Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner bends over
backwards to try and promote Shaul Mofaz in an article possibly geared more
to try and help him raise campaign money from rich American Jewish lefties
than provide a realistic description of the situation to New York Time
readers.

Bronner asks absolutely no substantive questions to Mofaz when Mofaz pitches
to him his reheated 2009 proposal for the immediate establishment of an
independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and in Gaza.

That's right. A sovereign state before any of the final status issues have
been resolved.

Where is a question from Bronner about how this impacts on the chances of
ever resolving the final status issues?

But that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the problems.

Mofaz proposes a sovereign state overnight - What about all the weapons now
inside the PA?

Israel now finds itself unable to act against terror attacks originating
from the Sinai because of the instability of sovereign Egypt. What will
happen in sovereign Palestine?

But reporter Bronner doesn't apparently want to trouble Mr. Mofaz with hard
questions.

"Mr. Mofaz says Israel should keep the West Bank settlement blocs but give
the Palestinians 100 percent of their territorial demands by swapping land.
He believes that borders and security can be negotiated in a year, and that
tens of thousands of settlers would leave their homes with the proper
incentives. Those who remain would be forced out.

Then, he said, Israel could devote the resources used in settlements to its
socioeconomic needs. "

Question: The resources wouldn't have to be spent on the resettlement of
the settlers - an expense magnitudes greater than the annual cost of the
same settlements? And what about the jump in the defense costs caused by
the change in the borders? What about the jump in expenses in defending the
remaining settlement blocs?

In the long description of Mofaz he also declines to mention his farcical
move to Kadima - he joined the party the same day that the mailman delivered
letters to all Likud members from Mofaz in which he proclaimed that he would
"never leave his [Likud] home". ]

The Saturday Profile
Defying an Image With a Tilt to the Left
"The greatest threat to the state of Israel is not nuclear Iran," said Shaul
Mofaz.
By ETHAN BRONNER The New York Times Published: April 6, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/world/middleeast/shaul-mofaz-defies-his-image-with-lean-to-left.html?_r=1&sq=shaul
mofaz&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all

PETAH TIKVAH, Israel

WHEN Shaul Mofaz took over as head of the opposition in Israel this week —
having defeated Tzipi Livni to lead the Kadima Party — it was seen as
further evidence of the country’s rightward shift. A former military chief
of staff and defense minister, Mr. Mofaz was dismissed by many as a pale
shadow of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a hawk who would try to join
the governing Likud coalition.

So it was surprising to enter the Kadima headquarters on a gritty industrial
block of this central Israeli town for an interview this week with Mr. Mofaz
and hear him detail an agenda more typically associated with the left.

He said Mr. Netanyahu’s focus on Iran’s nuclear program had distracted
attention from more important priorities, like making peace with the
Palestinians, ending settlement building in much of the West Bank and
reducing the country’s socioeconomic inequality. Let President Obama handle
Iran, he said. We can trust him.

“I intend to replace Netanyahu,” Mr. Mofaz, 63, said in the party chairman’s
office, so new to him that behind his desk there was still a poster for Ms.
Livni. “I will not join his government.”

Then: “The greatest threat to the state of Israel is not nuclear Iran,” but
that Israel might one day cease to be a Jewish state, because it would have
as many Palestinians as Jews. “So it is in Israel’s interest that a
Palestinian state be created.”

Mr. Mofaz said that Israel’s alliance with Washington was its greatest
strategic asset, and that aligning Israeli policy more with Washington was
necessary. Also, he said, Mr. Netanyahu has been talking too much about
Iran. If the time comes when only an attack can stop Iran’s nuclear program,
and “God forbid the American president decides not to attack,” he will
support Mr. Netanyahu in such a move, he said. But he does not expect that
to happen.

Of medium height and solid build, bald and generally unsmiling, Mr. Mofaz is
often described in shades of gray. He will never light up a room; he is not
much of a storyteller, either.

And polls indicate that if elections were held now (they are not due before
the fall of 2013), Mr. Netanyahu would crush him. When Mr. Mofaz declared
victory over Ms. Livni in the Kadima primary, commentators spent most of
their energy analyzing her fall, concluding that she lacked leadership
qualities and failed to glad-hand her supporters and challenge Mr.
Netanyahu.

But since then, with Mr. Mofaz now in charge of Kadima, the party with the
largest number of seats in Parliament, there has been a strain of discussion
summed up by an essay in the newspaper Maariv under the headline “Don’t
Underestimate Mofaz.”

IN the essay, Ofer Shelah, a veteran commentator, said that he had followed
Mr. Mofaz for nearly 35 years. “Mofaz is a focused man in a way that is
almost superhuman,” he wrote, adding that the new opposition leader had
learned that “there is always an opening, if not through the door then
through the window — a lesson he first learned when he failed three times to
be accepted to the army’s officer training course.”

Mr. Mofaz plans to turn his modest background and unassuming assiduousness
into assets at a time when many feel alienated from leaders like Defense
Minister Ehud Barak, who recently sold an apartment for millions of dollars.
Mr. Mofaz said that when social protests over high prices and indifferent
government resume, as expected, this summer, he will be part of them because
he understands the protesters.

“I have four children, two of them married, and three grandchildren,” he
said. “My kids are among the young couples that can’t make ends meet. They
work hard and can’t finish the month. In Israel of 2012, only part of the
population enjoys the fruit of the country’s economic growth. The rich get
richer and the poor poorer.”

Mr. Mofaz was born in Tehran and moved with his family to Israel at the age
of 9, settling in the southern port of Eilat. His father had been a school
principal in Iran, but his attempt to open a small factory in Eilat in the
1950s failed, and he was forced to seek work as a menial laborer. The family
lived in one and a half rooms, two children to a bed, and there were days
when the refrigerator was empty. At age 10, Mr. Mofaz worked in
construction.

When he was 14, his father sent him to an agricultural boarding school in
Nahalal, in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel, a full day’s travel from
home.

In an interview in 2009 with the newspaper Haaretz, Mr. Mofaz described what
it was like for him there among the European elite.

“You’re in class with children from Nahalal who are Israelis with real roots
in the country, children of the valley nobility,” he said. “These princes
who live in the big houses on the big farms of Nahalal, and where do you
come from? From nowhere, from Tehran, from Eilat, from a tiny apartment in a
housing project.”

He rose at 4 a.m. to milk the cows, studied hard and realized that the short
way to establishing roots here was through the paratroops, “because to serve
in the paratroops and return to Nahalal on Friday with a red beret is to be
Israeli.” Ultimately, he became chief of staff.

MR. MOFAZ’S security credentials, along with his tale of overcoming
adversity as an Israeli of Middle Eastern origin, could offer powerful
political advantages in a field of prospective leaders that includes a
television host and journalist, Yair Lapid, who is expected to start a new
party, and a former journalist and social activist, Shelly Yacimovich, the
leader of the Labor Party. Both are members of the European Tel Aviv
establishment.

It will depend on his ability to connect with the voters. His belief that
Israelis want to talk about peace with the Palestinians seems
counterintuitive. The issue has been fading from the public agenda, with
most expressing the belief that Israel has no partner. But Mr. Mofaz says he
would start with an interim Palestinian state on 60 percent of the West Bank
and negotiate the rest.

Mr. Mofaz says Israel should keep the West Bank settlement blocs but give
the Palestinians 100 percent of their territorial demands by swapping land.
He believes that borders and security can be negotiated in a year, and that
tens of thousands of settlers would leave their homes with the proper
incentives. Those who remain would be forced out.

Then, he said, Israel could devote the resources used in settlements to its
socioeconomic needs.

Yohanan Plesner, a Kadima legislator who began working closely with Mr.
Mofaz 18 months ago, said it was not far-fetched to beat Mr. Netanyahu.

“Our polls show that we only have to capture 4 percent of the soft right to
block Netanyahu’s hold,” he said. “With his security credentials and focus
on rebuilding relations with the United States, Mofaz can do that. He may
not have charisma, but he knows how to set a goal and build a team.”