Israel and the Middle East News Update

Thursday, November 7

Headlines: • Israeli Justice Minister Flouts the Law to Protect Netanyahu • In Shocking Rebuke, AG Says Justice Minister Misleading the Public • Furious Response to Justice Minister’s Violation of Gag Order • Netanyahu Requests U.S. Transfer Funds to PA, Trump Refuses • U.S. Warns Iran Could be Positioning for ‘Rapid Nuclear Breakout’ • Aiding Syria's Kurds, Advocating for Them with U.S. • Trump Confirms Turkey’s Erdogan Will Visit White House Next Week

Commentary: • Yedioth Ahronoth: “The Minister of Lackeys” − By Sima Kadmon • Jerusalem Post: “The Assault on Israel’s Judicial System” − By Yedidia Z. Stern, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy 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 ● Yehuda Greenfield-Gilat, Associate Editor

News Excerpts November 7, 2019 Ha’aretz Israeli Justice Minister Flouts the Law to Protect Netanyahu Israeli Justice Minister Amir Ohana alighted the podium on Wednesday and broke the law, or so it seems. Ohana violated a court-imposed gag order pertaining to the police questioning of Nir Hefetz, a former media adviser to and current state’s witness in his criminal investigations. Since his temporary appointment in June as Justice Minister, Ohana has emerged as Bibi’s version of U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Just as Barr has directed his efforts at undermining the “Ukrainegate” and “Russiagate” investigations against Trump, Ohana is doing his part to undercut the legitimacy of the current criminal proceedings against the prime minister. He blatantly broke the gag order in order to publicize the fact that police had allegedly summoned a young woman with whom the married Hefetz had purportedly been having an affair in order to pressure the former media adviser to turn against his former boss. The purpose of the revelation was to discredit Hefetz’s testimony in advance of the attorney general’s imminent decision on whether to indict Netanyahu, and on what charges.

Times of Israel In Shocking Rebuke, AG says Justice Min. Misleading the Public Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit issued an unprecedented rebuke of a serving justice minister on Wednesday, saying Amir Ohana’s claim that investigators in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption probes extorted a key witness was an attempt to “mislead the public” for the leader’s political benefit. Mandelblit, in a joint statement with State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, vowed not to get dragged into litigating Netanyahu’s corruption investigation in public, as the premier’s political allies were trying to force him to do. The comments highlight the growing animosity between Netanyahu’s Likud and the state prosecution over the investigations into three corruption cases against the prime minister. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing in the cases and alleges a conspiracy by his opponents in the police, state prosecution and the media.

Ma’ariv Furious Response to Justice Minister’s Violation of Gag Order The political and legal establishments responded furiously to Justice Minister Amir Ohana’s use of his immunity to divulge the methods that were used on the state’s witness, Nir Hefetz, in violation of a court order. Democratic Union Chairman Nitzan Horowitz said: “Anyone who considers testifying against Netanyahu or who dares to speak out against him should know that they will be harassed, maligned and that their lives will be made into a hell, at the direct order of the most senior level and his many assistants.” said: “There is nobody in the country who believes that Amir Ohana spoke today on his own. Netanyahu sent him to malign the justice system. Bibi and Ohana today disgraced the government, the state, and mainly themselves. This is how criminals behave, not ministers.”

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Axios Netanyahu Requests U.S. Transfer Funds to PA, Trump Refuses Several months ago, President Trump rejected a request by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow U.S. aid to be transferred to Palestinian security forces and told aides that Netanyahu should pay for it, U.S. officials told me. According to U.S. officials, the State Department realized around six months ago that $12 million in aid to the Palestinian security forces had not been cut but was also never transferred to the Palestinians. The U.S. officials said that Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer and other Israeli officials told their American counterparts they wanted the money to be transferred in order to help the Palestinian security forces, which work hand in hand with the Israelis in the West Bank. The Israelis were told that Trump’s policy was to cut the funding to the Palestinian Authority, meaning this was a decision that would have to be cleared by the president. Senior White House officials raised the issue of the $12 million with the president, U.S. officials told me. Trump wasn’t convinced and told his aides: "If it is that important to Netanyahu, he should pay the Palestinians $12 million." The money was never transferred.

Times of Israel US warns Iran Could be Positioning for ‘Rapid Nuclear Breakout’ The United States on Thursday called for “serious steps” to be taken after Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordo plant in a new step back from its commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal. “Iran’s expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. “It is now time for all nations to reject this regime’s nuclear extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure.”

Reuters Israel Aiding Syria's Kurds, Advocating for Them with U.S. Israel is assisting Syrian Kurds battered by a month-old Turkish incursion, seeing them as a counterweight to Iranian influence and advocating for them in talks with the United States, the deputy Israeli foreign minister said on Wednesday. In a rare public dissent with U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered humanitarian aid to the “gallant Kurdish people” on Oct. 10, saying they faced possible “ethnic cleansing” by Turkey and its Syrian allies. Israel’s deputy foreign minister told parliament on Wednesday that the offer had been taken up.

Axios Trump confirms Turkey's Erdoğan will visit White House next week President Trump tweeted on Wednesday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodğan has accepted his invitation to visit the White House on Nov. 13. Erdoğan's visit comes roughly a month after Turkey announced a military incursion against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria, resulting in international outcry and sanctions from the Trump administration. Those sanctions were ultimately lifted after a ceasefire deal that intended to create a "safe zone" along the Turkish border, free of Kurdish forces. Erdoğan's invasion caused a massive bipartisan backlash in Washington, putting his visit in doubt. He was also enraged last week when the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

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Yedioth Ahronoth – November 7, 2019 The Minister of Lackeys By Sima Kadmon • Amir Ohana has only one God. His name is Binyamin Netanyahu. In the past few weeks he has proved that there is no job, no matter how ignoble, that he won’t do on his behalf. That is contemptible, miserable and ludicrous—but as of yesterday, it also became criminal. In his speech in the Knesset, Ohana had no qualms about expanding upon Amit Segal’s report, which was limited under the constraints of a gag order, and divulged the identity of the person whom the detectives arranged to have “run into” Hefetz in the corridor as a means of pressuring Hefetz into agreeing to serve as a state’s witness. • Only the tweet that was written by Yair Netanyahu, who rushed to clarify Ohana’s remarks “for anyone who didn’t understand,” can compete with the ugliness of Ohana’s act of exploiting his immunity to violate a court gag order. Except there is—or at least there ought to be—a difference between the tweets that were written by Yair Netanyahu, about whom there’s no need to expand further, and a speech in the Knesset plenum by the justice minister, whom no one doubts spoke his master’s words. • We live in an upside-down world. The people who supposedly vaunted the need to maintain the integrity of the investigation have now committed a far greater injustice against the person they supposedly were protecting, disclosing intimate information about him. And they did so with one purpose only—to continue to defend Netanyahu, to rile public opinion against the police, the State Attorney’s Office and the attorney general with the goal of delegitimizing the attorney general’s decision. They are trying to apply pressure on the decision-makers and to distract the public’s attention with an assortment of affairs that are designed to postpone the publication of the attorney general’s decision. • On the flip side, it seems that there isn’t a single landmine that the law enforcement agencies haven’t stepped onto. Liat Ben Ari’s decision to go on vacation during the prime minister’s hearing; the way in which the prime minister’s aides’ telephones were inspected; and the threats that were made to state’s witnesses. In a case that has so much explosive potential, the sheer number of missteps that were made is insufferable. *** • As the political establishment finds itself hurtling towards a third election, seemingly without any hope that anyone might change the equation and break the existing conventions, new initiatives are now afoot. • One of those initiatives is taking on shape and form at present, and is being reported here for the first time. This initiative is the brainchild of the former MKs Doron Shmueli and Pini Badash, the latter of whom now serves as the mayor of Omer. They have held a series of meetings and conversations with right-wing public figures, including Avigdor Liberman, , Yoaz Hendel, , Aviv Bushinsky and members of the New Likudnik caucus. Their goal is to form a new and broad right-wing party that might serve as an alternative to the Likud as early as in the next elections.

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• Their working premise is that we’re heading towards a third election, said to me one of the politicians to whom this new initiative was pitched. Shmueli and Badash aren’t appealing to parties but, rather, to public figures who are associated with the right in the media, settlement [not necessarily in the West Bank], academia, business and local government. That initiative could very well garner a lot of support, said the right-wing politician with whom I spoke. • I haven’t any political aspirations, Shmueli said to me this week. I’m an industrialist, and I’m happy with my job, but my country is on fire. And since the Netanyahu era is going to come to an end soon, an alternative right-wing body needs to be established. A real right wing. A different right wing. A body that will serve as an option for everyone who feels that they don’t have anyone to vote for. • The positive response was amazing, said Shmueli. A body of that sort could win 15 to 20 seats. People who are in the [political] establishment and who thirst for it. It’s advanced from talks to meetings. People are cautious, but no one has thrown me out. They understand that things can’t go on this way. I told Liberman to leave his Russian framing. Get deeply-rooted Israelis, I said to him. Let’s restore sanity to this country. • I asked Shmueli whether he wasn’t afraid that people were exploiting his initiative as another means to threaten Netanyahu. I know one thing, he replied. And that’s if we do head into another elections, the political system as we know it today won’t exist. An alternative right wing body is going to be formed. Good people of ours who are going to enlist for reserve duty in order to save the country. So I’m not saying that the person who leads that body is going to be prime minister, but a group of that sort will crush the existing Likud, and there won’t be a government without it

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Jerusalem Post – November 6, 2019 Assault on Israel’s Judicial System: The Angel of History is Watching Us

BY YEDIDIA Z. STERN • The wrestling match between the political and the judicial, between the elected representatives and the professionals, is becoming ever more intense. • The current justice minister, Amir Ohana, is the prime minister’s personal political appointee. His ministry is home to the critically important State Attorney’s Office, against which he has launched a fierce attack. He is doing so donning a suit and tie, but with bare hands and with a conspicuous lack of respect, lashing out at the most senior officials in his own ministry. This is a terrifying spectacle – a government body attacking itself. In medicine, this is what is called an autoimmune disorder. • Like most of the major events in the current national arena, so too, Ohana’s words should be understood and interpreted in the current Israeli context: a struggle of nearly mythological proportions between the prime minister and the agencies that enforce the rule of law. How should we assess the situation from the perspective of the national and collective interest? • At least for now, we must distinguish between the prime minister himself and those surrounding him, including the justice minister. The prime minister comes from a nationalist- liberal family. Immersed in this tradition, he is deeply aware of the immense importance of the slogan coined by , his predecessor as the head of his party: “There are judges in Jerusalem.” The respectful obeisance that the government makes to the rule of law – not from the perspective of hierarchy but, rather, based on respect for the division of powers and responsibility – is deeply embedded in his ideological DNA. • Indeed, in the last decade it has been the prime minister himself who, with relative success, has stood in the way of those attacking the rule of law and seeking to destroy it. • Will he continue along this path? Will he be able to cope – on the one hand – with the formidable challenge of defending his innocence through the legal system’s accepted practices, while defending the judiciary and the law-enforcement agencies on the other? • At the end of the day, history will assess his immense achievements on behalf of the State of Israel over the past generation based on how he handles the current challenge. The angel of history is peeking over his shoulder. • FOR THE moment, the prime minister’s legal fate is in the hands of the individual who holds the authority, on the behalf of all Israelis, to determine it – the attorney-general and his staff. • It is perfectly clear that whatever his decision, it will be bitterly criticized by half the Israeli public. But there is something liberating in this inevitable criticism: it allows the attorney- general to act as he should – to reach a decision on what is a professional question, by weighing the evidence and its legal significance, entirely objectively. The background noise must remain in the background, on the populistic street, and must not be allowed to barge into the room in which the decision is made. The attorney-general need not, as a matter of 6

principle, and cannot, as a matter of practice, please all shades of public opinion. It is this situation that enables him to carry out his job in a totally professional way. • Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit is the right man in the right place. Like Netanyahu, he grew up as part of the Revisionist “fighting family.” He himself was exposed to legal charges, which he was able to rebut, and thus has firsthand experience of what it’s like to be on the other side. His roots lie in the most nonpartisan institution in Israel – the military – where he eventually rose to become the military advocate-general, after having served as both the chief military defense attorney and the chief military prosecutor. Is this the profile of a “member of the ‘rule-of-law’ gang”? Everyone who knows Mandelblit will testify that not only is he an experienced professional, he is also far from being a firebrand radical and is in fact impartial, rational and devoted to the public interest. • These traits were expressed, among other ways, in the course of the hearing granted the prime minister, which, according to the latter’s attorney, was conducted in a fair and professional manner. Direct interaction among professionals, representing both sides, is the appropriate arena – and in fact the only arena – in which the debate should take place. • For now, with regard to the attorney-general’s decision, we are all behind a veil of ignorance. He may file a grave indictment, or press less serious charges, or close the case. And so, this is the moment we should take a principled stand about the impending decision – regardless of one’s individual opinion. Everyone committed to the democratic tradition and to the rule of law, everyone who places country above party and ideology, must now take it upon him or herself not to challenge the legitimacy of the decision taken by the public’s trustee – the attorney-general – regardless of what that decision is. • This does not rule out professional criticism of the decision, but it must block any attack on its legitimacy. Otherwise, in the words of the sages, “every man would swallow his neighbor alive.”

The writer is a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and a professor of law at Bar-Ilan University.

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