Israel and the Middle East News Update

Wednesday, January 15

Headlines:

• Syrian Army Says Attacked T- 4 Airbase • Intel: Iran Will Have Enough Enriched Uranium for Nuke by Year's End • In First, Turkey Included as Threat in IDF’s Annual Intel Assessment • In a Boon to Netanyahu, Johnson's Backing of Nuclear Deal Plan • Likud Again Pushing to Get Extremists into on Far-Right Slate • Knesset Speaker, in the Eye of Netanyahu's Immunity Storm • Wife of Rabin Assassin Registers Party • Obama’s Middle East Policy Team has a New Home in Warren’s Campaign

Commentary:

• Al Monitor: “Has Netanyahu Outsmarted Himself in Push for Right-Wing Merger?” - By Shlomi Eldar commentator at Al Monitor • Ha’aretz: “The Israeli Left's Labor-Meretz Linkup: An Alliance Forged by Fear, Not Love” - By Ravit Hecht commentator at Ha’aretz

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

News Excerpts January 15, 2020 News Syrian Army Says Israel Attacked T- 4 Airbase The attacked T-4 military airport near the city of Homs in western Syria, state news agency SANA reported Tuesday. According to the report, four missiles hit the base, causing no casualties. Syrian television reports that the attack was carried out by unmanned aircraft and by missiles partially intercepted by air defense systems. The T-4 airbase has been attacked at least four times in recent years. The base is believed to be a storage point for personnel and equipment delivered and used by Iran's Quds Forces in Syria. These attacks were attributed to the Israeli Air Force. See also, “Syria says Israeli aircraft strike base thought used by Iranian forces” (TOI)

Ha’aretz Intel: Iran Will Have Enough Enriched Uranium for Nuke by Year's End Iran will have a sufficient amount of enriched uranium to produce one nuclear bomb by the end of the year, according to Israeli army intelligence estimates for 2020. However, the Israeli army believes that at this stage, Tehran does not posses a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and would need at least two years to develop such capabilities. The United States' exit from the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 brings intelligence officials to estimate that Iran's nuclear program is running again after years of not violating the agreement. Israel's security establishment has assessed that by the end of 2020, Iran will have the required amount of enriched uranium to produce one nuclear bomb. See also, “The Iran Deal Is Not Dead Yet, but It’s Getting There” (Foreign Policy)

Times of Israel In First, Turkey Included as Threat in IDF’s Annual Intel Assessment Despite officially maintaining diplomatic ties, Israel’s military has added the Republic of Turkey to its list of threats in an annual assessment for the coming year, in light of the country’s growing aggressiveness in the region, learned Tuesday. This is the first time Israeli Military Intelligence has included Turkey on the list. Relations between Israel and Turkey have been increasingly strained under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who routinely speaks out against the Jewish state and allegedly allows Palestinian terror groups to operate freely in his country. See also, “Rafi Peretz under fire after newest wave of homophobic comments” (JPost)

Jerusalem Post In a Boon to Netanyahu, Johnson's Backing of Nuclear Deal Plan British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday that the Iran nuclear deal, signed in 2015 and known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), could be replaced by a new deal. “If we’re going to get rid of it, let’s replace it, and let’s replace it with the Trump deal,” he said. “That would be a great way forward.” “President Trump is a great dealmaker, by his own account,” Johnson said. “Let’s work together to replace the JCPOA and get the Trump deal instead.” Why are these comments significant? Because up until now, the European partners to the deal – Britain, France and Germany – have been hell-bent on preserving it. The US under Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, and the other two countries involved in the negotiations with Iran over the JCPOA deal – China and Russia – have shown no indication of wanting to change it.

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Times of Israel Likud Again Pushing to Get Extremists into Knesset on Far-Right Slate Netanyahu’s Likud party is pushing right-wing parties to merge with an extremist faction in a bid to shore up support for his conservative bloc, in a repeat of a move that has drawn vociferous criticism against the premier in the past. For the third election in a row, Likud is urging religious-Zionist parties to ensure that the Kahanist-inspired Otzma Yehudit party is part of their slate for the March 2 race, fearing that votes could be lost to parties that fail to clear the electoral threshold otherwise. “The left has united — they’re not going to lose any votes. Now the right must do everything to prevent wasting votes,” Likud said Tuesday in a statement. The statement was directed at , just hours after the right-wing party led by and Ayelet Shaked announced it would run together with the National Union faction. See also, Has Netanyahu outsmarted himself in push for right-wing merger?(Al Monitor)

Ha’aretz Knesset Speaker, in the Eye of Netanyahu's Immunity Storm Right-wing faction heads on Tuesday urged Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein to prevent the Knesset plenum from convening, in an attempt to delay the formation of a parliamentary committee to rule on Prime Minister ’s immunity from prosecution. The speaker is the only official authorized to convene a session of the full Knesset during its pre-election recess, which is necessary to approve the composition of the House Committee, the body authorized to discuss granting immunity. The Knesset launched the debate process on Monday, in an attempt to reach a decision before the March 2 election – and both parties are busy addressing the obstacles in the path to a final decision. See also, “Knesset speaker under pressure to block plenum vote to form immunity panel” (TOI)

Ynet News Wife of Rabin Assassin Registers Party The wife of Yigal Amir, who assassinated Prime Minister in 1995, registered on Tuesday a new political party in an effort to get a retrial for her husband. Upon filing the forms to register the party, called Mishpat Tzedek (Hebrew for fair trial), Larissa Trimbobler-Amir told Central Elections Committee Chairman Neal Hendel and Director General Attorney Orly Ades that her party will act to implement reforms to the justice system and for the release of Yigal Amir from prison. "We demand a retrial for Yigal Amir, we demand retrials for all those people who deserve it, all the innocent people sitting in prison," said Trimbobler-Amir. "We demand a deep reform of the courts and media and only we can do that. The politicians are only worried about their image." Party Registrar Attorney Eyal Globus announced that he approved the establishment of the party.

Jerusalem Post Obama’s Middle East Policy Team has a New Home in Warren’s Campaign Much of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign narrative subtly casts her as the anti-Obama, the potential president who will not broker sweetheart deals for big business. Now a CNN story on Warren’s foreign policy team reveals that her Middle East policy advisers are nearly all Obama-ites. As the story notes, Warren has been uncharacteristically silent about her foreign policy, delivering only one speech and an article about it in the year or so she’s been campaigning. She fumbled at an October debate on a foreign policy question when she readily agreed with another candidate, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, saying “I don’t think we should have troops in the Middle East.” See also, “ Is there a 'Warren Doctrine'? These are the foreign policy veterans who are quietly advising her campaign “ (CNN) 3

Al Monitor- January 10, 2020 Has Netanyahu Outsmarted Himself in Push for Right-Wing Merger?

By Shlomi Eldar commentator at Al Monitor

• Less than three hours after Labor-Gesher and Meretz announced that they will run on a joint ticket in the March 2 Knesset elections, the co-leaders of the New Right, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett and former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, announced that their party will run independently, rejecting a merger with other parties on the political right. According to a Channel 13 news report on Jan. 13, their decision angered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pretty much dictated every move on the right for the past year. • As a reminder, ahead of the April 2019 elections, after Bennett and Shaked broke from HaBayit HaYehudi to form the New Right, Netanyahu urged the new leader of their former party, Rafi Peretz, to join with Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), the party founded by the fascist disciples of Rabbi Meir Kahane and long ostracized for its racist views. Netanyahu’s goal was to ensure sufficient support for HaBayit HaYehudi to make it into the Knesset. In fact, the prime minister was the one who paved the way for the abomination of Otzma Yehudit's rehabilitation. Denunciations in Israel and elsewhere, even by his friends and allies at the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby in Washington, failed to sway Netanyahu from his efforts. For him, every vote was kosher, and all means were justified in achieving the end of maintaining power. • Netanyahu promised Peretz the moon and the stars, including naming him education minister if he ran on a ticket with Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Otzma Yehudit leader and fervent admirer of Baruch Goldstein, the settler who massacred Muslim worshipers in Hebron in 1994. In February 2019, as Netanyahu courted Ben-Gvir, it was reported that Ben-Gvir had even been promised a seat on the public panel that approves judicial appointments. • Peretz ultimately caved to Netanyahu’s pressure, although he was never wild about the joint ticket. In return, Netanyahu placed Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, from HaBayit HaYehudi, on his Likud list of Knesset candidates. In other words, the prime minister gave HaBayit HaYehudi a free pass at the expense of his own party. The various mergers and aspirations notwithstanding, the results were disappointing: HaBayit HaYehudi and Otzma Yehudit together garnered the equivalent of five Knesset seats, which was not enough for Netanyahu to form a majority coalition, resulting in his decision to call a second round of elections for September. • For the September balloting, the Peretz-Ben-Gvir union, which also included the far right National Union of Bezalel Smotrich, fractured. Peretz, who, as noted, was never fully on board the first time with running with Ben-Gvir, refused to promise the Kahanist party top slots on the newly configured right-wing list of candidates running on the new joint ticket, which also included Bennett and Shaked. Thus, Otzma Yehudit ran independently. The 83,000 votes garnered by Kahane’s students, 1.88% of the eligible votes cast, were insufficient for their party to cross the electoral threshold of 3.25%, meaning its representatives failed to make it into the Knesset, and all their votes were binned. • Now, ahead of the third round of elections within a year, things are getting even more complicated for Netanyahu. The left has united, but the abomination he approved last year is now foiling a similar union on the right. Thus the move that his fans cheered ahead of the April

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2019 elections as nothing short of brilliant could turn out to be a double-edged sword in March 2020. • Polls in recent weeks indicate that if HaBayit HaYehudi and Otzma Yehudit run separately, they will both fall short of the vote threshold. This led the two parties to conclude that they must join forces. On Dec. 20, Peretz and Ben-Gvir issued a video of them smiling, arm in arm, announcing a joint run in March. It is unclear whether Netanyahu engineered the move, but its implication was clear: The Jewish state’s education minister had joined forces with a fascist party whose representative would be in third place on the joint ticket. If the merger generates sufficient votes, the man who pulled the hood ornament off the car of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and promised to next deal with Rabin himself will become one of the Knesset’s 120 members. In a Jan. 10 interview with , Peretz was effusive with praise for his former and current partner. “Ben Gvir is a very soft person, relaxed, humane and considerate. He’s mellowed,” he said. “He is no longer a Kahanist in the simple sense of the word. He is legitimate.” • Peretz had also been in talks with Bennett, offering him leadership of a broad union of all the Likud’s satellite parties on the right. Bennett, who aspires to remain defense minister once a new government is formed, realized that he would only be able to command such a prize if his party attracts a relatively large number of votes. On the other hand, he also understood the tremendous damage he would sustain if he agreed to take Ben-Gvir and his friends under his auspices. Polls Bennett commissioned reportedly indicated a loss of three Knesset seats for the Likud if the smaller parties were to run on a joint ticket, and he decided to run without them despite the risk it poses for the right-wing bloc. • Netanyahu, still deeply involved in the machinations on the right, is currently busy trying to arrange Knesset immunity for himself against prosecution on bribery indictments. Whether the Knesset Committee formed this week rejects his request or whether the issue will be shelved for debate by the Knesset elected on March 2, the key question is whether he will achieve this time what he failed to achieve in the two 2019 elections — a majority of 61 Knesset seats for his Likud and the other right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties. Meanwhile, the left, for which Netanyahu has deep derision, has managed to overcome its differences and merge. • The political right is in a mess. On Jan. 14, with a Jan. 15 deadline looming, reports emerged that talks on a joint run by HaBayit HaYehudi and the National Union had failed and that Smotrich had agreed in principle to run with Bennett. If that happens, the joint Peretz-Ben-Gvir ticket is unlikely to cross the electoral threshold. For Netanyahu, it means he may not get another chance to fix the damage.

Netanyahu, still deeply involved in the machinations on the right, is currently busy trying to arrange Knesset immunity for himself against prosecution on bribery indictments. Whether the Knesset Committee formed this week rejects his request or whether the issue will be shelved for debate by the Knesset elected on March 2, the key question is whether he will achieve this time what he failed to achieve in the two 2019 elections — a majority of 61

Knesset seats for his Likud and the other right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties. Meanwhile, the left, for which Netanyahu has deep derision, has managed to overcome its differences and merge. • The political right is in a mess. On Jan. 14, with a Jan. 15 deadline looming, reports emerged that talks on a joint run by5 HaBayit HaYehudi and the National Union had failed and that Smotrich had agreed in principle to run with Bennett. If that happens, the joint Peretz-Ben-Gvir ticket is unlikely to cross the electoral threshold. For

Ha’aretz – January 13 2020 The Israeli Left's Labor-Meretz Linkup: An Alliance Forged by Fear, Not Love

By Ravit Hecht commentator at Ha’aretz

• This must be one the most fateful and fascinating periods in Israeli politics. Everywhere you look on the political spectrum, groundbreaking discussions are taking place.Likud, which has been in power for 34 of the past 43 years, and has never acted to changed the legal status of the occupied Palestinian territories, is seriously considering annexing parts of the West Bank. • The two main parties on the left, Labor and Meretz, are in an existential crisis following their near-decimation in the two elections of 2019. Are they more devoted to reaching peace with the Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries, or should they instead campaign with a strong social platform? Which of these agendas would make them relevant again? • Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism are at a face- off over the question of religion and state. Campaigns have generated inflammatory statements from both sides, and have even threatened the status of immigrants from the former Soviet Union as a legitimate part of the Jewish people. • Israeli Arabs are clamoring for their seat around the table as equal citizens with a say in the administration, even if it's Zionist. They seem prepared to put aside their nationalist objections, and are being met with spirited opposition from the right-wing and indifference from the center. • The religious-Zionists are no longer sure they're one community. And if they are, does this community include neo-Kahanists like Otzma Yehudit's Itamar Ben-Gvir, and can it be led by homophobes like Education Minister Rafi Peretz? • All these issues have the potential to effect revolutionary change in Israeli society. And all are set to disappear almost completely this week, as the political landscape reverts to the form it's known for the past six years, coalescing into just two camps: pro and anti Benjamin Netanyahu. • On Wednesday, by the midnight deadline, the parties will have submitted their candidate lists. There will be between eight and ten parties with a realistic prospect of making it to the Knesset.Left-wing parties Meretz and Labor-Gesher will likely run together, now that Labor leader Amir Peretz has publicly announced he agrees in principle to joining forces. The two parties will continue to argue for the next few days over who gets which spot on the list, but it will probably be resolved by Wednesday. They have little choice, seeing as polls indicate they are both in danger of dropping below the electoral threshold. • The situation on the far-right is more complex. Habayit Hayehudi leader Rafi Peretz has struck a deal with Kahanist Ben Gvir last month, but failed to coordinate with his parter in the previous election, leader of the National Union Bezalel Smotrich. Meanwhile, Naftali Bennett’s Hayamin Hehadash is currently refusing to join any list which includes Ben Gvir, and wants to run separately. Smotrich may end up joining him by Wednesday night. 6

• The intra-party machinations may have some influence on the ultimate results but they won’t change the campaign’s dynamics. Once the party slates are locked, Israel will settle back into the old and depressing dichotomy of being either for Bibi or against him. Netanyahu knows this, and is already tailoring his message accordingly. He is accusing his opponent Benny Gantz of only caring about removing him from power and ignoring his governments' many wonderful achievements.This is Likud’s new idea of a “positive campaign” – accuse your rivals of having no achievements. And what achievements could a party that did not exist one year ago boast of, or a center-left opposition that hasn’t been in power in eleven years? • Netanyahu’s “positive” message won't last, because old habits die hard, and as the March 2 ballot approaches he will almost certainly be back in smear-mode. He is fully aware of how damaging his frantic bid for immunity from prosecution in corruption cases is, and that Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan will naturally make full use of it in their campaign. Israel is just doomed to a third election campaign with Netanyahu at its center. • Ever since Netanyahu fired his ministers Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid at the end of 2014, bringing an election three years before it was due just to save the slavishly pro-Bibi freesheet Yisrael Hayom from regulatory legislation, all elections have been about him. Not about policies. Not about his rival Isaac Herzog. Not about his rival Benny Gantz, who has become gradually distinguishable only by virtue of being not-Netanyahu. • Gantz, in his year in politics, has not spoken out against any of Netanyahu’s policies, nor has he sought to highlight his own. All his speeches are focused on how he is different from Netanyahu in that he is not trying to evade justice and divide the nation. Even the smaller, ostensibly more “ideological” parties have mainly just stressed how they will either bolster or topple a future Netanyahu coalition. • The four opposition parties will run variations on the same theme. Kahol Lavan will tell us that only a vote for them will replace a corrupt Netanyahu government. Labor-Meretz will say that only a vote for them will ensure a left-leaning coalition in place of a corrupt Netanyahu government. Yisrael Beitenu will promise that only they can prevent a Netanyahu-ultra- Orthodox government. And the Joint List will charge that a vote for them is a show that Israeli-Arabs brought down the racist Netanyahu government. It’s a dismal but unavoidable state of affairs. Netanyahu has not only transformed Likud, a once proud and principled party, into his personal platform, he has also forced right-wing and religious parties into serving his own narrow agenda, rather than their constituencies. • The effect also hollowed-out the opposition. Kahol Lavan is an artificial party with nothing keeping it together besides the burning desire to see Netanyahu leave. Yisrael Beitenu, which represents a rapidly vanishing base of Russian-speakers who have not integrated into wider Israeli society, has been gifted a temporary lifeline to end Netanyahu’s alliance with the Haredim. Labor and Meretz both urgently need to rediscover their raison d’etre in order to survive, but cannot do so while there is nothing to do but remove the prime minister. For six years now, Israeli politics has been gripped by Bibimania, and this will last for another seven weeks, at the very least.

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Summary: The four opposition parties will run variations on the same theme. Kahol Lavan will tell us that only a vote for them will replace a corrupt Netanyahu government. Labor- Meretz will say that only a vote for them will ensure a left-leaning coalition in place of a corrupt Netanyahu government. Yisrael Beitenu will promise that only they can prevent a Netanyahu-ultra-Orthodox government. And the Joint List will charge that a vote for them is a show that Israeli-Arabs brought down the racist Netanyahu government. It’s a dismal but unavoidable state of affairs. Netanyahu has not only transformed Likud, a once proud and principled party, into his personal platform, he has also forced right-wing and religious parties into serving his own narrow agenda, rather than their constituencies.

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