HaTzofeh editor Gonen Ginat wrote four days ago,
\"Muhammad Rashid, the man who holds Arafat\'s purse strings, said this week that it would be too bad if Omri Sharon [the Prime Minister\'s son] is not allowed to continue running the talks [between Israel and the PA]. If it is too bad for Rashid, then it is likely to be good for us… It will be recalled that Rashid met with Omri Sharon even before the elections, together with the Austrian representatives of the Jericho casino. The Palestinians said then that they discussed the casino; Sharon denied it. But this week, very quietly, the renovation of the casino was completed, and they are awaiting only Sharon\'s OK for Israeli gamblers to return to the site. Something bad is going on here, something that we do not know. What is clear is that if in the near future Sharon approves the opening of the casino, it will be appropriate to say that it will be the most foul-smelling scandal in a long while.\"
Avraham Katz-Oz, Chairman of Israel\'s Mifal HaPayis (the Lottery Commission, whose earnings are largely dedicated towards the building of new classrooms around the country), wrote a letter to Sharon on the casino issue. Katz-Oz asked Sharon to turn down the Palestinian request, and to build a casino in Israel instead. \"The past has taught us that Israelis are willing to endanger their lives to go to the Jericho casino,\" he wrote. \"It would be better if the profits from their gambling would go towards Israeli national projects.\" A proposal by the Barak government in 1999 to build an Israeli casino drew almost wall-to-wall opposition from the Chief Rabbi, the Attorney General, then-Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, and others.
\"Muhammad Rashid, the man who holds Arafat\'s purse strings, said this week that it would be too bad if Omri Sharon [the Prime Minister\'s son] is not allowed to continue running the talks [between Israel and the PA]. If it is too bad for Rashid, then it is likely to be good for us… It will be recalled that Rashid met with Omri Sharon even before the elections, together with the Austrian representatives of the Jericho casino. The Palestinians said then that they discussed the casino; Sharon denied it. But this week, very quietly, the renovation of the casino was completed, and they are awaiting only Sharon\'s OK for Israeli gamblers to return to the site. Something bad is going on here, something that we do not know. What is clear is that if in the near future Sharon approves the opening of the casino, it will be appropriate to say that it will be the most foul-smelling scandal in a long while.\"
Avraham Katz-Oz, Chairman of Israel\'s Mifal HaPayis (the Lottery Commission, whose earnings are largely dedicated towards the building of new classrooms around the country), wrote a letter to Sharon on the casino issue. Katz-Oz asked Sharon to turn down the Palestinian request, and to build a casino in Israel instead. \"The past has taught us that Israelis are willing to endanger their lives to go to the Jericho casino,\" he wrote. \"It would be better if the profits from their gambling would go towards Israeli national projects.\" A proposal by the Barak government in 1999 to build an Israeli casino drew almost wall-to-wall opposition from the Chief Rabbi, the Attorney General, then-Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, and others.