Israel and the Middle East News Update

Wednesday, April 1

Headlines:

• Justice Ministry and Speaker Among Last Hurdles in Unity Talks • Blue and White Under Pressure to Compromise on Ministers • Sa’ar: Gantz Should Prevent ‘Inflated’ Unity Govt’ During Time of Crisis • Syria: Air Defenses Down Missiles from Israeli Warplanes • IDF's Top Military Commander Tests Negative for Coronavirus • Nearly a Quarter of ’s Workforce Unemployed due to Virus Outbreak • Gov't Mulls Lockdown on Haredi Cities as Coronavirus Patients Hit 5,591 • Palestinian Forces Conduct Rare Operation in Neighborhood

Commentary:

• Yedioth Ahronoth: “‘Chaos Reigns in the Absence of a Plan” - By Nadav Eyal, Channel Thirteen News’ foreign news editor • Al Monitor: “Why Gantz Needed to Replace Netanyahu's Knesset Speaker” - By Ksenia Svetlova, former Knesset member for Party

S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 www.centerpeace.org

News Excerpts April 1, 2020 Ha’aretz Justice Ministry and Knesset Speaker Among Last Hurdles in Unity Talks and Kahol Lavan officials hope to be able to finalize coalition talks and expect a government to be sworn in on Monday, April 6, a few days before Passover begins.The cancellation of a meeting between PM Netanyahu and Kahol Lavan leader , scheduled to take place on Monday, delayed the process. The meeting was reportedly postponed as Netanyahu went into self-quarantine at his official residence after one of his aides tested positive for coronavirus. Netanyahu himself tested negative. Negotiations are focusing on government appointments, with the Justice Ministry a major point of contention. Likud is strenuously opposing the appointment of Kahol Lavan lawmaker Avi Nissenkorn to the role, preferring Chili Tropper, who is also of Kahol Lavan but preferred by Netanyahu and his right-wing bloc. See also “Netanyahu seeks to draw out unity talks, as Gantz’s hand weakens” (TOI)

Jerusalem Post Blue and White Under Pressure to Compromise on Ministers Blue and White leader Benny Gantz faced pressure on Tuesday to give up his demand for the same number of ministers as the Likud and its satellite parties after complaints about the size of the government during an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. Likud and Blue and White’s negotiating teams met on Tuesday night by video conference after a day and a half with no talks. The current plan remains for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and Yamina to have 15 ministers and for Blue and White and Labor to have the same, even though the Right-Center bloc would have 58 MKs and the Center-Left bloc 19. See also “Chairing his first full Knesset session, Gantz faces assaults from former allies” (TOI)

Times of Israel Sa’ar: Gantz Should Prevent ‘Inflated’ Unity Govt’ During Time of Crisis In the economic climate created by the coronavirus crisis, Israel cannot afford the next government to be the largest in its history, and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz has the ability to prevent this, Likud MK and former leadership contender Gideon Sa’ar said in an interview with Channel 12 on Tuesday evening.He spoke as a source close to negotiations told Channel 13 news that a crucial video conference call was being held between the sides on Tuesday evening, and that if no deal between Gantz and PM Netanyahu was reached by the weekend it might not be made at all.

Ynet News Syria: Air Defenses Down Missiles From Israeli Warplanes Syria's state-run SANA media outlet said that the country's air defenses opened fire Tuesday night on missiles launched from Israeli warplanes on the central province of Homs, shooting down some of them, state media said. State TV said the warplanes fired the missiles while flying in Lebanese airspace. The outlet said the warplanes targeted a Syrian army position without saying where exactly. It added that some of the missiles were shot down. The Lebanese pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen channel reported that the attack was aimed at "military sites east of Homs." The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that, "the Israeli Air Force has launched an attack on Shayrat airfield with more than eight missiles." See also, “Syria air defences down Israeli missiles over Homs: state media” (Al Jazeera) 2

I24 News IDF's Top Military Commander Tests Negative for Coronavirus Israel's top military, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, has tested negative for coronavirus a day after entering going into quarantine along with two members of his close team. "The Chief of Staff feels good and will remain in isolation until the end of the week," an IDF spokesperson unit statement said. Kochavi voluntarily went into self-isolation on Tuesday after coming into contact with an IDF commander who tested positive for COVID-19 coronavirus. On March 22 Lt.-Gen. Kochavi attended a meeting with a Home Front commander, where one of the military attendees was diagnosed with the coronavirus Tuesday, according to an IDF statement. See also “IDF chief in quarantine after contact with coronavirus sufferer” (Ynet News)

Times of Israel Nearly a Quarter of Israel’s Workforce Unemployed due to Virus Outbreak The unemployment rate climbed to 23.4 percent on Tuesday with over 800,000 put out of work in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some 24,000 newly out of work Israelis registered for unemployment on Monday. Among those seeking state benefits, 89.8% have been placed on unpaid leave by their workplaces, while 6.3% were fired, according to the National Employment Service. The month of March was one of the worst for Israel’s job market in its history. Only a month ago, before the coronavirus outbreak, unemployment in Israel was at a record low of under 4%. Some 812,000 Israelis were put out of work since the start of the crisis. There are now 969,693 Israelis seeking unemployment benefits, counting the 160,000 who were already on unemployment before the crisis See also, “Unemployment in Israel: 989,000 apply for benefits, 23.8% of workforce” (JPost)

Jerusalem Post Gov't Mulls Lockdown on Haredi Cities as Coronavirus Patients hit 5,591 The government is considering imposing a full lockdown on haredi (ultra-Orthodox) cities and towns in which the number of people infected with coronavirus continues to rise. A team of top scientists said it expects Israel will have 500 critically ill patients by next week. “[On Monday], there were talks between the prime minister, health minister and defense minister, and we are preparing for such a scenario with Home Front Command,” Health Ministry director-general said Tuesday in a live-streamed interview. Specifically, the number of people infected with the virus continues to spike in the haredi city of Bnei Brak, where there has been an increase of 66 sick people in one. See also, “One-Third Of Bnei Brak Residents Tested For COVID-19 Are Positive, ER Screening Chareidi Patients” (WIN)

Ha’aretz Palestinian Forces Conduct Rare Operation in Jerusalem Neighborhood Armed security forces from the Palestinian Authority conducted a rare operation in a Jerusalem neighborhood that is within the Israeli municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, but on the West Bank side of the separation wall. Palestinian sources say Israel was notified of the operation in advance. Palestinian security forces openly entered Kafr Aqab to calm the situation there, following a gun battle among Palestinians over a roadblock set up to enforce the lockdown the Palestinian Authority has imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the territory under its jurisdiction. About two weeks ago, the residents of Kafr Aqab established their own neighborhood committee to combat the coronavirus. After the Palestinian Authority imposed a lockdown on all the towns and villages in PA- administered territory, the committee decided to set up a roadblock to halt traffic.

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Yedioth Ahronoth – April 1, 2020 Chaos Reigns in the Absence of a Plan

By Nadav Eyal, Channel Thirteen News’ foreign news editor

• Several weeks ago an article was printed in this newspaper that argued that Israel needed an orderly national plan to fight the coronavirus and to return life to normal. Several weeks have passed and Israel still has no plan, and chaos reigns. Planning teams have been formed at universities and other planning teams have been formed in the high-tech community. An acquisitions war room under the Mossad director’s command was formed, and a second war room under the command of IDF special forces officers was also formed. Teams have been working with information from the Health Ministry and the Gartner Institute that isn’t available to everyone. Power struggles have been underway among top health care system officials: hospital directors have been fighting Health Ministry officials, and Health Ministry officials have been fighting with one another. One day they say that more tests are going to be done. The next day we’re told that there’s no point to testing. Masks? No need, said Prof. Sadetzki, who suddenly showed up the next day wearing a mask and bearing news of a new (and necessary) policy that was long ago the subject of global studies. And mainly, time and time again, a single and sole method: lockdown and more lockdown and increasingly stricter restrictions. • Here are the hard facts. The death rate in Israel is currently low because the state took proper action initially by quarantining people returning from overseas. The credit for that goes to the Health Ministry and its directors, and to Prime Minister Netanyahu, all of whom perceived the severity of the threat in its early stages. The death rate is low for other reasons as well: the Israelis who are over the age of 70—the people who founded and built the state—are cautious and calculating people. They began to protect themselves early in the course of the unfolding events. They refrained from attending social events and from visiting their grandchildren, painful as that may be. Aside from children, who tend not to become infected, that age group has the lowest infection level among all other age groups in Israel. Where have things followed a similar route? In Germany, where the death rate is low as well. The Israeli health care system may be bare-boned and weak, but it has overwhelmingly met expectations in terms of its performance. • If the country is placed on shutdown, causing tremendous economic damage and leaving people in their homes, the infection rate is going to drop. Israel’s curve has been significantly flattened in the past few days. Regrettably, however, we haven’t any clue as to how much the curve has been flattened. The data that have been released to the public have been incomplete. We know how many tests were done on any given day, but we don’t know how many results were provided by labs every day and neither do we know when the newly-confirmed cases became infected. That may sound technical, but that is all the difference between knowing and not knowing what the situation is. • Something else also happened. The longer this crisis dragged on, the more people began to calibrate their public remarks with an eye to a possible future commission of inquiry, including the regular dissemination of grim scenarios about thousands of dead and tens of thousands infected. Obviously, any scenario is possible, but if 3,000 people died in a country like China, and 10,000 have died in Italy thus far—then if thousands of people in Israel die, that would qualify as a terrible failure by the prime minister and the Health Ministry. Plain and simple. Subsequently telling us “we told you so” won’t do them any good [when facing a commission of inquiry]. 4

• Meanwhile, to the same extreme extent the decision-makers have also been leery of sharing credit for successes. Prime Minister Netanyahu has continuously refrained from delegating more responsibilities to Defense Minister Bennett because he appears to be afraid that Bennett would receive the credit for any successes. • Medical and other experts have said that the stricter restrictions that have been imposed in the last number of days will no longer have any effective impact. “The lockdown until now has been effective, and we’ve maximized its efficacy,” they say, “and the economic damage of stricter restrictions would cause them to be not worthwhile. Has an epidemiological report been presented to the cabinet that indicated that X number of people became infected at the workplace and, therefore, we need to shut down factories? To harm the livelihoods of more people’s? The preponderance of infections is now within the family.” • In the past months, Israel has used a sledgehammer: lockdown. Now that sledgehammer has police and IDF forces out in the streets. It has been an effective sledgehammer, but it is not the be-all and end-all. That sledgehammer was used to buy time in order to allow for a broad array of actions to be taken: effective and extensive testing to locate infection clusters (instead of waiting for people who develop symptoms to make their way to the emergency room). Logistical means to help the part of the population that is in quarantine not to leave home. Localized lockdowns to prevent the spread of infection. Heeding the advice of the World Health Organization and other experts, who warned against allowing infected people to quarantine themselves in their own homes. Creating quarantine alternatives for people with the coronavirus who are in light condition before the outbreak in Bnei Brak—and not after that had already occurred. Drafting an orderly plan to reduce infection that established realistic objectives, factored in the integration of serological testing into the medical protocol and which would allow for portions of the public to get back to work in the near future. • No such plan has been drafted yet and this crisis is being navigated without a leader who has put his foot down. This isn’t the Yom Kippur War, but that war couldn’t have been won either with just Dayan’s apocalyptic despair coupled with Eli Zeira’s complacency. The top officials here are all well-intentioned, but they have been talking as if Israel were either a European country facing a natural disaster or the United States without the health care services that are provided by the HMOs here. Israel is neither. Israel is a small and relatively wealthy high-tech state. It has an excellent chance of faring better than the world, and the decision to choose low expectations is a disappointing decision. Netanyahu hasn’t defined victory and he hasn’t told us what victory is going to look like. The civil servants beneath him have learned the lessons of Asia (taking people’s temperature, masks, testing, enforcement) belatedly, begrudgingly and often amid waging trench warfare. The impression received is that they don’t seem to understand the enormous personal and economic price that this has come with for millions of Israelis. The mothers and fathers who don’t know how they’re going to be able to pay rent; the self-employed Israelis who aren’t going to survive; the salaried employees who have been placed on unpaid leave. Instead of rushing, acting swiftly, charging forward and spending a lot of money now so as to save billions later, they have been moving slowly, with a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork. • Israel has gotten through this medical crisis so far quite respectably. The people at the helm deserve full credit for that. Israel now needs to ensure that it doesn’t destroy the sources of its livelihood with the measures it takes. The cost in human life will be very steep. Responsibility

5 for managing this risk is heavy and it lies entirely on Binyamin Netanyahu. Israel needs an orderly logistical national plan that takes calculated risks in an effort to prevail. For the time being, it has opted only for lockdown.

Summary: In the past months, Israel has used a sledgehammer: lockdown. Now that

sledgehammer has police and IDF forces out in the streets. It has been an effective sledgehammer, but it is not the be-all and end-all. That sledgehammer was used to buy time in order to allow for a broad array of actions to be taken: effective and extensive testing to locate infection clusters (instead of waiting for people who develop symptoms to make their way to the emergency room). Logistical means to help the part of the population that is in quarantine not to leave home. Localized lockdowns to prevent the spread of infection. Heeding the advice of the World Health Organization and other experts, who warned against

allowing infected people to quarantine themselves in their own homes. Creating quarantine alternatives for people with the coronavirus who are in light condition before the outbreak in Bnei Brak—and not after that had already occurred. Drafting an orderly plan to reduce infection that established realistic objectives, factored in the integration of serological testing into the medical protocol and which would allow for portions of the public to get back to work in the near future.

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Al Monitor– March 31, 2020 Why Gantz Needed to Replace Netanyahu's Knesset Speaker

By Ksenia Svetlova, former Knesset member for Hatnua Party

• Negotiations between interim Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz on forming Israel’s next government are ongoing, and among the unresolved issues is the identity of the next Knesset speaker. Just two weeks ago, the Blue and White party, led by Gantz, along with its allied parties — Labor-Meretz, Yisrael Beitenu and the Arab Joint List — led a successful move (with the Supreme Court’s help) to replace Speaker of the Likud party. At the time, Gantz thought replacing Edelstein was a vital move for him and his party to start their work in the Knesset and serve the citizens of Israel. • “We have been working hard all day through different communication channels, including me meeting personally with [Knesset member] Edelstein, who is refusing to let us congregate in the halls of democracy and work for the citizens and, above all else, tackle the challenge of corona,” Gantz told his party members March 18. “At this point, we have no choice but to turn to the high court.” • The court ruled in Gantz’s favor and Edelstein resigned March 23 rather than obey its ruling and calling a vote on his replacement. Since then, Gantz generated the dismantlement of Blue and White and announced he was joining Netanyahu in a power-sharing government. Is the identity of the next speaker still high on his agenda? According to media reports, Gantz rejected out of hand Netanyahu’s suggestion that Edelstein be restored to his former post. Tourism Minister , the minister probably closest to Netanyahu, is among the leading candidates for the prestigious job. • For Gantz, this is a problematic choice. Having objected to Edelstein’s return (probably due to public pressure and the ire of his voters who even initiated a petition against such a move) after he disobeyed the high court’s ruling, how could Gantz accept Levin? After all, Levin had accused the Supreme Court last week of trying to take over the Knesset and of leading the state to anarchy. • It is unclear whether Gantz, a political rookie with limited parliamentary experience, understands the significance of the speaker’s identity and its implication for Israeli democracy and the principle of separation of powers. The Knesset speaker sets the agenda and decides what issues will be brought up for debate, professor Chaim Weizmann of the Lauder School of Government, told Al-Monitor. “This gives him tremendous power: when to convene, whether to convene, what to place on the agenda. That is why this is a highly significant position. To me, a person who calls for the violation of a Supreme Court ruling is not eligible to be speaker and not even a Knesset member,” he said. • A fairly recent example of the speaker’s power was provided in May 2019, when Edelstein brought to a vote a bill dissolving the Knesset elected in the April elections, even before anyone but Netanyahu (Gantz, for example) had gotten a crack at forming a government. In fact, that was the only bill adopted by the short-lived 21st Knesset. Three weeks later, facing harsh criticism of his move, the same Edelstein tried to undo the legislation in order to avoid new elections, but failed. The speaker, who until then had enjoyed broad support from all Knesset

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factions for his dignified conduct, lent a hand to a smelly parliamentary maneuver and to a political ruse that smelled even worse. • Some in Israel accuse Edelstein of having weakened the Knesset during his seven years in power and making it subservient to the government rather than preserving its independence. In November 2019, Dan Tichon, a former Knesset speaker and Likud member, said the Knesset no longer exists and the principle of separation of powers had been violated under Edelstein’s gavel. Former Labor Knesset member Mickey Rosenthal voiced similar sentiments a year ago. “It is no secret that the Knesset has turned mostly into a circus,” he wrote in April 2019. “There has always been discussion here of unimportant issues along with substantive discussions. That era is over. The politics of gossip and gimmicks has won, the marginal has overtaken the essence after even senior politicians, including the prime minister, adopted it.” On the other hand, in 2009, Speaker claimed the Knesset was the weakest of the three branches of government (compared to the executive and judicial branches) and must be strengthened. • In Israel, as is the case in other parliamentary democracies, the Knesset has more power prior to the formation of a government than afterward, when the governing coalition commands a majority and supports the prime minister. However, even the few tools the Knesset had in the past to rein in the government are no longer in use, as Weizmann explained. The law was changed in 2014 so that there is no longer a simple Knesset vote of no-confidence that can bring down a government, only a “constructive” vote of no-confidence, meaning that the parliament must not only vote no-confidence in the incumbent government, it must also approve an alternative one, Weizmann said. That, in turn, greatly limits the power of the Knesset to topple a government, compared with a simple vote of no-confidence. • With the Knesset a relatively weak institution, and when the designated speaker is a crony of the prime minister and a staunch believer in curbing the Supreme Court, such an appointment has particularly dangerous consequences for the running of the Knesset and the future of Israeli democracy. The identity of the speaker is also of consequence to Gantz himself, who, at least on paper, is supposed to take over from Netanyahu 18 months after the government is sworn in and serve as prime minister, assuming a unity government agreement is indeed signed soon. His faction, now that Blue and White has split, is significantly smaller in size than the factions of Netanyahu’s right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc and will therefore have few tools with which to defend itself within the government coalition. If Gantz does not have a political ally in the speaker’s chair — and it is doubtful that Levin or anyone else nominated by Netanyahu could be an ally — Gantz’s situation will be especially grim if he eventually makes it to the rotation with Netanyahu. • The Likud is well aware of the importance of controlling the Knesset in terms of bringing controversial bills to a vote or interpreting the Knesset bylaws, and is therefore insisting that the largest faction in the chamber, i.e., the Likud, be given the coveted podium. Previously, Gantz and Blue and White had originally, after the March 2 elections, designated their colleague, Knesset member Meir Cohen, for the top spot, but the Likud threatened to call new elections (the fourth since April 2019) if Cohen were voted in to replace Edelstein. It would have been interesting to see how things might have played out had Gantz not been deterred by the threat. • Cohen would have been voted speaker with the slim 61-seat Knesset majority that Blue and White commanded at the time, and only then would Gantz have agreed to join a Netanyahu-led government. Ninety hands must be raised in the Knesset (now that Gantz holds the job) to 8 replace an incumbent speaker, and that would have meant that Cohen would serve as speaker until the end of the Knesset’s term. If that scenario had played out, it is doubtful that Netanyahu would have carried out his threat to stop the talks on a power-sharing government with Gantz and opted instead for a fourth round of elections, especially in these days of the coronavirus. Netanyahu would probably have swallowed the bitter pill when given no other choice, but today this is all ancient history. The battle for the next Knesset speaker, who will be a Likud representative, is still raging.

Summary: Cohen would have been voted speaker with the slim 61-seat Knesset majority that Blue and White commanded at the time, and only then would Gantz have agreed to join a Netanyahu-led government. Ninety hands must be raised in the Knesset (now that Gantz holds the job) to replace an incumbent speaker, and that would have meant that Cohen would serve as speaker until the end of the Knesset’s term. If that scenario had played out, it is doubtful that Netanyahu would have carried out his threat to stop the talks on a power-sharing government with Gantz and opted instead for a fourth round of elections, especially in these days of the coronavirus. Netanyahu would probably have swallowed the bitter pill when given no other choice, but today this is all ancient history. The battle for the next Knesset speaker, who will be a Likud representative, is still raging.

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