A rchive Date
[ 17-08-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Israel ]
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[http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/world/1538212
Israelis support candidate's new vision for peace
Amram Mitzna compared settlements to gangrene that needs to be cut off to heal Israeli society.
By KARIN LAUB
Associated Press
Aug. 16, 2002, 9:53PM
HAIFA, Israel - Amram Mitzna, the latest in a long line of Israeli generals trying to become prime minister, has risen from relative obscurity as Haifa mayor to top contender for leader of the Labor party in just two weeks.
His dramatic debut has infused Israel's peace camp with new hope, though polls suggest he will have a tough time defeating a right-wing candidate, either Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2003 elections.
Mitzna's surprise showing is seen as a measure of the nation's yearning to be led out of the tangle of Palestinian terror, recession and rising unemployment. Mitzna has promised bold steps in pursuit of peace, and many Israelis seem eager to believe in the political newcomer.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Mitzna said that as prime minister, he would resume peace talks with the Palestinians without conditions. If negotiations fail, he said, he would unilaterally draw a security border and uproot dozens of Jewish settlements, while keeping open the offer to return to the table for a final deal.
Mitzna, 57, said he would not shy away from dismantling settlements. "I will definitely do this," Mitzna said during a stroll from Haifa's outdoor market to City Hall.
He compared settlements to "gangrene" that needs to be cut off to heal Israeli society.
Mitzna, campaigning in dark pants and blue short-sleeved shirt, was often interrupted by well-wishers. "Help get us out of this morass," said Naftali Ettinson, 75, grabbing Mitzna's hand while holding on to two plastic bags with Sabbath groceries.
Others shouted "here comes the next prime minister."
No one yelled "traitor" - a popular slur against moderate candidates - even though outdoor markets are traditionally hard-line bastions and Israel's electorate has become much more hawkish in the past two years.
Polls suggest Mitzna would easily defeat Labor's current chief, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, in party primaries this year. Ben-Eliezer has alienated the party's dovish wing by staying in Sharon's center-right coalition.
Sharon or Netanyahu would soundly defeat any Labor candidate in general elections, but Mitzna had the best showing against them among Labor politicians.
Born on a kibbutz, or communal farm, Mitzna was raised in Kiryat Haim, a blue-collar suburb of Haifa. After military boarding school, he was drafted into the army in 1963, at age 18, and stayed for 30 years.
In 1982, during Israel's invasion of Lebanon, he resigned, not to protest the war launched by then-Defense Minister Sharon, but because he felt Sharon had badmouthed the military in a public remark. In the end, Mitzna stayed, but Sharon later tried unsuccessfully to block his promotion.
Mitzna was West Bank commander when the first Palestinian uprising erupted in December 1987. He said he learned from that experience that the conflict cannot be solved with military force, that occupying Palestinian land had eroded Israel's values and that there's no way to defeat a people seeking independence.
He said that as commander, he tried to reduce friction with the Palestinians, but he used force when necessary.
"I was a military commander who destroyed houses," he said. "It was a period in which many Palestinians were killed by army fire.
In 1988, Mitzna signed the order to expel Marwan Barghouti, an uprising leader and the West Bank chief of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. He is now on trial in Israel for allegedly orchestrating widespread terror attacks.
Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, said she hoped Israelis vote for Mitzna as a supporter of peace.
Mitzna is the latest in a long line of generals trying to become prime minister; several were forced out along the way, including Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Yitzhak Mordechai, who founded their own party in 1999. Others made it to the top spot, among them Sharon, Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin, one of Mitzna's army mentors.
Mitzna is often compared to Barak. Like Mitzna, Barak is a kibbutznik with a stellar military career who took the Labor party by storm. Mitzna's detractors say that like Barak, the Haifa mayor is often aloof, runs his office like a boot camp and makes decisions alone.
Still, his aides say he always seeks advice. He is a no-frills man with a modest lifestyle and drives himself everywhere, shirking the offer of a driver.
In trying to fight off Mitzna's challenge, Ben-Eliezer and Haim Ramon, another contender for party leader, say Israel has had too many inexperienced prime ministers - alluding to Netanyahu and Barak, who were driven out of office.
However the Mitzna story ends, it promises to be intriguing, wrote Hemi Shalev, commentator in the Maariv daily.
"The Mitzna syndrome ... will one day be studied by political scientists," Shalev wrote. "The relatively anonymous Mitzna is being carried aloft even before he manages to open his mouth, and the entire public is following him avidly."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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