Israel Line 6/23/00
ny...@interport.net
June 23, 2000
*BARAK, ROSS MEET TO DISCUSS FINAL STATUS NEGOTIATIONS
*IDF BLOWS TUNNELS USED FOR SMUGGLING
*SETTLERS ESCALATE RESISTANCE TO PEACE PROCESS
*COURT: POLICE MUST OBTAIN SPECIAL WARRANT TO READ E-MAILS
*ECONOMIC BRIEFS
BARAK, ROSS MEET TO DISCUSS FINAL STATUS NEGOTIATIONS
Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with U.S. Middle East Peace Envoy Dennis
Ross, Israel Radio, KOL YISRAEL, reported.
Ross also met with Minister of Public Security Shlomo Ben Ami, who heads
the Israeli negotiating team for the final agreement with the Palestinians.
According to diplomatic sources, Ross' visit is aimed at preparing the
ground for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to the Middle East,
scheduled for next Tuesday. Ross is slated to meet again with Barak and
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, to determine whether or not an
Israeli-Palestinian summit is possible at this stage.
According to YEDIOT AHARONOT, U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., said
recently in a private briefing that both parties reached a "non paper," an
unofficial draft for an agreement. Israeli officials related to the
negotiations said on Thursday that although the briefing is inaccurate,
mixing agreements with assessments, many of its details are correct.
Meanwhile, the security cabinet convened on Wednesday to discuss the
Beilin-Abu Ma'azen plan, HA'ARETZ reported. The plan was devised in 1996, as
a proposition for a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to the plan, Israel will withdraw from approximately 90 percent of
the west bank, keeping 130 settlements under Israeli control. A majority of
the cabinet ministers expressed support for the proposal.
IDF BLOWS TUNNELS USED FOR SMUGGLING
Israel Defense Force blew up two tunnels on Thursday, used for smuggling
drugs and weapons between the Egyptian and the Palestinian sides of Rafah,
THE JERUSALEM POST reported.
The tunnel, eight meters (approximately 24 feet) deep, was recently
discovered by IDF soldiers who were patrolling the border road splitting the
city. One of the tunnels was 100 meters (approximately 328 feet) long, and
the other 150 meters (approximately 492 feet) long.
An IDF statement announcing the blowing up of the tunnels said they were
used "to transfer weapons and material into the Palestinian Authority and
manifested a significant security threat," adding that the tunnels were also
used to smuggle in drugs.
Senior IDF officers have noted recently that they sense an increasing
cooperation between Palestinian and Egyptian officials in preventing the
construction of new tunnels. The recent discovery brings the number of
tunnels discovered so far this year to five.
SETTLERS ESCALATE RESISTANCE TO PEACE PROCESS
Heads of the settler movement have escalated their resistance to the
ongoing negotiations with the Palestinians, HA'ARETZ reported.
In a press conference convened on Thursday by the Yesha council, Pinchas
Valershtein, a member of the council's directorate, said that the council
intends to "react with the greatest harshness" to future concessions in
negotiations with the Palestinians. "The far-reaching concessions that
Barak's government is willing to grant the Palestinians are, for the Yesha
council, a crossing of all the red lines," Valershtein said, "those
concessions are immoral, illegitimate, and illegal." Valershtein added that
the Yesha council will not accept the terms of the final agreement with the
Palestinians even if such an agreement were approved by a majority of the
public in a referendum. Uri Ariel, one of the heads of the council,
threatened a massive hunger strike to protest the concessions.
Meanwhile, the Yesha council continues to demonstrate in Jerusalem,
HATZOFEH reported. On Thursday, the demonstrations were relocated from the
Prime Minister's residence to the United States Consulate, where protesters
called on U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, slated to arrive in
Israel next week, to stop pressuring Israel into giving up land to the
Palestinians.
COURT: POLICE MUST OBTAIN SPECIAL WARRANT TO READ E-MAILS
The Tel Aviv regional court ruled on Thursday that the police will have to
obtain a special warrant, equivalent to the warrant required to permit
wiretappings, in order to read an individual's e-mail, MA'ARIV reported.
Up until now, a basic search warrant enabled the police to access e-mail
accounts. The ruling was reached after Netvision, a major Israeli internet
company, refused to allow the military police access to the e-mail accounts
of several suspects in one of its investigations. While the Tel Aviv
arraignment court permitted the military police to read the e-mails based on
a search warrant, Netvision appealed to the regional court, claiming that
reading e-mails was equivalent to listening in on telephone conversations.
Thousands of members of the Israeli gay community are slated to march today
in the Gay Pride parade in Tel Aviv, MA'ARIV reported. The march will be
attended by members of the Palestinian and the U.S. gay communities, as well
as by homosexuals from the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates.
ECONOMIC BRIEFS
* The Geode chip, developed at National Semiconductor's R&D center in
Herzliya Pituach, is the base for set-top boxes of the AOLTV interactive
television service launched
by America Online, HA'ARETZ reported. The new AOLTV service will enable
users to view regular television programming, while also providing access to
AOL's content features, including e-mail, instant messaging and chat funcitons.
* Israeli-based Click Software Inc., which develops programs for service
providers
through the Internet, completed its first public offering on Wall Street,
raising $28 million based on an estimated company value of $180 million,
HA'ARETZ reported. Click Software has developed the program ClickSchedule
for synchronizing
provider operations on the net.
Today's Israel Line was prepared by Liel Leibovitz at the Consulate General
of Israel in New York.
Israel Line is daily summary of major news items taken directly from the
Israeli Media.
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