sign in sign up
<<
Home , Amir Peretz, Issawi Frej, Itzik Shmuli

Israel and the Middle East News Update

Wednesday, July 24

Headlines: • Peretz Comes Under Criticism within Labor: “A Serious Mistake” • Barak Apologizes to Pave Way for Merger • Gantz Switches Strategy: Won’t Attack Netanyahu Anymore • Deri: I Support Netanyahu; Won’t Rule Out Gantz • Right-Wing Parties Puff Chests in Negotiations for Merger Deal • Netanyahu: Iran is Just Waiting for My Opponents to Come to Power • House Approves Resolution Opposing BDS

Commentary: • : “The Left – Abandoned and Exhausted” − By Amnon Abramovitch • Ha’aretz: “For A -Barak Union” − Editorial

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 July 24, 2019 Ma’ariv Peretz Comes Under Criticism within Labor: “A Serious Mistake” With just a bit over a week left until the lists running for the elections have to be finalized, infighting within the left-wing bloc has reached peak levels. Whereas Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz has repeatedly said that he would not merge his party either with Meretz or the Democratic Party, figures throughout the entire bloc—including in the Labor Party itself—have ramped up pressure on Peretz to agree to a merger. The Labor Party Convention is scheduled to convene on July 31 to approve the agreement with Gesher and any other possible motions by Peretz to place other figures on the party’s Knesset list. MK is trying to muster sufficient support to introduce a motion to have the Labor Party merge with the Israel Democratic Party and Meretz. Peretz said yesterday while touring northern Israel that he was working to recruit new candidates that would run with the Labor Party. One of the people who have been cited recently in that context is Yuval Diskin, the former GSS director.

Ma’ariv Barak Apologizes to Pave Way for Merger With talks about a possible merger being held in the backdrop, Israel Democratic Party Chairman yesterday apologized to the Arab sector and the families of the 12 Arab Israelis who were killed by the security forces during the October 2000 riots, while he was prime minister. Barak made his remarks in response to an op-ed that MK Issawi Frej of Meretz wrote in Ha’aretz, in which he called on Barak to apologize for the civilian deaths in the October 2000 riots. Sources in Meretz said after Barak’s apology that the chances of a merger being reached between Meretz and the Israel Democratic Party were scant unless some members of the Labor Party, such as Stav Shaffir, could be brought on board as well.

Israel Hayom Gantz Switches Strategy: Won’t Attack Netanyahu Anymore Blue and White Chairman will adopt a new election campaign strategy. Israel Hayom has learned that Gantz does not intend to attack Netanyahu personally; instead, he will only criticize the way Netanyahu operates. Sources close to Gantz said that he believes it is important that he be perceived by the public as being stately, in hope of winning over additional voters. Sources close to Gantz said they also believed that that strategy was designed not to close the door to joining the next Netanyahu government, despite Gantz’s past statements that he would not sit with the prime minister because of the indictment he currently faces. Gantz’s campaign strategy was revised in keeping with the advice of his new American consultant, Joel Benenson. The key word in that campaign will be stateliness. A spokesperson for Blue and White said: “Gantz has a vision of respectful, uniting and stately discourse, but the campaign will firmly and germanely address the failures of the Netanyahu government in the past decade.”

2

Ma’ariv Deri: I Support Netanyahu; Won’t Rule Out Gantz Chairman launched his party’s campaign yesterday in Jerusalem. The slogan of the campaign is: “A social force in the government.” Deri said at the campaign launch that Shas would recommend that the president task Netanyahu with forming the next government, but refrained from answering questions about whom he would support if Netanyahu were to fail to form the government. Deri did say that he would not disqualify either Blue and White Chairman Benny Gantz, or his fellow party members and Moshe Yaalon. Regarding , Deri said: “He hasn’t changed anything from what he promised and did in the Finance Ministry. Lapid has stayed Lapid. We’ll do everything so that the government is without Lapid. His place is in the opposition.”

Times of Israel Right-Wing Parties Puff Chests in Negotiations for Merger Deal With a week left to finalize electoral slates ahead of September’s nationwide vote, the small parties to the right of are battling each other for prominence as they stake out their conditions for joining a unified faction that would run together as a united list. The morning after New Right chairwoman met with Union of Right-Wing Parties leader Rafi Peretz, both parties released statements Wednesday insisting they are committed to reaching a deal “even by the end of the day,” but accusing the other side of squandering the chances of a merger by making “unjustified demands.” According to the New Right, a merger deal that would see Shaked lead a joint slate with each faction receiving equal representation is “more than fair” given the fact that “in all the polls the New Right is significantly larger than the URWP.” See also, “URP OFFICIAL: SHAKED IS A FIGUREHEAD, BENNET PULLS THE STRINGS” (Jerusalem Post)

Times of Israel PM: Iran is Just Waiting for My Opponents to Come to Power Prime Minister on Monday said Iran was “just waiting” for his political opponents in the Blue and White party to come to power, claiming they would be far softer on Tehran than he has been. “If not for the actions we’ve taken Iran would have had a nuclear arsenal a long time ago, and its coffers would have been even more full to take over the Middle East with,” Netanyahu said at a surprise party thrown for him to celebrate his becoming Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. “We’ve blocked it up until now but it hasn’t been permanently blocked,” he said. “No one knows what will happen… the Iranians are banking on it being only a little while more until they’re free of [us]… The Iranians are just waiting, they’re waiting for our opponents.”

Israel National News House Approves Resolution Opposing BDS The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a resolution opposing boycotts of Israel. 398 lawmakers voted in favor of the resolution, 17 voted against and five abstained. House Resolution 246 opposes the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. "The resolution “urges Israelis and to return to direct negotiations as the only way to achieve an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” 3

Yedioth Ahronoth – July 24, 2019 The Left—Abandoned and Exhausted By Amnon Abramovitch • When my fellow journalists discuss Amir Peretz and Ehud Barak with me, they tease me by calling them “your friends.” Teasing is always done with a bit of excess and overstatement. I supported both of them when they deserved support, and they did. Peretz has become worn down and weary in the past few years. He would be pleased to kick back in the President’s Residence, a resort and retreat for battle-scarred politicians. • I was first introduced to Peretz by the late Lova Eliav, who proudly presented the boy from who “truly shares our views.” Peretz was an ideologue and an idealist. When he spoke from the periphery and in the name of the periphery, he did so as a challenge to the abundance and wealth that was being poured into Judea and Samaria. When he spoke about the oppressed, he distinguished them from the privileged settlers. He spent most of his political career focused on practical politics. • He ought to know that Orly Levy-Abekasis isn’t going to win over new voters; she is barely going to be able to deliver her own one seat. Peretz has a poll that indicates that 80% of Kahlon’s voters are staunchly opposed to Netanyahu, and he’s been fantasizing ever since about their voting for the Labor-Gesher list. As if there were any lack of right wing options for them to choose from, not to mention the most convenient option of all—which is not to vote at all. • If the actual results of the elections resemble what the polls are currently predicting, he is going to have to make a small apology to and a big apology to Buji Herzog. As a sophisticated politician he knows that he ought to be working sneakily behind the scenes now to ensure that the Labor Party Convention approves Levy-Abekasis’s inclusion in the party as an individual, but rejects the merger with Gesher, and instructs him to merge with Meretz and to toss the Israel Democratic Party a bone. • Barak is a different story, a tragi-comedy. He is one of the two most prominent statesmen who currently live in Israel. The first is Netanyahu. Both are intelligent, well-informed, widely-read men who are familiar with the turn of events in the world and who are articulate and have excellent analytical skills. • How has it come to pass that the one has just now celebrated the longest terms in office of any leader in the history of the Third Commonwealth, whereas the other barely survived one- third of a term in office? Netanyahu is focused; he thinks logically and linearly, and he knows that only one straight line can connect between two points. Barak is convinced that he has the ability to connect any two points with an endless number of lines. He is confident in his ability to recruit elastic political material, to load it onto a long list of levers to produce hydrostatic pressure, which will then become kinetic energy. • His plan was premised on ’s winning the Meretz primary, Itzik Shmuli’s winning the Labor Party primary and then the two of them merging; next needed to join and then they would crown him as their leader. Then he was going to pummel away at sleepy Benny Gantz and at sleepy Blue and White, the polls would show that he was closing the gap, 4

and then he, the most decorated soldier in the IDF’s history who has become the most decorated soldier on Twitter, would replace Gantz as the leader of the bloc. • I’d just like to remind you all that Barak was able to win was just 13 seats with a 90-year-old party, whereas Gantz won 35 seats with a party that was just 90 days old. • Peretz needs to free himself from the delusion that he has the ability to win over tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people who usually vote for Shas and the Likud, and to persuade them to vote for the Labor Party, which they still refer to [disparagingly] as the “.” That simply isn’t going to happen. • The responsible course of action for Barak to take would be for him either to agree to a small and symbolic representation for his party, or to turn his party into an online support group. Nahum Barnea, who justifiably called on Barak to shut down his party, suggested that he might not do that because of commitments that he has made to people. Since when is Barak ever committed to anyone? After all, on the day after the elections he probably won’t be able to tell the difference between Ya-Ya (Fink) and Ya-Ya (General Yoram Yair), between Yair Fink and Meir Uri Fink. • Currently, it looks as if Netanyahu’s fate has been sealed. The work of the righteous (or the sanctimonious) will be done by the hands of others. The person who is expected to bring him down is . But what will become of the Israeli left? The is currently squabbling over the 12th slot on the list. If they run separately, that will solve the problem since there won’t be 12 seats. The Jewish side needs to enforce tactical discipline on Peretz and Barak. In the week that remains the left can be united into a single list. Horowitz of Meretz will help achieve that goal with alacrity. • If the left heads into the elections while running on three separate lists, the results are liable to pose a danger to public health. The hearts of a lot of leftists are going to be fluttering on the night after elections, as each one of the three parties hovers slightly above or below the electoral threshold.

5

Ha’aretz – July 24, 2019 For a Meretz-Barak Union Editorial • The head of Democratic Israel, Ehud Barak, responded Tuesday to the call of Meretz MK Esawi Freige and apologized to Israel’s Arab community as a whole and the families of the Arab citizens who were shot dead by security forces in October 2000, when Barak was prime minister. • “I take responsibility for what happened during my tenure as prime minister, including the October 2000 events,” he told Kan Bet public radio in an interview. “There is no place for protesters to be killed by security and police forces of Israel, their state. I express my regret and apologies to the families and to the Arab community.” • Barak’s apology is important. One hopes it will help heal the Arab community’s still-open wound. It is also a necessary step toward repairing the broken relations between Jews and in Israel. The door that Barak has opened must remain open, because it offers the only path to forming a genuine democratic alternative to the divisive, inciting right-wing regime headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. • Barak said exactly what Freige, as an Arab Israeli citizen, wanted to hear from him, as he wrote in an op-ed in Haaretz (in Hebrew) Tuesday. After the apology Freige said Barak “has opened the door for dialogue with the Arab community, and it is our responsibility to help him open that door and not slam it in his face.” He added, “Now it is on us to do everything we can to form a strong center-left bloc.” • Barak and Freige are right. The efforts to unite the left-wing parties must not cease. Without a strong center-left bloc there’s no chance for an electoral upset. An alliance is the only way to prevent a situation in which one of these parties fails to meet the electoral threshold, rendering large numbers of votes worthless. Labor PartyChairman Amir Peretz has said that Labor’s electoral alliance with Gesher, the party of Orli Levi-Abekasis, precludes an alliance with Meretz or with Barak’s party. We can only that Peretz and Levi-Abekasis will reconsider, and turn their tie-up into the first for the center-left bloc, not the last. • But even if that does not happen, a union between Meretz and Barak’s Democratic Israel is still possible. The high electoral threshold leaves no room for ideological puritanism. The left-wing bloc must learn from the bitter experience of the Arab parties, which lost one-fourth of their power in the April election, after dissolving the Joint List. In any case, the ideological differences between Barak and Meretz are insufficient to justify running separately, certainly not when one considers the greater objective, which is to put an end to Netanyahu’s corrupt and corrupting regime. Barak and Meretz should unite now.

6