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Israel and the Middle East News Update

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Israel and the Middle East News Update Israel and the Middle East News Update Wednesday, February 20 Headlines: ​ ● Sniping Between Netanyahu and Gantz Intensifies ● PM Pushing for Bayit Yehudi Merger with Extremist Otzma ● US Mission to PA Merging with Israel Embassy in March ● US Charity Opens Gaza’s First Cancer Ward for Children ● Despite Likud Attacks on Gantz, PM Supported Kerry Plan ● US Rabbinical Students Plant with Palestinians ● New Right Brings Experts in Hasbara and Aliyah to List ● Yisrael Beiteinu List Leaves Out Veteran Lawmakers Commentary: ● Ha’aretz: “Tampering with PA Funds, Israel Could Get Hamas Rockets” − By Amos Harel, Senior Columnist ● LA Times: “Boycotting Israel Won’t End the Palestinian Tragedy” − By Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 The Hon. Robert Wexler, President ● Yoni Komorov, Editor ● Aaron Zucker, Associate Editor ​ ​ News Excerpts ​ February 20, 2019 Jerusalem Post Sniping Between Netanyahu and Gantz Intensifies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Resilience Party leader Benny Gantz traded personal barbs on Tuesday night as Gantz accused the prime minister of ruling through incitement, intimidation and fear. “When I lay in muddy foxholes with my soldiers on frozen winter nights, you, Benjamin Netanyahu, left Israel to improve your English and practice it at luxurious cocktail parties,” Gantz said. Netanyahu responded, "Benny Gantz, you should be ashamed...as an officer in Sayeret Matkal, I risked my life time after time for [Israel]. Jerusalem Post PM Pushing for Bayit Yehudi Merger with Extremist Otzma Top candidates for Bayit Yehudi have threatened to quit if the extremist Otzma Yehudit runs on a merged list with their party, as negotiations broke down Tuesday, despite Netanyahu’s personal intervention. Otzma Yehudit is led by students of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned from running for the Knesset on grounds of racist incitement. Netanyahu continued his efforts to convince the parties to run together in order to add seats to the right-wing bloc, offering former Shas leader Eli Yishai a cabinet post if he runs with Bayit Yehudi. Reuters US Mission to PA Merging with Israel Embassy in March The US Consulate General in Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians, will be absorbed into the new Embassy to Israel in March, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, giving a date for a merger announced in October which has been condemned by Palestinians. PA Official Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “contacts at the political level with the American administration have been cut off and will remain so unless the American administration changes its positions on Jerusalem and the refugees,” said Abu Rudeineh. Times of Israel US Charity Opens Gaza’s First Cancer Ward for Children A US charity has inaugurated the first children’s cancer department in the Gaza Strip. The $3 million department, sponsored by Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, will provide chemotherapy, though bone marrow transplants and nuclear medicine won’t be available. The fund says it has an agreement with the World Health Organization to secure free movement of samples to labs in Israel or Jordan. 2 Ha’aretz Despite Likud Attacks on Gantz, PM Supported Kerry Plan On Monday, the Likud party accused Gantz of secretly conspiring with the Obama administration to promote a plan for a Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders until Netanyahu blocked it. During Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2013-2014 peace initiative, General John Allen worked with the IDF to develop a plan for Israeli security through a two-state solution. The Americans felt that senior IDF officers, including Gantz, supported the initiative, while Netanyahu was skeptical but accepted it with reservations. However, the Americans blamed then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon for categorically rejecting it. Contrary to the Likud ad, the security plan included land swaps and annexation of the large settlement blocs. Associated Press US Rabbinical Students Plant with Palestinians In a stark departure from past programs focused on strengthening ties with Israel and Judaism, a new crop of US rabbinical students is reaching out to the Palestinians. On a recent winter morning, two dozen Jewish students planted olive trees in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani in the southern West Bank. The program is run by “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights,” a US-based network of rabbis and cantors. Most of T’ruah’s membership, and all students in the Israel program, are affiliated with the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements. The T’ruah program, now in its seventh year, is meant to supplement students’ standard curricular fare. Jerusalem Post New Right Brings Experts in Hasbara and Aliyah to List The New Right Party introduced more candidates on Wednesday, including Yomtov Kalfon activist for French and Belgian aliyah, and founder of “Aleinu,” meant to help get French-speaking immigrants involved in Israeli politics. Together with New Right leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, Kalfon presented a plan on Tuesday for how Israel can absorb 50,000 French-speaking immigrants. Ran Bario Bar-Yoshafat, deputy director of the right-leaning Kohelet Policy Forum, also joined the New Right’s list. Times of Israel Yisrael Beiteinu List Leaves Out Veteran Lawmakers Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday unveiled his party’s slate for the upcoming elections, leaving out a pair of veteran lawmakers who have served under him for over a decade. Noticeably absent was the party’s current number two, Sofa Landver, who served as immigration minister until November when Liberman resigned as defense minister and pulled the party out of the government. Also left out was Robert Ilatov, who announced Monday he would not run in the April 9 elections. 3 Ha’aretz – February 19, 2019 Tampering with PA Funds, Israel Could Get Hamas Rockets By Amos Harel, Senior Columnist ● The decision by the security cabinet on Sunday to freeze the transfer of 500 million shekels ($138 million) of Palestinian Authority taxes as a sanction for its support of security prisoners was the result of political constraints. The law allowing the funds to be frozen was passed in July, but no politician seemed in any hurry to implement it. The murder of Ori Ansbacher in Jerusalem earlier this month led to renewed discussion of the assistance the PA gives to terrorists and their families; the overcrowding on the right side of the political spectrum did the rest. When Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman are circumventing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the right on the question of relations with the Palestinians, and the prime minister is busy branding himself as the strong right against Benny Gantz’s weak left, Netanyahu saw no choice but to start implementing the law. ● Between July and February nothing was done about deducting any taxes, and even during Sunday’s security cabinet meeting Shin Bet security service head Nadav Argaman delayed presenting the full data on the PA’s support of security prisoners – and got an earful directly from Bennett (which somehow leaked at the speed of light to Channel 12). ● But even now, the funds freeze relates only to the imprisoned terrorists, not to the annual assistance, slightly greater in scope, that the PA gives to the families of Palestinians who were killed in confrontations with Israel. This second clause includes help given to relatives of suicide terrorists. And even after the security cabinet decision and the festive announcement that followed, it still isn’t clear when the tax refunds to the PA will actually be withheld. There is some logic to the Israeli argument, which is supported by the U.S. administration, that the PA’s continued financial assistance to prisoners and families of terrorists indirectly encourages terrorism and contradicts its public statements regarding the need for peace. But in Israel they are also well aware of the ethos of the Palestinian struggle and the fact that any move PA President Mahmoud Abbas makes to reduce the prisoners’ payments will cause a huge domestic crisis for him. That’s why defense establishment heads objected to the tax freeze and sought to delay it as long as they could. ● Meanwhile, one cannot ignore a certain contradiction in the claims being made by Netanyahu and the ministers. On the one hand, they pride themselves on curbing aid to terror by stopping money transfers to the PA, which is still thwarting terror in the West Bank in coordination with Israel. On the other hand, Israel is approving the transfer of money from Qatar and other sources to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, which openly continues to confront Israel and use violence against it. The Israeli decision to stop the tax transfers puts more pressure on the PA leaders than the steps the American administration has taken to reduce the financial aid to the territories. The PA is threatening to completely halt the cooperation between it and Israel. Abbas has already been quoted as saying he will transfer the PA’s last penny to the prisoners if necessary, making this his highest priority. Security coordination with Israel will not be halted 4 because it is also a Palestinian interest, but the PA could take other measures, such as stopping all meetings in non-security channels. ● The primary danger here is the slippery slope. Abbas’ highest priority is the transfer of aid to Fatah prisoners from the West Bank imprisoned in Israel. To be able to continue this he might decide, as he has already hinted, to further reduce the funds transferred to the Gaza Strip. So by freezing the tax transfers, Israel might indirectly assist in exacerbating the situation in Gaza and hastening further escalation there, contrary to its objective.
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