Minister's wife desperately seeking Madonna?

JERUSALEM - Israel has been gripped by its latest political scandal involving the Foreign Minister, the Ambassador to Washington, two furious wives and Madonna.

Israel's two key diplomats, Silvan Shalom, the Foreign Minister and Ambassador Danny Ayalon - are waging a bitter vendetta in the pages of the Tel-Aviv tabloids after the embassy failed to arrange a meeting between Madonna and the minister's socialite wife when the ageing pop diva visited Israel last September.

The undiplomatic feud hit the headlines yesterday after the ministry dismissed the Ambassador's 24-year-old personal assistant, Liran Petersil, the man who failed to deliver the Madonna photo opportunity.

The foreign ministry says he was fired because his contract had expired. Since he was locally hired as an expatriate Israeli, government policy was not to extend it.

Embassy sources retorted that the sacking was an act of revenge, ordered by Mr Shalom.

The minister's wife, Judy, heiress to a media fortune, sports spiky red hair and tight miniskirts. Her first husband, Amiram Nir, a suspect in the Iran-Contra scandal, died in a mysterious plane crash two decades ago. She has a high-profile career as a talk show hostess and makes no secret of her ambition to propel her husband, who emigrated as a child from Tunisia, into the prime minister's office.

Madonna, who came to Israel for a five-day festival of Jewish mysticism in a luxurious Tel-Aviv hotel, refused to meet any politicians, including Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister. But she was photographed at a reception with Gideon Ezra, the Tourism Minister, and Ehud Olmert, Mr Sharon's deputy.

The Shaloms were doubly incensed because Mr Olmert is a rival for the Likud leadership succession.

Israel's civil service commissioner has sent an investigator to Washington to look into complaints filed against the Ambassador's wife, Anne Ayalon, who is alleged to have waged a "reign of terror" against embassy domestic staff. She is said to have called them "stupid" and "retards".

On one occasion, staff testified, she ordered a pregnant maid to climb a ladder and clean a window. On another, she made another employee bow down before her because he had put a picture in the wrong place.

Mr Ayalon responded with a counter-complaint to the Attorney-General accusing the minister and his wife of interfering in embassy appointments.

"It appears to me," he wrote, "that the source of the bizarre demand for dismissal is the foreign minister's bureau. Moreover, this is the demand of the foreign minister's wife."

Political sources say the underlying cause of the bad blood between Messrs Shalom and Ayalon is that the Ambassador, a foreign ministry professional, was appointed by the Prime Minister, whom he had served previously as diplomatic adviser.

Mr Ayalon is reputed to be one of the few Washington envoys who can pick up the phone and talk to Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State, whenever he wants. He tends to bypass the foreign ministry in Jerusalem and report directly to Mr Sharon.

The minister, like others in the same situation before him, resents being left out of the loop.

- INDEPENDENT