Israel and Middle East News Update

Friday, August 13

Headlines: ● As Gov’t Struggles with COVID Cases, IDF Rejoins Fight ● Israel and Morocco Agree to Full Diplomatic Normalization ● UN Panel Calls for Sale Freeze amid Pegasus Scandal ● Israel Reduced Settler Housing Plans by 39% To Appease US ● HRW: Hamas Rockets at Israel a Clear War Crime ● PA Receives Another 150,000 Coronavirus Vaccine Doses ● IDF Downs Hezbollah Drone That Crossed Israeli Border ● Iran Fires Warning Shot at US Drone near Strait of Hormuz

Commentary: ● : “Shaked Told the Truth’’ - By Sima Kadmon

● Yedioth Ahronoth: “The Lockdown, the Poll, and the Lie’’ - By Nahum Barnea

S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 1725 I St NW Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006 The Hon. Robert Wexler, President News Excerpts August 13, 2021 Times of Israel As Gov’t Struggles with COVID Cases, IDF Rejoins Fight The (IDF) will deploy hundreds of reservists to hospitals and clinics in order to boost Israel’s medical system amid a growing outbreak of coronavirus cases, a senior officer in the Home Front Command said. The military had scaled back its involvement in the government’s COVID-19 response as case numbers dropped this spring and summer, but it was called back in with the ongoing spread of the Delta variant, which has been found to be more infectious than other versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Israel saw nearly 6,000 people test positive for the coronavirus, alongside a steadily growing number of serious COVID-19 cases. This outbreak has principally hit the unvaccinated population, raising concerns about the reopening of Israeli schools. Dig Deeper ‘‘Israel Cancels Hundreds of Entry Permits for Foreign Nationals’’ ( Post)

Axios Israel and Morocco Agree to Full Diplomatic Normalization Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that Israel and Morocco will move toward full diplomatic normalization by upgrading their diplomatic liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat to full embassies within two months. Morocco and Israel reestablished diplomatic relations last December as part of a three-way deal with the US, in which the Trump administration reversed decades of US policy by recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over disputed Western Sahara. The Moroccans stopped short of fully normalizing, preferring to open diplomatic liaison offices in lieu of embassies and potentially retain bargaining chips should the next administration consider rolling back the Western Sahara decision. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said in April that the US was not rolling back Trump's move. That gave a sense of stability to the deal and convinced Morocco to conclude the normalization process. Dig Deeper ‘‘Not Just NSO: Israel and Morocco Cybersecurity Ties Grow Closer’’ (Ha’aretz)

Al-Monitor UN Panel Calls for Sale Freeze amid Pegasus Scandal A group of United Nations experts called for a moratorium on the sale and transfer of surveillance technology worldwide until robust regulations are put in place to ensure human rights are respected. An investigation that indicated Israeli firm NSO Group’s malware has been used by foreign governments to hack the phones of journalists, politicians and human rights activists. Using a leaked list of more than 50,000 cell phone numbers, journalists at 17 media outlets identified over 1,000 people across more than 50 countries who were selected as potential targets by NSO Group’s clients. A forensic analysis of some of the phones on the list showed attempted or successful hacks with Pegasus, a surveillance tool developed by NSO Group that gives customers access to a phone’s contents and the ability to remotely access the camera and microphone. The UN experts also called on Israel to disclose the measures it has taken to review export transactions with NSO Group. 2 Jerusalem Post Israel Reduced Settler Housing Plans by 39% To Appease US Israel reduced by 39% the number of West Bank settler homes the Civil Administration plans to advance for authorization with an eye toward appeasing President Joe Biden’s administration, which opposes such activity. The initial intention was to advance plans for 3,623 homes, but for diplomatic reasons 1,400 units were dropped from the agenda of the Higher Planning Council for Judea and Samaria (West Bank). With an eye to Washington, the plan to advance 2,223 new settler homes was deliberately linked to an unusual Civil Administration hearing next week on the authorization of 863 Palestinian homes in Area C of the West Bank. Israel notified the US of the settler housing plans in advance and Defense Minister Benny Gantz has spoken with the Palestinians. A senior Israeli source said that in conversations with the US had not involved details about the number of units that would be advanced. Dig Deeper ‘‘PA Slams Plan to Approve New Settlement Construction’’ (Times of Israel)

Associated Press HRW: Hamas Rockets at Israel a Clear War Crime Human Rights Watch said it had concluded that a misfired rocket launched by Hamas killed seven Palestinians when it fell short in the Gaza Strip. The New York-based rights group has repeatedly come under fire by Israel over reports accusing Israel of war crimes against the Palestinians as well as apartheid and persecution. But in its report it agreed with most legal experts and Israel itself that indiscriminate rocket fire from Palestinian population centers directed at Israeli civilian areas is a violation of international law. It based its conclusions on an investigation into Hamas rocket attacks that killed 12 civilians in Israel. Last month the group issued a report that accused the IDF of carrying out attacks during the conflict that “apparently amount to war crimes” after investigating three Israeli airstrikes that it said killed 62 Palestinian civilians. The group said there were no clear military targets in the airstrikes and said Israel had not taken sufficient precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Dig Deeper ‘‘With Rise in Palestinian Deaths, IDF Head Says No Room for Troops’ ‘Negligence’’ (Times of Israel)

Times of Israel PA Receives Another 150,000 Coronavirus Vaccine Doses The Palestinian Authority (PA) has received another 150,000 doses of vaccine from Pfizer, PA Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said in a statement, as most Palestinians remain unvaccinated. Around 100,000 of the doses have been allocated to the Gaza Strip, Hamas health official Majdi Daher confirmed. The vaccines were part of a contract with Pfizer to bring four million doses to Ramallah. So far, around 1 million have arrived, al-Kaila said. Well over a year into the pandemic, the majority of Palestinians remain unvaccinated. According to official figures, around 6 percent of Gazans and 18% of West Bank Palestinians have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Recorded coronavirus infections remain low in the West Bank and Gaza, with only 2,723 active cases as of Thursday evening. At the virus’s peak in mid-April, the Palestinian areas saw over 30,000 active infections at a single time. But health officials warn that with schools and universities expected to open next week, the virus could again surge to the fore.

3 I24 News IDF Downs Hezbollah Drone That Crossed Israeli Border The IDF shot down a Hezbollah drone that crossed the border from Lebanon into Israel. "A Hezbollah drone crossed from Lebanon into Israeli airspace in the eastern part of the Blue Line yesterday," a military spokesperson said in a statement. The statement gave no technical details about the drone, but Israeli media reports said it was unarmed and likely on a reconnaissance mission. The incident came nearly a week after the Shi'ite terrorist movement fired a volley of rockets at Israeli positions, prompting retaliatory fire in the most significant escalation on Israel's northern border in years. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah later vowed a "suitable and proportionate" response to any Israeli air strikes on Lebanon. The flareup coincided with wider regional tensions with Iran, which has denied US, Israeli and British allegations it was behind the attack on an Israeli-managed oil tanker in the Gulf in which two crew members, a Briton and a Romanian, were killed. Dig Deeper ‘‘Israel Seeks to Coordinate “Plan B” with US On Iran If Nuclear Talks Fail’’ (Axios)

Jerusalem Post Iran Fires Warning Shot at US Drone near Strait of Hormuz Iranian air defenses fired a warning shot at a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper belonging to the US military near the Strait of Hormuz near the Iranian border, according to the Iranian semi-official Nour News. The news outlet published what it said was footage of the control room as the warning shot was fired. Independent news source Aurora Intel discovered that the clip shared by Nour News had aired on Iranian television on Wednesday, raising questions when the incident actually took place. In 2019, Iran downed a US drone over the Strait of Hormuz and in a separate incident attempted to down a MQ-9 Reaper during an attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The report comes as tensions remain high in the region after two Iranian attacks on commercial vessels near the Arabian peninsula and just a day after an explosion was reported on a tanker used to carry Iranian oil to Syria. Iran has denied being responsible for the attack and claimed Israel and there US are attempting to destabilize the region, but the US Central Command (CENTCOM) released evidence that the drones used in the attack were Iranian-made. Dig Deeper ‘‘How Can Mossad Slow Down Iran’s Nuke Program?’’ (Jerusalem Post)

4 Yedioth Ahronoth – August 13, 2021 Shaked Told the Truth By Sima Kadmon ● It should have been a good sign that the prime minister found the time for a family vacation over the weekend. But it wasn’t. It is understandable that Bennett needs to take a break, considering the heavy pressure and his workload, but there are some things that you just don’t do. Not in our country. The prime minister does not go, at the peak of the coronavirus crisis, on a short family vacation, just as the opposition chairman does not take a two-week holiday in the United States, which is on the list of countries that Israelis are advised not to visit. Because just as it makes no difference whether Bennett runs the country from Raanana or from northern Israel—we can always count on someone to turn this into a public commotion that will spur disagreement. After all, this is a country in which hypocrisy is a working tool. Netanyahu’s supporters were quick to pull from the archives what Bennett said in a similar situation about the previous government, and Bennett’s supporters found the apposite counterattack. ● A commotion also arose over the comment made by Ayelet Shaked who said this week that the Bennett government had made the difficult decision to live with the coronavirus and to “countenance seriously ill and dead, because this is a pandemic, and people die in a pandemic.” Shaked is not exactly the person you want at your bedside holding your hand in your last moments. She is cold, tough, almost robotic. Unemotional. And every word she said was right. What did she say that was new? The State of Israel has accepted its dead since the day of its establishment. Sending soldiers to an operation or to war knowing that some will die, isn’t that “countenancing” the dead? The only difference between [conventional] warfare and the war on the coronavirus is that if it were possible to receive a vaccine ensuring that not a single soldier would get a scratch—there would not be a single person in the country who would not run to get vaccinated. But in the war against COVID-19, when it is well-known that the vaccine can prevent death on a large-scale among grandmothers and grandfathers and lower the risk of becoming seriously ill—there are still a million people who haven’t been vaccinated at all. This is an unfathomable number. If these people were vaccinated, the Delta variant would not be spreading at this rate and we would not reach these numbers of seriously ill and dead. ● It must be stated in the clearest possible way: the people who do not get vaccinated share responsibility for the thousands of people who are liable to die here by October. I told the truth, says Shaked. Perhaps her phrasing wasn’t the best, but it’s hard not to hear in her voice that she stands behind this truth as well as her phrasing. We can criticize Shaked for what she says, but at least she speaks up, which also counts for something in a government in which more ministers have not mobilized in the public information campaign. It’s as if this coronavirus thing is a matter for one man (and one woman). Some sources say that Bennett and Shaked have been abandoned so that all the responsibility for the failure—if there is a failure—will be on them. But nobody in Bennett’s inner circle is complaining.

5 ● The prime minister thinks that it is completely fine for every minister to focus on their purview. Bennett is also completely fine with his complicated decision, which he likes to call “fighting for the public’s health, but also safeguarding the economy and livelihoods.” After all, the easiest thing is to send Israel’s citizens into their homes and pour money on them for unpaid leave. But Bennett thinks that every shekel that goes to make up for unpaid leave is one shekel less for replacing the old flak jacket needed by the soldier in Gaza, one shekel less for the medicine basket of the kid who needs to go overseas for a lifesaving operation, and one shekel less for preschool education. He is trying to get through the Delta variant without striking the economy a mortal blow, without another 200 billion shekels evaporating as they did under the Netanyahu government. And he hopes to break the wave before the hospitals are overwhelmed. ● Two models were presented at the coronavirus cabinet: the more pessimistic one of Prof. Ran Balicer, and the optimistic (or less pessimistic) one of Prof. Eran Segal. A few things can be learned from their forecasts: there will almost certainly be a large number of dead by the end of September. The number of seriously ill patients in the next two weeks has already been decided: statistically, we can know how many seriously ill there will be and what percentage of them will die. Segal’s cautious optimism is because he is counting on the approval to give a third dose to people aged 40 and older. In that case, we will reach a situation of 20,000 cases a day and then start going down, both because of the vaccinations and because people will recover. Prof. Balicer, in contrast, did not take into account in his model that there would be third vaccinations for people aged 40 and over. In his forecast, if there is no lockdown or almost-lockdown—there will be very high numbers for a very long time and we will reach the point of hospital incapacity, as happened in Italy at the start of the pandemic. ● Minister Elkin, in a lone voice, demanded much stiffer restrictions. He is a gifted mathematician, he measures the pandemic in numbers, and these numbers, he says, are very dark. He thought that restrictions should be more stringent, that the number of guests at weddings should be limited and to only begin the school year on October 1 [instead of September 1]. His other proposal was to inform all those who don’t take the third dose of the vaccine within a few weeks that their Green Certificate would be revoked. The government is bracing for a peak in the Delta variant wave, which is anticipated to be in two and a half weeks. Instead of lockdowns and unpaid leave, Bennett intends to invest in the healthcare system. His relationship with the health minister is excellent. He esteems Horowitz and works closely with him. Bennett also thinks that people who consciously don’t get vaccinated, even though it is very accessible, bear the responsibility themselves. They are like people who decide to run into the street and get run over. Does that mean that we have to close all the roads? There’s a limit. About everything else, Bennett is strict to tell his close associates: the responsibility is mine. For better and for worse.

6 Yedioth Ahronoth – August 13, 2021 The Lockdown, the Poll, and the Lie By Nahum Barnea ● This is happening to all world leaders nowadays, Bennett told his staff in a meeting this week. The pandemic is hitting all of them. Whatever they do, there’s no way to come out of this looking good. Sometimes misery loves company; not in this case. The coronavirus has made life similarly miserable for all governments, but in the end, every prime minister has to be elected separately. It’s a dual challenge: making tough, unpopular decisions under conditions of uncertainty, and surviving those decisions politically. Nothing that Bennett has done before has prepared him for a challenge on this scale—not the army, not the high-tech sector, not the Yesha Council, not Netanyahu’s bureau, and definitely not the pamphlet titled “How to Beat a Pandemic” that he published last year. I picked up the pamphlet again this week. I stopped at the cover: a green arrow blasting a black virus to smithereens in one blow. ● How easy, how heroic, how detached from reality. Let the arrow win [reminiscent of a political slogan to “let the IDF win.”] Prof. Ran Balicer, one of Israel’s top coronavirus experts, attended the coronavirus cabinet meeting on Wednesday. When he got up for the coffee break, one of Bennett’s aides went with him. Balicer had gained a reputation in the Prime Minister’s Bureau as a pessimistic prophet of doom. “The cabinet ministers remind me of people standing on the shore,” he said, “who see a tsunami coming and keep bickering over who gets the parasols.” After delivering that pessimistic opinion, he saw the need to add, “But in a week the third [dose of the] vaccine will start having an impact. The numbers will start to stabilize.” That good—relatively good—news is nearly in consensus. It means that time is an important factor. For that reason, the decision to invest in immediately expanding the hospitals’ capacity to treat coronavirus patients makes sense. The extra beds and reinforced personnel are supposed to delay by ten days the point at which the hospitals will declare that they are at full capacity and have no more room. The cloud of a lockdown will probably continue to hover over the crisis, threatening like an unloaded gun, not as a plan. It’s wrong to decide to impose a lockdown for many reasons, and for political reasons as well: a week after the lockdown, there will be a poll: Yamina will drop below the electoral threshold, and a week after the poll, the government will be dissolved. ● The hospitals’ internal medicine and geriatric wards should have been expanded long ago, regardless of the pandemic. It’s understandable why Netanyahu and Edelstein thought that they were past the pandemic back in spring. That’s what many people thought before the Indian variant came into play. It does not absolve them of responsibility for the many years of starving the healthcare establishment. Netanyahu did not add a single bed to the hospitals, neither when the economy was booming nor during the pandemic. I’m guessing that Bennett, on his way home after a long day and night of meetings about the coronavirus, asks himself what Netanyahu would do in his place. In everything to do with substantial decisions, it seems to me that the answer is: not much. In everything to do with marketing: quite a lot.

7 ● Bennett’s starting conditions are tough. In times of crisis people are drawn to the familiar figure, the responsible adult, the one who emerged victorious from past crises. Bennett has nothing to offer in this category; people want to think that their prime minister has greater expertise than they do, is more experienced than they are, knows what he wants and where he is going. Put concisely, they want a leader. If a leader is unavailable, then the illusion of a leader; or at the very least, a politician who projects authority and seriousness, what the Americans call gravitas. Yitzhak Shamir, for example. The obvious historical comparison is Sharon and Olmert. In 2001, when Palestinian terrorism was running rampant in the streets, the Israelis elected Sharon. He even got votes from people who were afraid of him and hated him. They believed that he would handle [the violence] and prevail. On the other hand, you have . ● In 2006, when the war in Lebanon started to go awry, Olmert got into trouble with public opinion. Olmert could take comfort in his reputation in the cabinet and the security establishment as a manager and decision-maker. For now, Bennett doesn’t have that either. He’s restless, jumpy, open to any idea. These are qualities that do not project well during a crisis. Besides all that, he has to deal with poisonous social media, which is loaded with falsehoods, and with an equally restless media. There have been all kinds of conspiracy theories about the role that the TV channels and the newspapers have played in contending with the fourth wave. I don’t believe in conspiracies, but I do know journalists who are apprehensive hypochondriacs drowning in their own egos, as well as editors who have become addicted to ratings. The thirst for drama, headlines, and top- level fights is inexhaustible. The preoccupation with visibility, with Lapid’s absence or Shaked’s slip of the tongue, matters more than preoccupation with substance. In a country where both commercial TV channels broadcast news continuously from three in the afternoon to ten at night, and again before midnight, and once more in the morning, it’s hard to expect sane coverage of the pandemic. Bennett has adopted a trial-and-error approach: try something, make an error, change course. ● This suits Bennett’s open-minded character; it does not suit the public’s expectations. Not when faced with the coronavirus. Ayelet Shaked made an interesting error this week. She was supposed the convey the message—namely, that we have to countenance the fact that people have died and will die during a pandemic—in background talks, not in an interview. She damaged herself and hurt Bennett. Predictably, bereaved families were interviewed. Social media users were outraged. Netanyahu filmed a monologue that was an exact, incredibly amusing copy (“Have you lost your minds?!”) of how Bennett had slammed him a year ago. That’s how things are in the immediate short term. In the long term, the result is more complex. There will be those who will recall the interview as evidence that Shaked is obtuse, evil, uncompassionate. And others will portray her as someone who dared to tell the truth even when it hurts, like a leader. Bennett is right: he will not be complimented for this. All that is left for him to do is to manage it to the best of his ability and expect the booster shot drive to work.

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