Israel and the Middle East News Update Thursday, February 22 Headlines: ​ ● Filber: Netanyahu Instructed Me to Commit Crime ● Bezeq Owner Recorded Ordering Favorable Coverage for PM ● Likud Sources Dispel Rumors of Looming Elections ● Palestinian Dies in Custody After Beating by Israeli Soldiers ● Bennett Says Won’t Break Up Government Until Indictment ● To Push Iran, Israel Increases Support for Syrian Rebels ● Palestinian Envoy Looks for Way Out of ‘Box’ ● Israeli Forces Dismantle Illegal West Bank Outpost Commentary: ● Al Monitor: “Police Closing in on Netanyahu” − By Ben Caspit, Columnist, Al Monitor ● Foreign Affairs: “Israel's Coming War With Hezbollah” − By Mara Karlin, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 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 ​ February 22, 2018 Ynet Filber: Netanyahu Instructed Me to Commit Crime Suspended Communications Ministry Director-General Shlomo Filber told investigators Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly ordered him to hand classified documents to the Bezeq telecommunications conglomerate, claiming he was unknowingly "manipulated" into breaking the law. Filber testified he had no idea he was being asked to carry out a task to secure from Bezeq more favorable coverage to Netanyahu and his family in their subsidiary Walla! News site. A spokesperson on behalf of the prime minister said Netanyahu categorically denies Filber's allegations, stating the things he testified on "never happened." Times of Israel Bezeq Owner Recorded Ordering Favorable Coverage for PM According to Hebrew-language media reports Thursday, the CEO of the Walla news site, Ilan Yeshua, recorded the website’s owner, Shaul Elovitch, who is also the majority shareholder of the Bezeq telecom giant, ordering him to slant coverage in favor of Netanyahu and his family. The recordings were handed over by Yeshua to investigators in recent days, who apparently played them to Filber. Jerusalem Post Likud Sources Dispel Rumors of Looming Elections Netanyahu does not intend to initiate elections soon, despite media speculation and intensifying criminal investigations, senior Likud figures said. When Netanyahu convened the security cabinet on Wednesday morning, he said, “As you can see, we are continuing business as usual, and I am continuing to work for the country.” A poll broadcast on Channel 10 was relatively positive for Netanyahu, giving the Likud a 27 to 23 seat lead over Yesh Atid. In less good news for the prime minister, a Channel 2 poll found that half the population wants him to either quit or suspend himself. Ha’aretz Palestinian Dies in Custody After Beating by Israeli Soldiers A Palestinian man died after he was arrested overnight by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Jericho on Thursday. A Palestinian NGO said that the man was beaten to death by the soldiers. The official military response said that he man was shot by the soldiers while charging at them with an iron bar. Military sources said later that shots were fired during the arrest, but no bullet wounds were found on the body. A video shows the soldiers overtaking the Palestinian and continuing to beat him while he lays on the ground with several soldiers around him. 2 Jerusalem Post Bennett Says Won’t Break Up Government Until Indictment Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Thursday that governments should not be broken up over recommendations and accusations, and only after an indictment would he entertain an idea of breaking up the government. Likud members adopted the position on Wednesday that any talk of Netanyahu resigning would have to wait for a conviction in court. Bennett reasoned a national government is good for Israel, and on an ethical level, the public can decide Netanyahu's fate in election. Ha’aretz To Push Iran, Israel Increases Support for Syrian Rebels The de-escalation agreement for southern Syria, which the United States, Russia and Jordan signed last November, included a promise to keep Iran and its affiliated Shi’ite militias away from the Israeli border. Israel wanted the Iranians and their agents to be kept almost 60 kilometers from the frontier, east of the Damascus-Daraa road. But it didn’t get its wish; the agreement committed to keep them only 5 kilometers from the front lines between the regime and the rebels. And so, dozens of rebels have described a significant change in the amount of aid they receive from Israel. At least seven Sunni rebel organizations in the Syrian Golan are now reportedly getting arms and ammunition from Israel, along with money to buy additional armaments. Times of Israel Palestinian Envoy Looks for Way Out of ‘Box’ The Americans and the Palestinians can’t even agree on the basic facts of their recent dispute, much less the path forward for talks and an eventual peace agreement with Israel. So what’s a diplomat to do? No one has called, Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador, said in an hour-long interview in his office. Nor has there been any substantial contact between the Palestinians and the Americans at the United Nations. Zomlot — who calls himself “the man in the eye of the storm” — said the lesson learned from recent months is the Palestinians long approached their task in the wrong order. They’d hoped US-led talks would yield a deal granting Palestine legitimacy in America and elsewhere. But now, he said his people must first “correct” their bilateral relationship with the United States, building trust in each other as partners in peace. Ha’aretz Israeli Forces Dismantle Illegal West Bank Outpost Israel Defense Forces evacuated a new and illegal West Bank outpost set up in wake of the murder of an Israeli man in a terror attack two weeks ago. According to security sources, settlers burned tires, threw rocks, and poured oil on access routes during the evacuation, in an attempt to prevent it. Police arrested three individuals suspected of attacking security forces. Palestinians from the area reported that following the evacuation, a group of settlers attacked two Palestinian cars. 3 Al Monitor – February 21, 2018 Police Closing in on Netanyahu By Ben Caspit, Columnist, Al Monitor ● Feb. 20 was one of the most heated and dramatic days in the history of Israeli politics. Compared to it, “House of Cards” is about as dark as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” It all began in the morning with the revelation that the Israel Police now suspect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman and confidant Nir Hefetz of trying to ensure that the position of attorney general would be given to someone willing to shut down the investigation into the prime minister’s wife in the “official residence case” in 2015. It ended with the earth-shattering revelation that the former director general of the Ministry of Communications, Shlomo Filber, signed an agreement to serve as a state witness against his boss and patron. By Feb. 21 at dawn, even the most ardent Likud supporters knew that the Netanyahu era was over. Now it’s only a matter of time. Netanyahu once dreamed of surpassing Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as Israel’s longest serving prime minister. That's not likely to happen now. Netanyahu is no longer fighting to keep his job or his stature; he is fighting for his freedom. It is now a fairly safe bet that he will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Ehud Olmert and end up in prison. The odds of that outlandish scenario happening have shifted. ● Netanyahu made it through last week as only he knows how. Two resounding police recommendations to indict him for bribery (Case 1000 and Case 2000) slipped off his Teflon vest without disturbing a single hair on his head. His government remained stable, and his partners maintained coalition discipline, without anyone making as much as a squeak. They all believed that Netanyahu’s hourglass still had plenty of sand left, and that it would take at least a year before Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit makes his final decision. Then came what Netanyahu could only describe as “Terrible Tuesday.” This time, even he was left speechless. In a gloomy video that he released that night, Netanyahu looked more despondent than he has in a very long time. There were still signs of shock on his face. It all began at dawn with the arrest of Hefetz, along with strategic adviser Eli Kamir. Representatives of the attorney general’s office told the court that the suspicions under investigation include bribery at the highest levels of power, making this one of the most serious scandals imaginable. It is now suspected that the incident currently being investigated by the police occurred in late 2015, as the previous attorney general was completing his term. In other words, it happened at the height of the search to find his replacement. ● Hefetz, then spokesman for the Netanyahu family, sat down for a meeting with Kamir, who is considered one of the people closest to the highly regarded Central Region’s District Court Judge Hila Gerstl. During that meeting they discussed whether Gerstl would be willing to commit to closing the case against Sara Netanyahu in exchange for her appointment as attorney general. Kamir knew immediately that there was nothing to talk about, but he decided to inform Gerstl about it anyway. As expected, she refused to even talk about the proposal that he insinuated and actually expressed her disgust. Now that the story has reached the police, Gerstl 4 offered very detailed testimony about what happened from her perspective. So did Kamir. It was a very turbulent morning, with a political earthquake that reminded many of the Bar-On-Hebron scandal in 1997, during Netanyahu’s first term in office.