A SENIOR aide to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday announced his resignation, deepening the crisis atmosphere in the Prime Minister's Office.
Mr David Agmon, appointed less than five weeks ago to the position of bureau chief following the hurried resignation of his predecessor, is understood to be stepping down because, having hoped for a meaningful role in Israeli- Arab peace negotiations, he has been excluded from all but the most menial office duties.
Another of the Prime Minister's aides, Mr Netanyahu's adviser on Arab affairs, is also reportedly on the point of tendering his resignation.
Mr Agmon's departure comes at a time of extraordinary turmoil in Mr Netanyahu's inner circle. Aides to the Prime Minister have been accused in a series of Israel Television reports of conspiring earlier this month to appoint an attorney general, Mr Ronnie Bar On, who would subvert the legal process by arranging a plea bargain for one of the key members of Mr Netanyahu's governing coalition and a Knesset member, Mr Aryeh Deri of the ultra Orthodox Shas party, who is in the middle of a corruption trial.
Mr Bar On, a relatively unknown criminal lawyer and activist in Mr Netanyahu's Likud party, resigned as attorney general within two days of the cabinet's vote on January 10th approving his appointment, in the wake of a deluge of criticism from the legal establishment. The police are now investigating the Israel TV allegations.
Meanwhile, the appointment of a new attorney general, the respected Judge Elyakim Rubinstein, is to be formally confirmed tomorrow.
Mr Agmon's name has never been mentioned in connection with the Bar On scandal, although his main problems in the Prime Minister's Office appear to have been with Mr Netanyahu's most trusted and most protective aide, Mr Avigdor Lieberman, who has been linked by Israel TV to the attorney general affair.
A strapping, bearded immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Mr Lieberman is a former night club bouncer widely regarded as the Prime Minister's hard man - the aide who helped Mr Netanyahu push through painful reforms in the Likud party, whose preferences influenced the composition of Mr Netanyahu's cabinet, and who jealously guards access to Mr Netanyahu from an office adjacent to the Prime Minister's own.
Reuter reports from Cairo:
A Palestinian official yesterday criticised Israel's plans to tighten its grip on Arab East Jerusalem, accusing Israel of putting obstacles to negotiations on the future status of the city.
Egypt said Israel's latest plans for East Jerusalem were worrying and could damage the atmosphere in Middle East peace talks.
Israel's ministerial committee on Jerusalem, headed by Mr Netanyahu, decided on Sunday to allocate $39 million to improve infrastructure in East Jerusalem in a move it said was to strengthen Israeli sovereignty there.
"We are astonished at these decisions," said Mr Nabil Abu Rdainah, media adviser to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat. "These decisions aim at reviving obstacles to negotiations and to pre empt final status talks which cover several issues, including the future of Jerusalem."
Under interim Israeli PLO peace deals, the future of Jerusalem is to be negotiated in "final status" peace talks due to be completed by May 1999.