Israel and the Middle East News Update

Monday, April 4

Headlines:  Rivlin: If Abbas Is Serious, I Am Ready to Meet with Him  Air Force Top Brass Says ’s Military Edge Under Threat  and Take Tentative Steps Towards Unity  Hamas: ‘We Have Four Israeli Prisoners of War in Our Custody’  Israeli Envoy Outraged After UN Censors Parts of Pro-Israel Exhibit  Israel Reduces Power Supply to West Bank Over Palestinian Debt  Orders to Seal Three Terrorists’ Homes Struck Down by High Court  Germany Said to Spy on Israeli Prime Minister’s Office

Commentary:  : “Dagan’s Commentary”  By Ronen Bergman, Senior Political and Military Analyst, Yedioth Ahronoth  Al-Monitor: “Dahlan: Is This the Man Who Will Replace Abbas?”  By Adnan Abu Amer, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Al Ummah University

S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 www.centerpeace.org ● Yoni Komorov, Editor ● David Abreu, Associate Editor

News Excerpts April 4, 2016

Arutz Sheva Rivlin: If Abbas Is Serious, I Am Ready to Meet with Him President on Monday met at his residence with Foreign Minister of Czech Republic, Lubomír Zaorálek where Rivlin spoke of the need for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and that he hoped the Palestinians engage in direct talks rather than turning to international organizations: "Without confidence between the two sides, there cannot be negotiations, and we will not find a solution." He said that he believes there is a need to end all forms of terror, and find a way to return to the negotiations. The President stressed that if Abbas truly means to take action to stop terrorism and that if he honestly wants to return to direct negotiations, there must be a way to do it. "We must find a way to build confidence between us. I will meet him with the understanding of the Israeli Government of course." See also, “Rivlin Calls for Talks with Palestinians, Says He Would Meet Abbas” (Jerusalem Post)

BICOM Air Force Top Brass Says Israel's Military Edge Under Threat One of the most senior officers in Israel’s Air Force (IAF) has warned of a growing threat to Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, due to a burgeoning arms race in the increasingly unstable Middle East. Brig. Gen. Tal Kalman, Chief of Staff of the IAF said, “There are countries here which have plans that are being actualized for arms deals in the hundreds of billions of dollars, for the most advanced Western weaponry and the most advanced Eastern weaponry.” Kalman explained that, “There is a potential here for the erosion of the IDF’s qualitative edge and the IAF’s qualitative edge.” See also, “Deputy Israel Air Force Chief: Mideast Arms Race Imperils Israel’s Military Superiority” (Ha'aretz)

Times of Israel Hamas and Fatah Take Tentative Steps Towards Unity Once again, there are reports of rivals Hamas and Fatah drawing together ahead of an agreement on Palestinian unity. Sources in Gaza and Ramallah said that in the coming two days, meetings will be held in the Qatari capital of Doha between representatives from the two movements. The expectation is that if the meetings in Qatar go well, then Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Doha in the near future to meet with Hamas political bureau head Khaled Mashaal.

Jerusalem Post Hamas: ‘We Have Four Israeli Prisoners of War in Our Custody’ Hamas publicly acknowledged on Friday that it is holding the remains of two Israeli soldiers and also has in its custody two Israeli nationals who went missing in the Gaza Strip. The group's military wing, Izzadin Kassam Brigades, released a televised statement through official Hamas media in Gaza on Friday saying Israel will have to make concessions if it wants the Islamist organization to provide information about the conditions of the "four prisoners of war." The Hamas spokesperson assailed Prime Minister and denied considering the release of the four Israelis. See also, “Egypt Said to Probe Hamas Over Israeli Hostages in Gaza” (Times of Israel) 2 i24 News Israeli Envoy Outraged After UN Censors Pro-Israel Exhibit Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, expressed his outrage Sunday over the intergovernmental organization's decision to disqualify major sections of a special exhibition about Israel which presented information about topics such as Zionism, Jerusalem, and Arab Israelis. The exhibition was created together with the pro-Israel NGO StandWithUs and was scheduled to be opened at the UN on Monday. Danon stated his disappointment about the censorship of the exhibition and demanded that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon reverse the move. "By disqualifying an exhibition about Zionism, the UN is undermining the very existence of the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” said Danon. "We will not allow the UN to censor the fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal capital." See also, “UN Censors Exhibit on Zionism Calling Displays 'Inappropriate'” (Algemeiner)

Ha’aretz Israel Reduces Power Supply to WB Over Palestinian Debt The Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) is cutting power supplies beginning Monday to the West Bank city of Bethlehem and its environs in response to the failure by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Jerusalem District Electricity Company to pay their electricity bills. The PA now owes an accumulated debt of 1.7 billion shekels ($449 million) to the Israeli electricity giant, according to company officials. They say they do not see a solution arising in which the authority will fully or even partly pay back its debts despite recent meetings on the issue. IEC staff drew up a plan on Monday morning according to which it will reduce and disrupt the power supply in various parts of the West Bank over the next two weeks. See also, “Israel Electric Corporation to Reduce Power to Bethlehem” (Times of Israel)

Ynet News Orders to Seal 3 Terrorists' Homes Struck Down by High Court The High Court of Justice (HCJ) gave a ruling on Sunday, striking down the orders for sealing the homes of three of the five terrorists involved in the attack which killed Alexander Levlovich on Rosh Hashanah eve. Only the home of the central culprit in the attack, Mahmoud Abed Rabbo Dawiyat, will be demolished. Justice Esther Hayut stated, "Even if you can see the three as associated with the inner circle of the killing offense, and I am not giving an opinion on that matter, the administrative evidence which have been detailed, as well as the indictment, show that their part in the incident was much smaller than Dawiyat's." See also, “Israel Razes the Homes of the Three Terrorists Who Killed Border Policewoman” (Ha'aretz)

Times of Israel Germany Said to Spy On Israeli Prime Minister's Office Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has been spying on Israel in recent years, specifically the Prime Minister’s Office, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Saturday. The report noted that other targets of the BND included the U.S. State Department, the British Defense Ministry, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the interior ministries of Austria and Belgium. There were no further details on the alleged information collected from Israel, or when the reported espionage took place. See also, “Germany Spied on Both US and Israel: Report” (Forward) 3

Yedioth Ahronoth – April 4, 2016 Dagan’s Commentary By Ronen Bergman  “I came to a decision with myself that I had to get this over with, I wanted to do other things. Also, the truth is that I was fed up with him (Netanyahu—R.B.). I knew a lot of prime ministers. None of them were saintly types. But they had one shared trait: when they reached the point in which their personal interest intersected with the national interest—the national interest always prevailed. There are only two I can’t say that about—Bibi and Barak.” That was the way Meir Dagan explained to me, in a private conversation, his decision to resign as director.  After the liver transplant that Meir Dagan underwent, we began to meet for lengthy conversations. I wanted to get from Dagan his version of security incidents and the decision- making process at the central and secret junctures at which he’d stood. Dagan spoke with me openly and incisively, and was unsparing in his harsh criticism. The contents of those conversations were never published—until this week. The withheld interview with Meir Dagan, who died last month after a lengthy battle with cancer, will be published in full on Friday in Yedioth Ahronoth’s Seven Days weekend magazine.  Dagan spoke at length in our conversations about his differences of opinion with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He spoke, for example, about several Mossad operations that Netanyahu initially green-lighted, but which Dagan knew he would soon wish to abort or, as Dagan put it, he would “lose his balls.”  Q: What would you do then?  “I like falafel. Because I knew he was going to summon me back soon, I’d go out to Mahane Yehuda market (a few minutes’ distance from the Prime Minister’s Office—R.B.) to buy a falafel, and I’d wait for the call, and I wouldn’t begin the drive back to Tel Aviv. When I was less sure, I’d get all the way to the Kurdish restaurant in Mevasseret Zion or a humus place in Abu Ghosh (10-15 minutes from the Prime Minister’s Office—R.B.). The important thing was not to be too far from Jerusalem. Believe me, I’m telling you in retrospect, I was never wrong. He always called me back.”  “Bibi is the worst manager I know. The worst thing is that he’s got a certain trait that’s kind of like Ehud Barak—the two of them believe that they’re the greatest geniuses in the world and that no one gets what it is that they really want. He is the only prime minister—think about that—who reached a state in which the disagreement wasn’t personal but substantive, in which the entire security establishment essentially didn’t accept his position.”  Dagan was talking about the greatest clash between Netanyahu and Dagan over Israel’s plans to attack the Iranian nuclear program. Dagan was vehemently opposed. “The working assumption as if it would be possible to fully stop the Iranian nuclear program by means of a military strike is incorrect,” he said. “That military capacity doesn’t exist. The only thing that can be accomplished is to suspend—and that would be for a defined period of time.

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 “If Israel attacks, Khamenei will thank God: that will unite the Iranian people behind the project and will allow Khamenei to say that the project was for peaceful purposes until now, but because we’ve been attacked by a terrorist state, we have to turn the project into a military project in order to defend ourselves.”  Intelligence-wise, Dagan added, he believed that the Iranians were further from a nuclear bomb than the commonly-held assumption, even within the intelligence community.  Q: Did you say that to Netanyahu and Barak?  “I voiced my opinion there with the same vehemence that I’m telling it to you now. Sometimes I raised my voice since I get upset easily and speak with pathos. I think that Israel needs to develop the ability to attack in . It’s important that we have the option—but not so as to use it. The costs outweigh the benefits.”  A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Bureau said: “Meir Dagan’s statements in the course of the battle against the Iranian nuclear program severely damaged that battle.”  A spokesperson in Ehud Barak’s office said: “I admired and loved Meir, but like all of us, Meir also made mistakes, sometimes in his judgment of people and sometimes of situations.” Ronen Bergman is a senior political and military analyst for Yedioth Ahronoth, and is the author of several books on Israeli security. He is currently working on a history of the Mossad.

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Al-Monitor – April 3, 2016 Dahlan: Is This the Man Who Will Replace Abbas? By Adnan Abu Amer  Dismissed Fatah leader and former member of Fatah’s Central Committee Mohammed Dahlan has been active on the regional and international levels in the past few months. Surprisingly, Dahlan has been more present on the regional and international scenes than any other Palestinian leader. While these activities are not directly linked to the Palestinian issue, it is important to note that Dahlan was dismissed from Fatah in 2011.  On March 13, Dahlan attended the founding conference of the opposition Ghad al-Suri (Syria's Tomorrow) movement led by Ahmad Jarba in Cairo. During the conference, the movement’s spokesman, who did not reveal his name, thanked Dahlan for his efforts in helping to solve the Syrian crisis. On Jan. 18, the Turkish paper Gercek Hayat spoke about a multinational plan to conduct a coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presumably led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), backed by Russia and Iran, and supervised by Dahlan. Prior to that, on Dec. 12, 2015, Dahlan participated in a meeting held by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian city of St. Petersburg for the opening of UNESCO’s World Culture Forum.  In addition, Dahlan gave a lecture Nov. 18 during a security conference held in Brussels under NATO auspices. During the lecture, Dahlan attacked the Islamic movements and accused Turkey of supporting the Islamic State. In April 2015, Newsweek talked about the major role Dahlan played in the agreement on the Renaissance Dam project signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in March 2015.  In this context, Abdel Hamid al-Masry, member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council and close friend of Dahlan, told Al-Monitor, “Dahlan has a regional and international [role] in resolving some thorny issues in some countries. He has wide-range relations in the region and the world and is respected by many Arab and world leaders as he is considered a part of the regional leadership. Leaders in the Middle East assign to him [specific] missions; for instance, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had assigned to him the Renaissance Dam negotiations file. Dahlan also assumed a role in bringing the Tunisian national powers together and unifying the Syrian national opposition’s discourse.”  For his part, a prominent Fatah leader told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “The political regional and international activities of Dahlan are not related to the fact that he is Palestinian. Rather these activities are because he has tight relations with the UAE, which tasks him with political and security files and allows him to establish ties he couldn’t have established as a Palestinian leader only. This is following his arrival to the UAE in 2011, where he has been treated as a VIP. However, this does not necessarily allow him to assume a Palestinian leadership post, as he has been officially dismissed from the Fatah movement since 2011.”  The most important world capitals that provided Dahlan with this regional and international network are Cairo and Abu Dhabi, where Dahlan enjoys undeniable influence since he is considered the security adviser to UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. This position provided Dahlan with influence many UAE officials may not enjoy within the state.

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 Dahlan also enjoys considerable influence in Egypt through his direct ties with Sisi, which allows him to influence Egyptian media. In addition, he has been deploying efforts to buy some news websites in Jordan.  Ahmed Youssef, former political adviser to former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told Al- Monitor, “Dahlan is welcomed on the regional and international levels. As long as elections are not the only criterion on the Palestinian scene — in light of regional and international pressure to export this leader and sideline others — Dahlan may have better chances at accessing high Palestinian positions than others. This is considering Israel’s [relative] satisfaction with him and his special ties with the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Syrian opposition. The international relations that a Palestinian official has may allow him to climb to rungs of the leadership ladder.”  He said, “Also, Dahlan is welcomed among the Fatah youth, especially in Gaza, and has strong ties with Palestinian symbols such as Marwan Barghouti, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee who has been detained in Israel for 14 years, and Salam Fayyad, former Palestinian prime minister, and with members of Fatah’s Central Committee.”  On Jan. 16, former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin said that he sees Dahlan as the next Palestinian president because he is pragmatic and intelligent and is prepared to replace Abbas as president.  On the other hand, Dahlan’s relations with Saudi Arabia do not seem to be at their best following the scathing comments by Saudi academics and analysts against him, accusing him of threatening the security of Saudi Arabia and attacking its religious scholars.  Dahlan may be well-aware that the most important factor for any Palestinian leader’s success is to have a network of regional and international relations that help him fulfill his ambition to become the president of the Palestinian Authority or the Fatah movement. It is worth noting that Dahlan also spends money on his supporters and followers spread across the Arab world. He does so in the and among Palestinian refugees in Jordan and through charity projects worth millions of dollars, mostly UAE money, in order to gain influence among Palestinians.  In this regard, the editor-in-chief of Jordan’s Al-Mustaqbal paper, Shaker al-Jawhari, who follows up on Dahlan’s movements, told Al-Monitor over the phone from Amman, “Dahlan has the support of regional actors like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. His influence even reached Lebanon and Europe thanks to the funds he is distributing to his supporters there. This makes him a strong and real competitor to Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]. As Dahlan has a presence outside the Palestinian territories, he is protected from Abu Mazen’s [criticism], knowing the latter attacks anyone who opposes him [Abbas] in Fatah.”  It is worth mentioning that many of those who have lashed out at Abbas and who live inside the Palestinian territories have faced sanctions on his orders. The sanctions include exclusion from leadership positions, cutting salaries and threatening to dismiss them from Fatah. Most recently, in February, Abbas has clashed with Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, and there was the 2014 clash with two other members of the committee, Mohamed Ghoneim and Tawfiq al-Tirawi. Thus, Dahlan has been keeping his distance from Abbas to avoid any sanctions of this sort. 7

 Jawhari added, “These regional parties supporting Dahlan also benefit from him on the security level to confront the Muslim Brotherhood.”  Dahlan appeals to Arab countries with his fight against the Muslim Brotherhood, as this is the main concern for these Arab states that fear the Islamist influence. In September 2015, Dahlan said his hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood dates back to 1981, when he was a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, thus presenting himself as the leader of the fight against the Brotherhood in an attempt to get closer to the capitals of political influence in the region.  Besides Dahlan’s foreign activities and international influence, his internal role is no less important. This is especially true given Hamas’ position and the long history of hostilities between the movement and Dahlan. When Dahlan was head of the Preventive Security Services in Gaza, he had hundreds of Hamas members arrested in 1995-2000 because they were involved in armed operations against Israel.  Masry said, “Hamas has a pragmatic [approach] when it comes to its relations with Dahlan despite the past hostilities. I do not think that Hamas has the final say concerning Dahlan, and it can reach with him a certain formula to preserve its own interests.”  For his part, Jawhari said, “Dahlan’s relations with Hamas are not bad, as they share a common adversary, namely Palestinian President Abbas.”  Youssef added, “Hamas considers that all options are on the table in politics and that Dahlan may be seeking Hamas’ approval so that it would not oppose him, because he [Dahlan] knows that whomever Hamas opposes, his options of winning in any upcoming elections are slim.”  Hamas might turn the page on its historic hostility toward Dahlan should it reach certain agreements with him, which is possible in the Palestinian political arena, where no alliances or hostilities are unending as common interests might push adversaries to meet halfway.  Dahlan’s chances to access high Palestinian leadership positions all the way to the presidential seat are likely to be higher should he manage to gradually gain recognition at the regional and international levels. This may contribute to his gradual success in eventually becoming the successor to Abbas despite the internal obstacles, which are reflected in the divide within Fatah about him and in Hamas’ historical hostility. Adnan Abu Amer is dean of the Faculty of Arts and head of the Press and Information Section at Al Ummah University Open Education, as well as a lecturer there in the history of the Palestinian issue, national security, political science and Islamic civilization.

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