A Daily Analysis
By Marc Schulman

June 11, 2007 Fighten Continues in Gaza- Barak Ahead in Polls

The situation in Gaza has worsened, with casualties on all sides. The result: 40% of the young people in the Gaza have indicated that they want to emigrate. This goes against the very ethos of the Palestinians. Hamas is trying to fight the phenomenon, but it is very difficult to do so while fighting a civil war without doing anything to ensure citizens' economic future. There have been some statistics released that show that tens of thousands of Palestinians have already left Gaza.

The Labor elections are tomorrow. The latest polls show that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak is ahead of MK Ami Ayalon. Before he entered into an agreement with Defense Minister Peretz, Ayalon supposedly said he would not make an agreement with Peretz, because for every vote he would get he would lose two. He seems to have been right.

Israel Channel 10Ős political correspondent, Avi Drucker, gave an overview of the two elections that are taking place this week. He described the Barak campaign as very quiet, and as an insider campaign that was ignoring the public at large. In this case Barak is much more popular within the Labor party than with the public at large, so he is ignoring the public.

On the other hand, Vice Premier Shimon Peres in his run for President has made a major point of pointing out how much the public wants him in that position. He is hoping that the Knesset Members will feel obligated to follow the will of the public. In the meantime, some observers believe he will get support from a number of a MKs just to insure he will not be available to become prime minister if the second part of the Winograd Commission's report forces Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign.

Israel launched its Ofeq 7 satellite today, joining Ofeq 5 which is already in space. Later this summer Israel will be launching a radar based satellite that will be able to return images in bad weather as well as good. The launching of Ofeq is a reminder of what IsaelŐs main strategic advantage remains, and that is technology. There were discussions yesterday on Israeli radio on the effectiveness of the Chetz anti missile system. The general consensus was that it was good, if not perfect. The only way to significantly improve it is to have a multilayered system, one that can fire multiple interceptors at an incoming missile each aimed at a different point of the flight path.