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 ● 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, 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 ” − 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 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.

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Jerusalem Post Bennett Says Won’t Break Up Government Until Indictment Education Minister 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 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.

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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 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

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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. At the time, there were concerns that Roni Bar-On had been appointed state attorney general in exchange for his agreement to shut down the investigation against then-Minister of Interior Aryeh Deri.

● But that was only the beginning of Netanyahu’s most recent travails. That afternoon, reports began to leak out that Filber was in negotiations to become a state witness against Netanyahu. Filber has been Netanyahu’s special operations office for a generation. If he talks, he could open a bottomless Pandora’s box. Filber was dropped into the position of director general of the Ministry of Communications on the very first day of the current government’s term, following the rapid and brusque removal of a professional director general. Netanyahu took the communications portfolio for himself and stormed the Israeli telecommunications market with a fury. Filber and Netanyahu’s activity in that capacity have been at the center of Case 4000 (Netanyahu’s relations with Bezeq majority owner Shaul Elovitch) over the last year. So far, the Israel Securities Authority has already recommended that Filber be indicted. The suspicion is that Filber acted on behalf of the ominous Bezeq communications giant, providing it with government protection from impending reforms. This, in turn, put about 1 billion shekels (about $286 million) in the pocket of the company’s owner, Shaul Elovich.

● Now Filber could provide investigators with the missing link they need to prove that Netanyahu granted government benefits to Bezeq as part of a corrupt deal. In exchange, the popular Israeli website Walla would be at the disposal of Netanyahu and his family. By forging an alliance with the owners of Walla, Netanyahu hoped to create a strategic balance of terror to counter the country’s leading news website Ynet, owned by Yedioth Ahronoth. Now, all that jazz, fetid as it is, will appear in court in the witness box, it could threaten Netanyahu’s long career with an ignominious burial. It could even end with his loss of freedom. What will Netanyahu do now? He began Feb. 21 with a whirlwind of activity. Anyone who hoped that Netanyahu would finally throw up his hands and give up was proven wrong, at least for now. A post on his Facebook page links to a poll published by the free daily newspaper Israel Hayom over the last few days, showing how the Likud would skyrocket to 34 seats if elections were held now. This is Netanyahu’s last battle. He is hoping to prove to his supporters that he is still the hottest commodity on the market and that the people are behind him. The problem is that the police, the state attorney’s office, the attorney general and quite a few of the people once closest to him are not.

● The battle over who will succeed Netanyahu is already being fought intensely. Some of the key questions that remain to be answered are: How will the Netanyahu era end? Will he claim that he is incapacitated and allow the party to choose someone to replace him as prime minister, so that the current coalition can finish out its term? Or will Israel head to new elections? When will Netanyahu’s coalition partners finally crack? And is there anyone in the Likud who would dare raise the banner of revolt against a leader in free fall? The answers to all the questions will begin to emerge in the coming weeks. And yet, Netanyahu will still remain an enigma. No one

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will ever really understand how Israel’s most talented politician could have the most sophisticated self-destructive urges in the country’s history.

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Foreign Affairs – February 21, 2018 Israel's Coming War With Hezbollah By Mara Karlin, Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

● Another war between Israel and Hezbollah is almost inevitable. Although neither side wants a conflict now, the shifting balance of power in the Levant and shrinking areas of contestation are indicators of a looming showdown. The real questions are how and where—not if—the impending conflagration will occur. The events of February 10 underscored the Levant’s instability. Israel shot down an Iranian drone that flew into its airspace and bombed the site in Syria from which the drone had allegedly been launched; during the latter mission, Syrian antiaircraft fire downed an Israeli F-16, the first Israeli fighter to be shot down by enemy fire in decades. Israel responded with massive retaliation against a slew of Iranian and regime-affiliated military targets in Syria.

● Tensions in the region are only going to get worse. The Syrian civil war has so far resulted in nearly half a million dead, six million internally displaced, and over five million refugees, an overwhelming percentage of whom have now spent years in neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Jordan, which are eager for their swift departure. Yet as the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) winds down militarily, so too will the many marriages of convenience among its enemies. These impending divorces will return a number of issues to the foreground, including governance and reconciliation, the future of outside powers in Syria, and the shifting regional balance of power. The resulting tensions are likely to bring Israel to the brink of a regional war even bigger than the last one in 2006, when it invaded southern Lebanon.

● For Israel and Hezbollah, the defeat of ISIS and the resulting shifts in focus will clarify the increasingly complex and dangerous relations between them. Hezbollah has lost nearly 2,000 fighters in Syria, damaged its reputation through unfettered support for the regimes in Iran and Syria, and is rumored to face financial trouble. Despite all that, it remains popular with its core constituency, Lebanese Shiites. It has brokered political agreements with other confessions in Lebanon, and analysts expect that the Lebanese parliamentary elections this spring—the first under a new electoral law creating a proportional representation system—will result in big wins for Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s military capabilities have almost surely grown during the Syrian war, as evidenced by the 100 or so strikes that Israel has made on Hezbollah personnel or facilities in recent years. Perhaps most meaningful, Hezbollah has gained substantial operational experience in Syria, where it has effectively knit together a number of violent nonstate actors in support of its expeditionary mission to prop up President Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, it is hard to find an actor in the region who hasn’t been impressed by Hezbollah’s performance in the Syrian war. These efforts, coupled with Hezbollah’s ominous threats to attack the alleged Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona and its ammonia storage facilities in , portend a foul fight.

● For Israel, the strategic picture has shifted considerably as well. Its border with Syria, historically its quietest, is now unhinged. The Israeli leadership has made no secret of its concern about

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Hezbollah’s military maturation in the Syria conflict. And as worries about a nuclear weapons–capable Iran fade, Israel has begun to focuse instead on the next war with Hezbollah, as a massive military exercise a few months ago—the largest in Israel since 1998—recently demonstrated. Since 2006, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that in future conflicts they will follow the Dahiya Doctrine, named for Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern Beirut suburbs near Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, which was devastated by Israeli bombing in the last war. According to , the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, in the next conflict the IDF will follow these same rules of engagement but across a broader landscape.

● Hezbollah’s and Israel’s long-term strategic goals are thus entirely at odds. Nevertheless, as of today, neither Hezbollah nor Israel wants to trigger a war. Israel is facing the potential collapse of the Palestinian Authority, a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and profound instability on its northern border, to say nothing of the political crisis surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who may soon be indicted for corruption. Nevertheless, concerns about Hezbollah’s growing capabilities inside Lebanon—namely, its potential construction of weapons factories—may leave the Israeli leadership feeling that it has no choice but to act. Hezbollah, for its part, would also probably like time to recover from a long and hard conflict in Syria. Yet the group’s regional popularity has plummeted, and its anti-Israel credentials, which have been tarnished by years of killing Syrians, need burnishing. Perhaps some of its newfound partners in Syria would even be willing to assist in the next war with Israel, as at least two Iraqi militia leaders have suggested in recent months. And as the Assad regime consolidates its hold, Hezbollah’s attention will increasingly be drawn away from Syria.

● A deliberate escalation by Israel or Hezbollah is unlikely to occur in the near term; an inadvertent one, however, is possible, as is an escalation courtesy of other actors currently tearing up the Levant, such as Iran, the Assad regime, or Russia. All three could benefit in different ways from such a conflict. Iran and the Assad regime could use it to distract from the horrific state of affairs in Syria while rallying regional support against Israel. The Russians could use a conflict to solidify their regional leadership role by brokering a cessation of hostilities and to further demonstrate their entrenchment vis-à-vis the United States. At a very tactical level, the narrowing battlefield in Syria almost surely will facilitate an inadvertent mishap among some combination of these actors. How they choose to respond will be crucial, but it is less predictable as the rules of engagement have become murkier.

● A further question is the location of a future war. Historically, conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah have largely—though not entirely—been confined to Lebanese territory. Since 1978, Israel’s invasions of and sporadic attacks on Lebanon have targeted violent nonstate actors who destabilized its northern border, including the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hezbollah. Hezbollah, however, has occasionally sought to take the conflict to Israel’s citizens overseas (and Jewish communities more broadly). A few notable examples include the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, the 2012 bus attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, and a foiled 2015 attack on Jewish and Israeli sites in Cyprus. The next conflict will also probably be fought within Lebanon, although it will likely go beyond southern Lebanon into Beirut. It will also,

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given the Dahiya Doctrine, involve the destruction of much more than just alleged Hezbollah military targets—the IDF could easily destroy Lebanese state infrastructure and military sites as well. And it is difficult to imagine how an Israeli effort to bring ruin to Hezbollah inside Lebanon would not similarly bring it to scores of Lebanese civilians. For its part, Hezbollah is no doubt counting on the international condemnation of Israel that will invariably arise in such a situation.

● Unlike past conflicts, however, a new round of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting could involve military operations in Syria, too. Since the beginning of the Syrian war, Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah have been largely confined to Syrian territory, and to date, Hezbollah has mostly refrained from responding. Yet the group’s entrenchment inside Syria has made that territory vulnerable to further attacks by Israel. Israeli planners will be paying careful attention to how the group’s presence in Syria continues to evolve as Assad’s dependence on it decreases; they will also note Hezbollah’s location, its weapons, the number of its personnel, and the extent of its infrastructure in Syria, particularly in southwest Syria near the Israeli border. Netanyahu has warned that Iran cannot “entrench itself militarily in Syria,” but the real debate will be over the extent of this entrenchment—such as how close Iranian and Hezbollah personnel can be to the Israeli border—not whether it exists at all. Although the next Israeli-Hezbollah war remains on the horizon for now, it is almost certain to occur eventually, given both the risks of accidental escalation and the two sides’ long-term strategic goals. When it does happen, it will be ugly and will almost surely drag in external actors, willingly or not. Levantine security may then reach a new nadir, and the Lebanese and Syrian people will lose even more as their countries are further turned into playgrounds for others’ agendas.

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