Israel and the Middle East News Update

Tuesday, October 23

Headlines:

• Jordan FM: We’ll Not Negotiate with Israel over Leased Land • Israeli Lawmaker: Khan Al-Ahmar Tests Israeli Sovereignty • Livni: Israel’s Handling of Lara Alqasem was ‘Stupid’ & 'Damages Israel' • Trump Said to Question Netanyahu Commitment to Peace • Chinese VP Wang Qishan Lands in Israel for Official Visit • Ministers to Discuss Refugees Bill that Seeks to Sidestep Supreme Court • Israel's Mossad Chief Says High-Tech Not Always a Spy's Friend • Explosive Device Found Near George Soros' New York Home

Commentary:

• Ha’aretz: “Netanyahu’s Current Politics Reopen 23-year-old Wound of Rabin’s Assassination” - By Chemi Shalev, commentator at Ha’aretz • Wall Street Journal: “Saudi Journalist’s Disappearance Reshapes Mideast Power Balance” - By Yaroslav Trofimov, columnist at The Wall Street Journal

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 ● Aaron Zucker, Associate Editor

News Excerpts October 23, 2018 Times of Isreal Jordan FM: We’ll Not Negotiate with Israel over Leased Land Jordan will not negotiate with Israel to renew part of the 1994 peace treaty that granted the Jewish state use of two small agricultural areas along the border, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Monday night, dashing hopes in Jerusalem that Amman could be convinced to reverse course. Speaking to a local Jordanian news channel, Safadi insisted that the Hashemite kingdom would not renege on King Abdullah II’s promise to take back control of the areas that Israel has been allowed to lease for the past 25 years. “We will not negotiate over the sovereignty of these areas,” Safadi said of Naharayim in the north and the Tzofar enclave in the southern Arava desert. See also, “ Editorial-Jordan’s Warning Message” (Ha’aretz)

Jerusalem Post Israeli Lawmaker: Khan Al-Ahmar Tests Israeli Sovereignty Khan al-Ahmar should be the test case by which Israel pushes back against international pressure, including before the International Criminal Court, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi) said on Monday evening. “Those who cave to pressure only invite more pressure,” said Smotrich as he stood on a sandy hilltop above the illegal West Bank Bedouin herding village of Khan al-Ahmar. Behind him in the distance, the sun set over the hilltops of Jerusalem and the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement. “The public understands that this is a test of sovereignty and our ability to advance our interests,” Smotrich said. See also, “The Khan Al Ahmar resistance is proof of the power of peaceful protests” (The National) i24 News Livni: Handling of Lara Alqasem was ‘Stupid’ & 'Damages Israel' Israel’s handling of the case of 22-year-old Palestinian-American was “stupid” and “damages Israel”, opposition leader Tzipi Livni told i24NEWS. After initially denying entry to Lara Alqasem due to her alleged support for BDS movement, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled on Thursday to allow Palestinian-American student to enter the country in order to begin her masters in law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Livni said the government should let them in to the country so they can learn first-hand about Israel, given the harm they can do remotely in the digital age. “I would like all those supporters of BDS to know Israel better, so why shouldn’t they come? If they want to damage Israel, they can do it elsewhere. We are living in a world of networks, everything is open.” Livni said

Times of Israel Trump Said to Question Netanyahu Commitment to Peace US President Donald Trump has said he is willing to “be tough” on Israel in peace negotiations, mirroring the administration’s combative stance toward the Palestinian Authority, according to an Israeli report Monday. Such a move would mark a significant shift in the US approach to peace talks so far, which has seen a number of concessions to Israel and punitive measures against Ramallah, stoking Palestinian anger and a boycott of efforts to jump start peace talks. According to a Channel 10 news report, which cited four Western diplomats with knowledge of the matter, Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron, he was prepared to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Calcalist Chinese VP Wang Qishan Lands in Israel for Official Visit Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan will arrive in Israel Monday on an official visit to take part in the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation, an initiative established in May 2014 to bolster Israel-China cooperation in several domains related to innovation. Qishan is co-heading the joint committee this year alongside Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. He is accompanied by a delegation of representatives from 13 Chinese ministries. Israeli-Chinese ties have been tightening for the past few years as U.S.-China tensions continued to mount. Israeli exports to China reached $2.8 billion in the first half of 2018—8.7% of Israeli exports during the period—according to data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. See also, “Chinese VP kicks off visit to Israel” (Washington Post)

Ynet News Ministers to Discuss Refugees Bill that Seeks to Sidestep HCJ Ministerial Committee for Legislation announced Monday that next week it will hold a discussion on a bill, promoted by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, which seeks to solve a dispute over the expulsion of African asylum seekers by sidestepping the High Court of Justice (HCJ). The bill is expected to have a special safe passage provision that would allow the legislators to formulate an outline that would be impossible for the HCJ to dismiss, as has already happened in the past. MK Shuli Mualem from Bayit Yehudi, who also promoted the bill, presented it with Shaked’s support, after Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who had previously opposed similar legislations, announced that he would agree to the provision. "The safe passage provision will restore the proper balance between the three government branches. The most appropriate thing would have been to adapt a similar legislation as part of the broader” the justice minister stressed.

Reuters Israel's Mossad Chief Says High-Tech Not Always a Spy's Friend Spying is getting harder because the same technologies that catch terrorists can sometimes uncover foreign intelligence operations, the director of Israel’s Mossad said on Monday. Joseph (Yossi) Cohen delivered rare public remarks at a budget conference held by Israel’s Finance Ministry. That suggested he may have emerged from the shadows to safeguard the funds and personnel allotment that, according to Israeli daily Haaretz, have made Mossad “the second largest spy organization in the West” after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Cohen described Mossad as the tip of Israel’s spear against threats like Iranian nuclear and missile projects and Iranian backing for Palestinian Islamist Hamas militants. See also, “ Mossad chief wary of high-tech intelligence” (JPost)

Ha’aretz Explosive Device Found Near George Soros' New York Home An explosive device was found on Monday in a mailbox at the New York home of Jewish Hungarian- American philanthropist George Soros, the authorities said. The New York Times reports that federal and state law enforcement officials responded to the scene in Katonah, N.Y., a hamlet in the upscale town of Bedford in northern Westchester, after local police received a call about a suspicious package Monday. Bomb squad technicians “proactively detonated” the device, the official said. The police said they turned the case over to the FBI, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment, The Times reported. See also, “Explosive device found in mailbox at George Soros’s New York home” (Times of Israel)

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Ha’aretz – October 23, 2018 Netanyahu’s Current Politics Reopen 23-year-old Wound of Rabin’s Assassination

By Chemi Shalev, commentator at Ha’aretz

• Anniversaries of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassinations traditionally create tension between left and right, but this year’s commemoration was different. The ceremonies and speeches that mark the day an Israeli prime minister was murdered for political reasons showed that, despite the 23 years that have passed, the feelings of bitterness and resentment in both camps are, if anything, stronger than ever. Rather than healing with time, the wound is as gaping, festering and venomous today as it was in the days following November 4, 1995. • Rabin’s grandchildren, Noa Rothman and Yonatan Ben Artzi, usually address the annual memorial ceremony, but their words have never been harsher. Leaders of the Labor opposition routinely allude to the right-wing incitement that preceded the assassination, but not in the blunt and damning terms used by Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni and former Labor chair Shelly Yechimovich in the Knesset on Sunday. • Benjamin Netanyahu and other right wing politicians always rebuff the claim that they inflamed and incited and created the atmosphere that inspired Rabin’s assassin Yigal Amir, but Culture Minister Miri Regev declared this year that right wing incitement simply never happened and her colleague, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, asserted that the left is just as dangerous. The tension stems, first and foremost, from the very fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is still prime minister. He’s been prime minister, in fact, for more than half the time that has gone by since Rabin’s killing. • The left hates him all year, but on the day of Rabin’s assassination, he is especially despised. The left has never absolved Netanyahu of his sinful fanning of right wing fury after the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, or of exploiting the ensuing wave of Palestinian terror attacks for political gain. Netanyahu, needless to say, hasn’t apologized, either. • But the anger directed at Netanyahu this year wasn’t limited to his alleged past complicity in the most heinous crime in Israeli history. It was fed by the increasing polarization in Israeli politics, which is inflaming political rhetoric in the U.S. and Europe as well. It was exacerbated by the left’s sense of helplessness in the face of the Netanyahu government’s assault on dissent and democracy, as well as by its dismay at Netanyahu’s increasingly shrill attacks on the left and its loyalty. Rabin’s memorial linked the past and the present. It created a sense of deja vu, of living, as Jews say on Hanukah, “bayamim ha’hem bazman hazeh”, in those days, in this time. Netanyahu’s current conduct in office is just as divisive and incendiary as it was back in those turbulent times, if not more so, his critics asserted. • Not only is the left being delegitimized and marked as traitorous, as it was then, but, as Yechimovich reminded the Knesset, even the President, Chief of Police, Army Chief of Staff and President of the Supreme Court are routinely subjected to vicious right wing assaults. There’s even a division of labor: Netanyahu attacks the political left and civil society groups in public, while his obedient underlings mouth the negative views of state institutions that

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he expresses only in private.As elsewhere, social media amplify these mutual attacks and consequent rage a hundred times over. • The arena for right wing rabble-rousing has moved from mass rallies and marches, in which Rabin was called a traitor, to the pages and posts on Twitter and Facebook. Rather than standing on the balcony of Zion Square while thousands of his followers shout out diatribes and death threats, or marching in Raanana with a coffin close behind him, Netanyahu disseminates his lethal invective today on social media. • Judging by Yair Netanyahu’s far less restrained outbursts of alt-right hate, it’s clear that the apple has fallen very close to the tree. No less infuriating for the left is that Netanyahu and the right have entrenched themselves in believing the fable of their own innocence. Despite the fact that Rabin’s assassin Yigal Amir was a far-right fanatic, a product of an extreme national-religious outlook and a follower of fanatic rabbis who cursed Rabin with the halachic death sentence known as Pulsa d’Nura, literally “Lashes of Fire”, the religious and secular right depict him as an aberration, if not an alien. They have healed their cognitive dissonance by erasing the memories of their past excesses and how these were embraced by Amir. • Once they believed themselves innocent, the right could turn the tables. Leftist demands for a true reckoning were painted as unwarranted incitement against the right. The right created a virtual reality in which demagoguery from the left was just as poisonous as their own venom. As Yechimovich pointed out in the Knesset, however, when asked to cite a specific leftist act of violence that could justify her equation with the right, the best that Shaked could come up with is a nasty comment on social media. • To offset the long list of right-wing Jewish fanatics who have resorted to deadly violence, including five active terrorist cells and almost two-dozen mass murderers, the right is forced to reach deep in history. Their staple reply to the unequivocal evidence that not most, but all of the physical political violence in modern Israel came from the right is “But what about the Altalena”? Altalena was the name of the ship that the newly established Israeli government ordered to attack in June 1948 for carrying an unauthorized arms shipment to Menachem Begin’s underground Irgun. • Americans in the days of Donald Trump are well acquainted with this modus operandi. In Charlottesville, Trump created the same kind of false equivalence between far right – and, in his case, even neo-Nazi - fanatics and leftist protestors. In exaggerating the scope of leftist radical groups such as ANTIFA, the deadly reach of the MS-13 gang or the very existence of Democratic “mobs”, Trump is using the same tactics that spur Netanyahu and his allies to inflate the existential threat of BDS or the sinister global influence of B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence.And Netanyahu, like Trump, is a world class cherry picker: Rothman, in her speech, ascribed a venomous tweet to an official spokesperson rather than right-wing agitator/columnist Caroline Glick, an innocent mistake that Netanyahu turned into irrefutable proof that it was the left that incites and the right, especially him, who are the innocent victims. • In both Israel and the U.S., in fact, self-victimization is a defining characteristic of the right and its leaders. They thrive on perceptions of foreign threat and on fears of domestic subversion. Even when power is in their hands, as it is today in both the U.S. and Israel, the right desperately clings to its concocted self-image of being persecuted and pursued. They are forever inventing vast left wing conspiracies, powered by mysterious moneymen – 5

usually George Soros - and driven by “elites” and their so-called “mainstream media”. Their successes are always their own but their failures and faults are forever a fabrication by the mighty forces confronting them. • The mythology of the right has gone so far as to fabricate an alternate past in which their supporters were hounded and persecuted by the left in the wake of Rabin’s murder. Back on earth, reality was just the opposite: Fear of a dangerous split in Israeli society led Rabin’s successor Shimon Peres to quell demands on the left for accountability on the right. His vain refusal to be seen as benefiting from the outcry against the assassination compelled Peres to resist pleas to hold immediate elections, which could have given Labor an unassailable majority in the Knesset. When he was defeated a few months later by none other than Netanyahu, Peres suffered the consequences of his own blind eye. • By refusing to indict the right for its complicity in creating the hate-filled atmosphere that spawned Amir’s heinous act, Peres allowed Netanyahu and his allies, especially in the national-religious right, to emerge not only scot free but guilt-free as well. In the ensuing years, the sense of remorse and regret felt by many on the right in the immediate aftermath of the assassination dissipated, replaced by the false narrative in which they were unfairly maligned. • Large segments of the national religious education system refute the need for a state- sponsored commemoration of Rabin, who brought about what they describe as “the Oslo catastrophe." They devote their ceremonies on the Hebrew date of Rabin’s assassination to the biblical Rachel, wife of Jacob. Israeli society never underwent what psychologists define as “closure." Shocked at the fault lines exposed by the killing of a prime minister, both sides shied away from conducting a state-sponsored investigation that would examine, diagnose and jointly confront the events of 1994 and 1995 that led to the assassination. Instead, both sides festered in their sense of resentment and grievance, assuming, perhaps, that time would soften the blow and even heal the wound. • They forgot that Jewish history is always a current event; that the unsolved 1933 assassination of Labor leader Haim Arlozorov on a Tel Aviv beach plagued and divided Israel for a generation; and that repressed feelings and pent up rage are bound to burst out in the open, when the right circumstances appear. On Sunday, as Israel marked Rabin’s assassinations, there was a perfect storm.

SUMMARY: The anger directed at Netanyahu this year’s Rabin commemoration wasn’t limited to his alleged past complicity in the most heinous crime in Israeli history. It was fed by the increasing polarization in Israeli politics, which is inflaming political rhetoric in the U.S. and Europe as well. It was exacerbated by the left’s sense of helplessness in the face of the Netanyahu government’s assault on dissent and democracy, as well as by its dismay at Netanyahu’s increasingly shrill attacks on the left and its loyalty. Rabin’s memorial linked the past and the present. It created a sense of deja vu, of living, as Jews say on Hanukah, “bayamim ha’hem bazman hazeh”, in those days, in this time. Netanyahu’s

current conduct in office is just as divisive and incendiary as it was back in those turbulent times, if not more so, his critics asserted.

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WSJ, October 19, 2018 Saudi Journalist’s Disappearance Reshapes Mideast Power Balance

By Yaroslav Trofimov, columnist at The Wall Street Journal

• Just over two weeks since the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, the fallout is threatening to reshape the balance of power in the Middle East and impair U.S. leverage in the region. Turkish officials say Mr. Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the consulate shortly after he entered on Oct. 2, stirring global revulsion and widespread condemnation of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis said the journalist left the compound unharmed the same day, but provided no evidence. • The biggest geopolitical danger so far has been to the stability of the strategic alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Trump administration officials have been careful to stress the importance of ties in recent days, but any lasting damage would be a serious setback for Saudi plans to lead the Middle East, and for U.S.-Saudi efforts to contain Iran. • Israel’s strategic interests—such as weakening Iran—would also be under threat. The main winner appears to be Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has seized the moment to improve relations with Washington at a critical juncture, burnish his country’s international image—and challenge Saudi regional aspirations. Turkey “is the only country that can lead the Muslim world,” he declared this week. • Iran, meanwhile, had the luxury of sitting back and enjoying how its main adversary appeared to sabotage itself just as international criticism has mounted over civilian casualties in the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. “Saudi Arabia is now on the back foot. The brewing criticism over Yemen has exploded with the Khashoggi tragedy,” said Emile Hokayem, Middle East specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “Riyadh now has to spend capital to recover from these crises instead of pursuing other goals, domestic and regional.” • President Trump has stopped short of blaming the Saudis for Mr. Khashoggi’s death until an investigation is completed, and repeatedly highlighted the importance of U.S. weapons sales to the kingdom. Even if the weapons contracts survive the controversy, the image of Saudi Arabia and especially of its young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has taken a hit in Washington that could be irreparable. Leading Republicans in Congress, alongside Democrats already alienated by Prince Mohammed’s courting of Mr. Trump, have called for punishing the kingdom—igniting the kind of bipartisan fury that was on display last year about Russia, when the Senate voted 98-2 to codify sanctions into law, neutering White House plans for a detente with the Kremlin. • A vote to curtail U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia because of the Yemen war failed in the Senate in March, 55-44, with key Democrats opposing the legislation. Many of Saudi Arabia’s former supporters have now reversed their positions. One of them, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.- S.C.), this week pledged to “sanction the hell out of Saudi Arabia” and essentially called for the ouster of Prince Mohammed, who is known as MBS: “The MBS figure is too toxic. He can never be a leader on the world stage.”

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• Just how toxic Saudi Arabia has become was on display in recent days as titans of America’s high-tech and financial industries—who eagerly sought photo-ops and potential deals with Prince Mohammed when he visited the U.S. in the spring—canceled their participation in next week’s Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh. It’s unclear whether they will suspend doing business with the kingdom, or it is just a public-relations exercise. “It’s another great example of how Saudi miscalculations create a wealth of opportunities for Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “At a time when the U.S. is trying to demonize Iran and cut off economic links between Iran and the rest of the world, particularly Europe, the whole world is talking about Saudi Arabia and boycotting the major economic conference in that country.” • Prince Mohammed’s ability to lead the kingdom has also been placed in jeopardy. The 33-year- old prince’s judgment had already been questioned by foreign leaders because of decisions such as imposing an embargo on Qatar, appearing to force the prime minister of Lebanon to resign and disrupting ties with Canada over a tweet criticizing Saudi Arabia’s human-rights record. Given how Saudi Arabia functions, an operation against Mr. Khashoggi couldn’t have been launched without Prince Mohammed’s assent, even if he may not have been briefed on all the details, several Western officials said. • In theory, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, 82, can name a new crown prince at any time. But Prince Mohammed has placed his loyalists at all levers of power; a succession change would only be likely if Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the U.S. and other Western nations neared an existential crisis, Western officials estimate. While previous Saudi crown princes usually had a deputy crown prince (Prince Mohammed briefly served as one), there is nobody now in that position in the official line of succession. The way Prince Mohammed and the Saudi government reacted to reports of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and apparent death only served to raise world-wide concerns about their competence. • While Mr. Erdogan remained vague and didn’t make formal accusations about Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance, using a strategy of leaks and giving himself room for diplomatic maneuvering, Prince Mohammed insisted on the record that Mr. Khashoggi had walked out of the Istanbul consulate. That statement sets him up for potential embarrassment if the Saudis admit the journalist didn’t make it out alive. The kingdom’s communications strategy, meanwhile, consisted of pressuring friendly and client Arab states into making statements of support for Saudi Arabia, while issuing threats against the West. • Turki Aldakhil, the general manager of the main Saudi-run pan-Arab satellite news channel, al Arabiya, even wrote that Saudi Arabia could ally itself with Iran and allow Russia to open a military base in Tobuk, near Israel, in the event that the kingdom faced American sanctions over Mr. Khashoggi. Saudi officials later said Mr. Aldakhil was expressing his personal opinions. • Turkey—one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, and a country with a dismal human-rights record of its own—has long been locked in a strategic rivalry with Saudi Arabia and Saudi allies Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. When Mr. Khashoggi disappeared, Ankara milked the crisis—as it tried to challenge Saudi leadership plans for the Muslim world. • At the same time, Mr. Erdogan reached out to the U.S., hoping for better cooperation in Syria and elsewhere as a Turkish court freed American pastor Andrew Brunson, fulfilling a key demand of the Trump administration.

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• “For the first time in years, Turkey almost looks good,” said Asli Aydintasbas, an Istanbul-based fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s not letting this slip by, and it has made some people here say: Yes, the drift toward autocracy here is terrible, but it is nothing like those head-chopping dictatorships where people are dismembered just for making their voice heard.” • The widespread disgust over Mr. Khashoggi’s apparent killing came at a particularly inopportune moment for Israel, which had invested in an informal alliance with Saudi-led foes of Iran. • “MBS has acted so recklessly in his need to eliminate a critic that he has made it nearly impossible for a coalition to confront Iran—where he was an anchor—to be able to act effectively,” said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “For Israel, this means that the strategic concept of a coalition between Israel and Sunni Arab states under an American umbrella has been significantly damaged.”

SUMMARY: Just how toxic Saudi Arabia has become was on display in recent days as titans of America’s high-tech and financial industries—who eagerly sought photo-ops and potential deals with Prince Mohammed when he visited the U.S. in the spring—canceled their participation in next week’s Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh. It’s unclear whether they will suspend doing business with the kingdom, or it is just a public- relations exercise. “It’s another great example of how Saudi miscalculations create a wealth of opportunities for Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “At a time when the U.S. is trying to demonize Iran and cut off economic links between Iran and the rest of the world, particularly Europe, the whole world is talking about Saudi Arabia and boycotting the major economic conference in that country.

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