Israel and the Middle East News Update

Thursday, April 7

Headlines:  Abbas to Meet Hollande for Powwow on French Peace Plan  Foreign Ministry and PLO Engage in Twitter Battle  67% of Jewish Public: Permissible to Kill Terrorist with a Knife  Israeli Weapon Sales to Europe More Than Double Over Refugee Crisis  Ya’alon: Hundreds of Jihadists Planning Attacks in Europe  Hamas Taps Over 1,000 Terror Operatives to Dig Gaza Tunnels  Hezbollah Said to Be Building Missile Base in Syria to Strike  US Peacekeeping Forces May Redeploy in Sinai Over Islamist Terror Threat

Commentary:  Al-Monitor: “Why Israel Needs a Two-State Solution”  By Uri Savir, Honorary President, Peres Center for Peace  Ha’aretz: “Controversial Israeli-Arab MKs Know Exactly What They’re Doing”  By Gadi Taub, Israeli Historian, Author, Screenwriter, and Political Commentator

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 7, 2016

Times of Israel Abbas to Meet Hollande for Powwow on French Peace Plan Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet France’s Francois Hollande in Paris later this month to discuss a new French push for peace. Abbas “will have an important meeting with President Francois Hollande to discuss convening an international peace conference in accordance with the French initiative,” said presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh. The Palestinian leader will travel to France on April 15, before heading to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and discuss “the evolution of the political situation in Palestine and the region,” he said.

Ynet News Foreign Ministry and PLO Engage in Twitter Battle A Twitter battle broke out between the Foreign Ministry and the Palestine Liberation Organization- Negotiation Affairs Department (PLO-NAD) Tuesday over Prime Minister 's invitation to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet him. The Foreign Ministry tweeted at the PLO-NAD, "Mahmoud Abbas, (Prime Minister Netanyahu) is inviting you to negotiate peace...The ball is in your court now!" The PLO-NAD responded to the Foreign Ministry's tweet, exclaiming, "Negotiate what exactly?" The Foreign Ministry then quickly responded, saying, "So, is that a yes or just another excuse not to open a dialogue for peace?" See also, “Israeli, Palestinian Leaders Bicker Over Peace on Twitter” (Times of Israel)

Ma’ariv 67% of Jewish Public: Permissible to Kill Terrorist w/ a Knife A total of 67% of the Jewish public agrees with the statement of Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef who said it was a good deed to kill a terrorist holding a knife. 64% think Palestinian terror and global terror are the same phenomenon. Another interesting datum is 76% of Israel’s Arab citizen fear for their lives and for the lives of their relatives due to the wave of terror. These data and others appeared yesterday in the monthly peace index of the Israel Democracy Institute and University. Against the backdrop of the IDF soldier who shot a terrorist in Hebron, the poll found 67% of the Jewish public agrees with the statement of the Sephardi chief rabbi, who said “it is a commandment to kill a terrorist who has a knife.” Only 30% were opposed. 69% of and 76% of Arab citizens fear that they or someone close to them will be hurt in the wave of terrorism.

Ha’aretz Israeli Weapon Sales to Europe Double Over Refugee Crisis Israel signed contract for arms deals worth $5.7 billion last year, a slight increase over $5.6 billion in 2014 but down sharply from $6.5 billion in 2013. “Completing a challenging year, we succeeded through collaborative and determined work to preserve the scope of contract signings compared to 2014.” Sales to Europe more than doubled last year to $1.63 billion from $724 million, presumably as a consequence of the refugee crisis and the rise in terror attacks on the continent. See also, “Israel Exported $5.7 Billion of Defense Products in 2015” ( Post) 2

Ma’ariv Ya’alon: Hundreds of Jihadists Planning Attacks in Europe Hundreds of jihadists are “planning to strike Western targets on European soil,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told his counterpart Antoni Macierewicz, Poland’s minister of national defense. “We are concerned that what we saw in Paris [in November 2015] and Brussels [in March 2016] is just the start, and that attempts to carry out terror attacks in Europe will continue,” Ya’alon said. Ya’alon hosted Macierewicz on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, with the two ministers discussing terrorism in Europe, the Syrian civil war, and other Middle East issues.

Jerusalem Post Hamas Taps Over 1,000 Terror Operatives to Dig Gaza Tunnels Hamas employs more than 1,000 operatives to excavate underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported Thursday. According to the report, the terrorist organization invests hundreds of thousands of dollars each month in the digging activities, paying each operative engaged in the process some 300 to 400 dollars a month. Hamas also heavily invests in smuggling building materials, including raw materials and excavation machinery from Egypt and Israel. See also, “Hamas’ Army of Tunnel Diggers Keeps Gaza Terrorism Alive” (Arutz Sheva)

Times of Israel Hezbollah Said to Be Building Missile Base in Syria to Strike Israel Hezbollah has reportedly been constructing a fortified base inside Syria that it may be using to store Iranian ballistic missiles with the range to hit Israel. Satellite images of an area on the northern Lebanese-Syrian border show that Hezbollah has been consolidating positions it conquered from Syrian rebels in June 2013, global intelligence company Stratfor said Wednesday. Photos show several facilities in the region around Qusair, including one large compound surrounded by an earthen berm. Villages up to four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the base have been razed to enable clear observation of the territory, and tunnels have been dug back under the border and into Lebanon. See also, “Hezbollah Said to Be Establishing Missile Base in Syria” (BICOM)

BICOM US Peacekeepers May Redeploy in Sinai Over Terror Threat Washington is apparently considering redeploying American peacekeeping troops in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel, due to the threat of Islamist terror groups in the region. The US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) has helped monitor the border region since Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979. 12 countries contribute peacekeeping troops in the area, but the 700-strong American contingent is by far the largest. The peacekeepers are in place to ensure compliance with the 36-year-old peace treaty. However, their role has become somewhat less taxing with Israel and Egypt closely cooperating on security issues. Israel routinely permits Egypt to increase its military presence in Sinai beyond the terms of the treaty, as Cairo looks to tackle Islamist terrorists in the region.

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Al-Monitor – April 6, 2016 Why Israel Needs a Two-State Solution By Uri Savir  President Barack Obama was on a historic visit to Cuba when the Islamic State launched terror attacks against Brussels on March 22. He decided not to change his schedule, thus coming under fire from the Republicans competing to succeed him. Nevertheless, in several public appearances in Havana, Obama emphasized two policy points: the Islamic State must be defeated in battle, and life must go on without giving in to fear or hysteria.  Obama is consistent in his view of America’s role in the world. He refuses to let the United States become the world's policeman. He will not engage American ground troops in a war in Syria and Iraq, and he continues to believe in dialogue with (past and present) foes such as Cuba and Iran, as well as in collective international diplomacy.  The Israeli government dared to publicly criticize the European and Belgian leaderships for their (supposed) intelligence failures and passivity toward Islamic terrorist activities in Brussels, but refrained from doing so in the case of the American president. Yet, beneath the surface, there was some criticism of Obama’s low-profile reaction.  A senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official dealing with US relations told Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity that the government was disappointed with the Obama administration. “IS will not be defeated without a ground war led by the US,” he argued. He consoled himself by believing that there is probably a better understanding in Washington of Israel’s political predicament facing daily Palestinian terror. This perception, however, is misguided.  The Obama administration sees IS terror as related to the situations in Syria and Iraq and Palestinian terror as related to the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is a major conceptual policy gap between Washington and Jerusalem on the issue of international terror.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that Islamic terror is the root of all Middle Eastern instability, including in relation to the Palestinian situation. He holds that IS must be confronted on the ground by the West, similarly to Israel's approach in Lebanon and Gaza. He considers today's terrorism an expression of a war of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world, between good and evil. In his view, Israel belongs to the club of the “good guys” and the are part of an axis of evil. This is not Washington’s view.  Obama has made every effort not to position the United States as an enemy of Islam and not to equate IS with the Islamic world. His administration views IS as a defamation of Islam, a force composed of tens of thousands of fundamentalists who mostly target those Muslims who do not adhere to their radical interpretation of Islam. Obama believes that IS can be defeated only with the help of Arab countries and armies. As the concept of a war of civilizations is embraced by IS, the idea is the very last angle to be considered by the American president.  These opposing worldviews on the struggle against international terror deepen the schism between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government.

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 An American diplomatic official in Tel Aviv told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the administration impresses upon the Israeli government the importance of refraining from viewing all Western relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds through the prism of IS terror. This approach, according to the official, also applies to the Palestinian issue.  “We do not equate in any way the situation in the West Bank and Gaza to the war in Iraq and Syria,” said the official. “President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry believe that there is a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the pragmatic Arab world can be involved in the two-state solution process also, based on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.”  It is clear why the Netanyahu government is rushing to depict the clash with IS terror as a clash of civilizations, or as Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon called it, the beginning of “World War III.” Such a perspective places Israel in the right camp without requiring it to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. This worldview, however, is dangerous for Israel.  There are 8 million Israelis in a region of almost 300 million Arabs and mostly Islamic countries with more than a billion Muslim citizens. Israel has a supreme interest in creating regional coalitions with pragmatic Arab countries, but this goal requires a serious two-state solution process, which is precisely what the Netanyahu government wants to prevent. Uri Savir has spent his professional life working on the strategies of peacemaking in Israel. In 1996, he established the Peres Center for Peace and is currently the center's honorary president.

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Ha’aretz – April 6, 2016 Controversial Israeli-Arab MKs Know What They’re Doing

Balad MKs have never disguised their aspiration to change Israel's nature as the nation-state of the Jewish people. What's becoming clear is the strategy they have chosen for this purpose.

By Gadi Taub  Balad MKs can chalk up another accomplishment: The Knesset has just passed the first reading of the “MK suspension” bill. If condolence visits to families of terrorists, which spawned the bill, weren’t enough, the MKs' defense of Hezbollah apparently gave the bill the required impetus.  An editorial in described their support of Hezbollah as “folly.” However, these MKs should be given more credit, since their moves show consistency. Given that they’re very familiar with the internal scene in Israel, the result suits their intentions more than it’s convenient for us to admit.  The Balad MKs have never disguised their aspiration to change the nature of this country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. What is becoming clear is the strategy they have chosen for this purpose: Systematic incitement of the minority against the majority and vice versa. One gets the impression they believe that a deteriorating confrontation between the two sides will eventually lead to a collapse of the framework we call “a Jewish and democratic state.”  We tend to interpret their constant provocations as a struggle against the Jewish character of this state, in the name of democracy. However, the strategy of fomenting conflict requires attacking democracy as well. This is how it works: First of all, one creates a provocation that targets the majority’s most sensitive points, following which, the right responds with legislative initiatives that violate democracy, at least symbolically. At the end of this chain of events the left wakes up in order to defend democracy by attacking the Jewish character of the state.  It seems that no one knows better than the MKs of Balad how to activate the right against the country’s “democratic nature” and the left against its “Jewish nature.” Both sides, in a Pavlovian reflex, play the part expected of them. One delivers laws concerning the nation- state, the flag, suspension, etc., while the other expands the term fascism to include the expression of any national Jewish sentiment.  The right will eat away at democracy and the left will detract from the national characteristics of the state.  Fortunately for Israel, most of the public is much more moderate. The right’s empty bills have not brought about a collapse of democracy and the extreme left’s attacks on the national characteristics of the state have not led people to cast them off. Despite exhibitions of fury that often become ugly, most of the public is willing to grind its teeth and absorb these constant provocations, and that’s for the better.  A Knesset member like Haneen Zoabi is a walking refutation of the arguments she spouts and a testimony to the robustness of Israeli democracy.

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 Very few democracies would allow their parliament members to retain their seats after active demonstrations of sympathy with enemies and terrorists. Furthermore, if Israel were as fascist as Zoabi claims it is, she would have been long gone and unable to tell us about it.  The lofty proclamations made by Balad in support of democracy don’t convince many people either. It’s hard to argue that you support both democracy and Hezbollah. According to Balad, Israel should be a democracy without a national base, but Palestine must have one; and they forgive it (as they forgave Syria) for lacking a democracy. The democratic argument is merely a battering ram that will pave the way for nationalism, something Balad is trying to disguise.  However, what is most discouraging about the irresponsible conduct of these MKs is not the danger it poses to Israel’s constitutional makeup. So far, it’s holding up just fine. More risible is the ease with which they are willing to sacrifice the welfare of the Arab minority on the altar of their favorite apocalypse. It is this minority which has to bear the brunt of the suffering engendered by their incitement, fomented so assiduously by some of this minority’s parliamentary representatives. Gadi Taub is an Israeli historian, author, screenwriter, and political commentator. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School Public Policy and the Department of Communications at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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