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Jerusalem
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by GIL HOFFMAN
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Aiming for an empire?
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has several photographs on his bookshelf. Most of them are with his grandchildren, his deceased wife, and other members of his family. The largest picture on the shelf features Sharon in his familiar pose overlooking a map on a mountaintop, with then-chief of general staff Shaul Mofaz and Gaza division commander Brig.-Gen. Yair Naveh. But the only photo on display in which Sharon appears with another politician is one with his mentor from his Mapai days, longtime prime minister David Ben-Gurion.

The books on his shelf are also predictable, with the standard set of Talmud and Jewish history books. The surprising exception is a voluminous biography of the legendary founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. While Ben-Gurion was prime minister of Israel for 13 years, Ataturk was president of Turkey for 15 years, which makes both of them good role models for Sharon.

Asked whether he would run again when his term is up in October 2007, the 75-year-old Sharon said, "If there is a need, then why not?"

Russians saying ’yet’ to Likud
If the Likud takes a hit in the October 28 municipal election, one of the reasons will be its failure to take advantage of its merger earlier this year with Natan Sharansky’s Yisrael Ba’aliya party.

The deal gave Sharansky a ministry and other Knesset perks disproportionate with the party’s two mandates, while the Likud paid the party’s debts. The major reason the Likud made the deal was to inherit Yisrael Ba’aliya’s extensive roster of deputy mayors and councilmen across the country. A Likud alliance with Russian immigrants would have been a force to reckon with in the municipal races.

Unfortunately for the Likud, the alliance never developed. Former Yisrael Ba’aliya candidates defected to other parties and several are running against the Likud, which has not made a significant effort to attract immigrant support.

In the end, it seems the deal’s sole benefit for Likud is a psychological one: The party now gets to say it has 40 seats in the Knesset, compared to Labor’s 19.

Shas fires at its own men
Shas chairman Eli Yishai may have finally put the ghost of his predecessor Aryeh Deri behind him this week when he succeeded in attracting a large crowd to a Shas rally. After a series of embarrassing turnouts at such events, Yishai canceled several planned rallies before Monday’s 15,000-strong turnout in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park.

Held under the slogan "There are no religious, there are no secular, we are all Jews," the rally was intended to encourage support for Shas’s slate of municipal candidates two weeks ahead of the election.

But Yishai may have made a misstep when he devoted his speech to attacking the National Religious Party. The crowd was made up of many of the NRP’s crocheted kippa-wearing supporters who came to hear American Jewish music star Mordechai Ben-David.

And Shas is running on joint lists together with the NRP in several cities, including Beersheba, Azore, and Karmiel.

Winning friends with food
Ahead of what is expected to be a stormy winter session of the Knesset next week, Sharon has invited all of the Likud’s 40 Knesset members over to his Jerusalem residence this weekend for a feast. Intended as a morale booster to unify the party’s ranks, Sharon has hosted similar meals for his faction comrades in the past. What remains to be seen is whether Sharon’s nemesis, Nomi Blumenthal, will come to the meal.

Peres and the Jewish governor
Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres received compliments in the hallways of the Knesset for coining the expression "Schwarzenegger government" during a morning interview with Army Radio last Thursday.

No doubt the phrase clearly expressed Peres’s well-documented opinion of Sharon’s policies, but perhaps Peres should have quit while he was ahead. The octogenarian Laborite made a mistake the next two times he tried to use the phrase in meetings with opposition faction heads and Labor MKs. In both instances, he referred to the muscle-bound California governor as "Schwarzenberger."

It is well known that Schwarzenegger’s Austrian father was a Nazi, but maybe Peres knows something Arnold doesn’t know about some schmaltz in the family’s past.

Israel’s own muscle man
Schwarzenegger’s election generated much scorn in the halls of the Knesset, where Meretz faction head Zehava Gal-On said his victory proves "Americans are so stupid."

Peres attributed Schwarzenegger’s success to politics being part of show business in the United States.

But one official in the Knesset said that perhaps Schwarzenegger’s victory presents an opportunity for an Israeli party. Israel has a two-time Mr. World champion bodybuilder in 33-year-old Eli Hanna.

Hanna, who has won the Mr. Israel contest seven times, boasts biceps among the largest in the world at 60 centimeters. There might still be time for him to join a list ahead of the municipal races, and the Likud could still use a mayoral candidate in Tel Aviv.

Romania fixes law on restitution
Romania has amended in the Jews’ favor a law on restitution of property confiscated from the Jewish community, Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase told a delegation from the Rehavia-based World Jewish Restitution Organization in Bucharest this week.

The amendment, which will take effect by the end of the year, recently passed both houses of the Romanian parliament. Romania had until now refused to return property confiscated during the Holocaust, but the new law would ensure restitution of belongings seized by the fascists and communists in Romania from 1940 to 1989.

Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana told the delegation that he will soon appoint a minister to act as an ombudsman to deal with the restitution of Jewish property. He also said that the Romanian government will soon establish a special remembrance day to commemorate the Romanian Jews who died in the Holocaust. Geoana said the focus of the day will be teaching Romanian students about the Holocaust.

Ramallah
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by KHALED ABU TOAMEH
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As long as he lives
On Saturday morning, Yasser Arafat surprised his aides by asking for his favorite dish for breakfast — ful (cooked fava beans, garlic and lemon sauce) served with olive oil. For almost two weeks, the 74-year-old Arafat, who was reported to be suffering from a mysterious stomach virus, was living on chicken soup, bread, and fruits.

Rumors about Arafat’s health condition flew all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Even some of his trusted aides and advisors were telling journalists that Arafat was very ill and would not live much longer. One aide went so far as to say that the countdown for Arafat’s death had begun.

But by the end of the week, Arafat appeared to have fully recovered from his illness. On Friday, he participated in a four-hour meeting of the Fatah Central Council to discuss the latest developments surrounding the formation of the new cabinet headed by Ahmed Qurei. Earlier the same day, he attended prayers at the makeshift mosque near his office in the presidential compound in Ramallah. "He looks much better and stronger," remarked a Palestinian Authority official who stood just behind him in the mosque.

There was a sigh of relief in the compound when Egyptian and Jordanian physicians declared that blood tests and other check-ups showed that Arafat was not suffering from any serious disease. "President Arafat has managed to defeat many of his enemies over the past four decades, so what’s a small virus for him?" quipped a member of the Fatah Central Council.

Evidently, the virus didn’t prevent Arafat from managing the crisis with his handpicked prime minister. Even while he was complaining of severe pain in the abdomen, diarrhea, fever, and dizziness, Arafat spent hours squabbling with Qurei over the composition of the new cabinet. At the peak of the crisis, Arafat told Qurei that the latter’s choice for interior minister, Nasser Youssef, was unacceptable to him.

When Qurei heard the bad news, he decided not to present his emergency cabinet to the Palestinian Legislative Council for ratification. He also went a step further by telling Arafat that he would resign from his post when the term of his cabinet expires at the end of October. For Qurei, the straw that broke the camel’s back was Arafat’s insistence on completely excluding Youssef from any job in the PA.

Arafat had initially agreed to the appointment of Youssef as interior minister on condition that he not be given full control over all the PA’s security forces. When Youssef feared that he would end up as an interior minister with no powers, he demanded a written document from Arafat outlining what authorities he would enjoy in his new job. Arafat told him he could go to hell, said a senior PA official. And when one of the Fatah officials asked Arafat earlier this week why he was so strongly opposed to Youssef, the Palestinian leader replied: "He wants to work with the Americans and the Israelis against the interests of our people."

In other words, Arafat meant that he couldn’t afford to have an interior minister who is independent and, even worse, defiant. Arafat knows that ceding control over the 12 or so security forces — a key Israeli and American demand — would turn him into a powerless figurehead. He does not want to repeat the mistake he made with Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Dahlan, who subtly but slowly made every effort to take control over all the security services.

This time Arafat wants to make sure from the outset that Qurei and company won’t try to undermine his powers. That’s why he issued a presidential decree declaring a state of emergency in the PA-controlled territories and called for the establishment of an emergency cabinet. This way, he can always dissolve Qurei’s cabinet simply by issuing another presidential decree — without having to refer to the Palestinian Legislative Council or other decision-making bodies like the Fatah Central Council and the PLO Executive Committee. It’s worth mentioning that an emergency cabinet does not require the approval of the legislator.

In the end, of course, Arafat had his way. First, he succeeded in convincing Qurei to continue in his job for at least another three weeks, averting a situation in which there would be a political and administrative vacuum in the PA. Second, Arafat now has a cabinet totally dominated by his own loyalists — a move that guarantees him a large degree of quiet at home. Third, Arafat is now the de facto interior minister in Qurei’s cabinet — a position that grants him exclusive control over security.

For the umpteenth time, Arafat has proven that he is still running his own one-man show, and that any attempts to sideline him or deem him irrelevant will fail. Qurei, Youssef, and other officials are now aware of the fact that even when he’s lying in bed, Arafat is still capable of wielding control over everyone on his payroll.

Washington
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by JANINE ZACHARIA
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From Jerusalem to Baghdad
The former US consul general to Jerusalem, Ronald Schlicher, has been named the number two guy in Baghdad, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Schlicher will serve as deputy to L. Paul Bremer, the US administrator there. He was due to arrive in Iraq this week.

Latest Iraq Flap
The White House announced last week that US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would play a more active role in coordinating the post-Saddam efforts in Iraq. An Iraq Stabilization Group was formed to promote US successes in Iraq, which the administration believes are getting short-changed by the media.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said publicly he was not informed of the shift in responsibility over to the White House National Security Council. And the Washington Post followed up with a piece on Rice’s effectiveness — or ineffectiveness — as mediator between inter-agency squabbling. Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on Bush on Sunday to "take charge‘ and settle the disputes plaguing the administration regarding how to reconstruct Iraq. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, a fellow Republican, even criticized Bush saying, ’the president has got to be president.‘ Ivo Daadler, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said Monday in a PBS television interview that ’people who disagree with the policy (in post war-Iraq) are blaming the process… We all know where the president stands on Iraq."

Women reps to Iraq
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia of the House Committee on International Relations, will head a women’s House members delegation to Iraq next week to examine post-war reconstruction efforts. The trip will also include a stopover in Spain so the women members can participate in the Donors Conference, during which the Bush administration will ask other countries to contribute financially to the rebuilding of Iraq.

Track two Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon and Palestinian moderate Sari Nusseibeh are scheduled to brief officials and analysts in Washington on Monday about the new track-two effort to draft political understandings between Israelis and Palestinians. The event is being hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

New York
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by MELISSA RADLER
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Holiday hate crimes
A spike in anti-Semitic vandalism over the High Holy Day period was reported in Brooklyn and Queens last week. The incidents, all immediately condemned by local officials, included swastikas spray-painted onto six homes and a school in Brooklyn as well as on a Reform synagogue and a Jewish center in Queens. The phrase "Kill the Jew" was found written in an elevator in Williamsburg. In addition, dozens of car tires were slashed in Crown Heights on the eve of Yom Kippur, prompting the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council to post a $12,000 reward for information leading to the perpetrators’ arrest.

While the vandalism made waves in the press, the Anti-Defamation League noted that the spike marks a recurring theme in the Big Apple. "Every year we are reminded that anti-Semites use the High Holy Days to increase their attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions,‘ said the ADL’s New York regional director, Joel Levy. ’This year, sadly, is no different."

A Jewish journey, in pictures
Russian immigrant taxi drivers, barbers in Tajikistan and singles in the Catskills are among the many and varied photographs of Jewish life on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art through January. "The Jewish Journey: Frederic Brenner’s Photographic Odyssey," features selected works from the 80,000 images that Brenner, a longtime chronicler of Diaspora Jewish life, has snapped over the past 25 years. Among the Jews photographed in 40 countries on five continents are such diverse subjects as Holocaust survivors with their lesbian daughters, and Jewish day school students posing with casino kitsch in Las Vegas.

A smaller display of Brenner’s work is currently featured at the JCC in Manhattan, and a two-volume set of his works called "Diaspora: Homelands in Exile" was released last month by HarperCollins.