Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin from the list of invitees to the rally against the appearance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations. She was taken off the list shortly after Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton angrily said the she would not attend because Governor Palin also was invited.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), National Council of Young Israel and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) complained to Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference over the move to remove politicians from the event. They complained that member organizations of the Conference should have been consulted.

National Council of Young Israel President Shlomo Z. Mostofsky said his organization was" deeply disturbed by the decision. We were not consulted before this decision was made, nor was our opinion ever sought by the rally organizers," he wrote Hoenlein. "We would have never acquiesced to withdrawing Governor Palin's invitation and we think that doing so was a serious mistake."
We were not consulted before this decision was made, nor was our opinion ever sought by the rally organizers.

ZOA President Morton A. Klein said that the anti-Iran rally, scheduled for Monday, is "an anti-Iran rally, not a partisan political rally, as Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton was invited as was Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and later Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida. Clinton withdrew and Biden apparently could not attend.

"Under tremendous pressure from Jewish Democrats and liberal Jewish groups, Palin's invitation was withdrawn with a decision made not to include any politicians. Why are we excluding political leaders who have the real power to act on this critical issue?"

Klein called the decision "wrong-headed" and one which would hurt Israel and the United States. "Ahmadinejad must be delighted that those who oppose his policies are so divided they can't even stand on the same stage to condemn him. I assure you, if we were holding a rally to condemn an internationally-known racist, anti-Black leader, no one would dare disinvite a speaker and no speaker would dare back out."

Republican party advertisements linking Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and anti-American demonstrators are being used to sway voters but have met with vehement opposition from Democrats. Sen. Obama has the backing of nearly two-thirds of Jewish voters, according to most polls.

One advertisement uses images of Iranians burning the American flag alongside Ahmadinejad and under the headline that Sen. Obama's position on Iran is "na?ve and dangerous."

Another advertisement shows the Democratic candidate speaking in Germany last July. Democratic Congressman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida Democrat called the ad "disgusting." She charged, "It's clearly an effort to sow seeds of doubt" by trying to link him with the Nazi era and the Holocaust. "Voters in the Jewish community are a lot smarter than that."

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, accused her of making "a monumental stretch" in her conclusion and maintained that the picture in Germany was used because the party "couldn't find a good picture." He maintained that the mention of Germany was necessary because "it's important for people to know where we got the image."

Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council went on the offensive against the Republican party and again brought up the issue of vice presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin's attendance at a speech by a Jews for Jesus preacher and her wearing a Pat Buchanan campaign button.

Buchanan, widely disliked by Jews, has said that Gov. Palin had been a fundraiser for his campaign, but no records of fundraising have been found.

The Republican Jewish Coalition countered with an advertisement showing Buchanan reminding voters that he stated, "I think Barack is right; we ought to talk to the Iranians." Sen. Obama has since backtracked on the remark.

There is no evidence justifying a criminal investigation into Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, attorney Ran Nizri has decided following an initial investigation. Nizri, the senior advisor to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, said he had looked into three allegations against the Chief Rabbi and had found no reason to believe the charges were true.

Nizri explained his reasoning in a letter to attorney Boaz Arad of the Ometz non-profit organization for good government. Earlier in the year Ometz demanded that the Attorney General's office begin a criminal investigation into Rabbi Metzger's alleged behavior alongside an inquiry that had already been started by Mazuz.

The inquiry had focused on three allegations, Nizri explained: a wedding between two people not allowed to marry under Jewish law that allegedly took place under Rabbi Metzger's supervision in 2002; allegations published by Maariv claiming Metzger sexually propositioned a 23-year-old French photographer; and charges that Metzger had taken trips abroad that were funded by non-governmental sources, creating a conflict of interests.

Nizri did not find factual evidence to support the charge that Rabbi Metzger performed an illegal wedding due to external pressure in 2002. In addition, he said, even if the wedding had been performed, it would have fallen outside the statute of limitations for such crimes, which is five years.

Regarding the case of the French photographer, Nizri pointed out that the photographer had never filed charges against Rabbi Metzger, making it impossible to treat the incident as a criminal case. In any case, Nizri said, the photographer alleged a single proposition and not a series of inappropriate remarks, meaning the alleged incident would not be considered harassment.

Regarding the flights abroad, Nizri wrote, the inquiry had revealed that all of Metzger's flights were approved by the Rabbinate's legal advisor, attorney Shimon Ulman. Ulman said that some flights were funded by non-governmental sources, but explained that he had looked into the matter beforehand and had not found evidence of a conflict of interests. Metzger received approval for each flight before traveling, Nizri told Arad, as evidenced by official documents produced by Ulman.

Nizri emphasized that he had only investigated the criminal aspects of each allegation. “The other aspects of the allegations can be clarified in the relevant frameworks,” he said.

Following the accusations regarding Rabbi Metzger's trips abroad, Mazuz decided to establish a committee consisting of legal experts from both the Justice Ministry and the Rabbinate. The committee has been asked to create an official policy regarding external funding for trips taken by Rabbinate employees. It is expected to finish its work by the end of 2008.