Israel and the Middle East News Update

Tuesday, February 2

Headlines:  Poll: Most Israelis Want Peace Talks, But Are Skeptical  IDF to Reopen Ramallah as Palestinians Besieged in Their Own City  IDF Searching for Hamas Tunnels Along Gaza Border  Israel Prepares to Demolish Home of Palestinian Officer Who Shot Soldiers  DEA: Hezbollah Drug Money Scheme Disrupted  Russia Assured Israel It Isn’t Transferring Arms to Hezbollah in Syria  Almost All West Bank Land Deals for Illegal Settlements Forged

Commentary:  Yedioth Ahronoth: “While You Were Sleeping”  By Sever Plocker, Chief Economic Editor, Yedioth Ahronoth  Al-Monitor: “How Bibi Was Blindsided by the French Ultimatum”  By Mazal Mualem, Israel Pulse Columnist, Al-Monitor

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

News Excerpts February 2, 2016

Jerusalem Post Poll: Most Israelis Want Peace Talks, But Are Skeptical Most Israelis support negotiations between Israel and the PA, including a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but are skeptical that talks will yield results, according to the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University’s monthly Peace Index poll, released Tuesday. When asked for their stance about peace negotiations between Israel and the PA, 61.8% are in favor to some degree, while 32.8% oppose to some degree. Israeli Arabs are far more likely to support talks, with 59.6% very in favor and 27.1% somewhat, than Israeli Jews, who are 26.3% very supportive and 30.6% somewhat. See also, “What is the Likelihood of the International Community Pressuring a Two-State Solution?” (Peace Index)

Ma’ariv IDF to Reopen Ramallah as Palestinians Besieged in Their City For the first time since the start of the terror wave, the IDF took a harsh step yesterday and imposed a partial closure on Ramallah, the most important city of the PA. Last night, after a situation assessment meeting, the IDF decided to lift it. News of the closure took the residents of Ramallah by surprise. They only learned of the matter when they were leaving their houses on the way to work or to run errands. As a result, traffic jams several kilometers long were created throughout the day in areas leading to checkpoints. Many voiced feelings of frustration and rage. One resident stuck in the traffic jam said angrily that a closure would only make things worse: “Not all Palestinians shoot at the Israelis. This checkpoint is effectively creating the next terrorist as a result of frustration.” See also, “Israel Lifts Ramallah Access Restrictions” (Wall Street Journal)

Ynet News IDF Searching for Hamas Tunnels Along Gaza Border In an effort to assuage increasing concerns by Israelis living along the Gaza border who say they've been hearing banging and clattering at night by Hamas digging under their homes, the IDF has started to drill along the border in an effort to locate terror tunnels. The military is also installing classified technological systems to identify tunnels. So far, the military has yet to find an attack tunnel inside Israel. "The fear among everyone here is constant," said Nissim Hakmon, from moshav Pri Gan near the Gaza Strip. "I've heard the sound of a hammer and chisel and my neighbor says she can hear them digging under the cement. We're stressed out." See also, "Israel Keen to Lower the Sound of War Drums" (Ha'aretz)

Jerusalem Post Israel Prepares to Demolish Home of Palestinian Officer The IDF and Civil Administration, secured by Border Police forces, mapped out the home of Amjad Sukkari in the West Bank village of Jami'n, southeast of Kalkilya on Tuesday. Sukkari carried out the shooting attack on Sunday in which 3 IDF soldiers were wounded at a checkpoint near the Beit El settlement. His home is scheduled to be demolished, in line with instructions from the government. 2

CNN DEA: Hezbollah Drug Money Scheme Disrupted The Drug Enforcement Administration announced Monday that an international operation netted a Hezbollah network using millions in drug money to fund terrorist activity in Syria and Lebanon. The arrests targeted a division of Hezbollah that provides "a revenue and weapons stream...responsible for devastating terror attacks around the world," DEA Acting Deputy Administrator Jack Riley said. Seven countries including France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, were involved in the operation, which apprehended four individuals. The investigation began last February, with the DEA saying that additional arrests were likely. See also, “US Nabs Global Hezbollah Money-Laundering Network” (Ynet News)

Ha’aretz Russia Assured Israel It Isn't Transferring Arms to Hezbollah Russia assured Israel a few weeks ago it hasn’t transferred and will not transfer arms to Hezbollah in the course of its military operations in Syria, Israel’s ambassador to Moscow told the Knesset on Monday. Ambassador Zvi Heifetz’s remarks were reported to Ha’aretz by several MKs who attended the meeting. Heifetz stressed before the MKs, in wake of the Daily Beast report quoting Hezbollah commanders on Russian support, that the Russian ambassador in Tel Aviv reached out to senior officials in Israel's Foreign Minister on his own initiative and said the reports were baseless. The Russian ambassador stressed that the Russian government conducted an internal investigation of the issue and verified no arms were passed from Russian troops in Syria to Hezbollah.

Ha’aretz Almost All West Bank Land Deals for Illegal Settlements Forged A fraud squad investigation has revealed that 14 of 15 supposed real estate acquisitions made by Al- Watan, a company run by pro-settlement activist Ze’ev Hever and owned by the right wing Amana, were forged. Details of the West Bank forgery industry were broadcast on Tuesday in an investigative report on the Channel 10 program HaMakor with Raviv Drucker. In recent years, whenever the state sought to evacuate illegal outposts in the Binyamin region, Al-Watan officials would announce that they had bought the local lands from their Palestinian owners. The documents often turned out to be forged. A police investigation that was opened in the case ended, and the case was transferred to the state prosecutor. The police did not interrogate Hever, but by questioning a chain of straw men it emerged that 14 of the 15 supposed deals were forged.

Yedioth Ahronoth – January 29, 2016 While You Were Sleeping By Sever Plocker  At the end of 2008, some 260,000 Jews lived in the settlements in Judea and Samaria, as defined by the Central Bureau of Statistics. The number does not include the Jews in the territories annexed to Jerusalem in 1967 or the illegal settlement outposts. Now, based on the same definitions, some 400,000 Jews live in the settlements in Judea and Samaria. According to an estimate based on data provided by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, approximately another 220,000 Jews live in the territories annexed to the capital.  Under the past three Netanyahu governments, the number of settlers has risen sharply by about 55%, an annual growth rate of 6.5%. In this period, the Jewish population of Israel grew by only 13%, or 1.8% per year. The growth rate of the settlements was three and a half times as fast as that of the Jewish population of Israel and double the rate of the Palestinian population. The reasons for this growth, ranked by their demographic weight: high natural increase, a housing (and identity) crisis in the Haredi sector and ideological internal migration.  These were the seven fat years of the settlement enterprise that created a new national reality, in which the formula of two states for two peoples is becoming impossible to implement. The separation between Jews and Palestinians and the disengagement from the latter have become almost unreasonable and unfeasible.  An addition of about 150,000 settlers—equivalent to five new cities of 30,000 residents each in the Negev and Galilee—required large additional governmental investments in physical and social infrastructure, in state institutions and in public services in Judea and Samaria. These budgetary figures are not open to the public.  Some may see the settlement boom as a blessing, others may see it as a danger. In any case, the accelerated growth of the settlements has not captured public attention, it has not made headlines, it has not inflamed tempers. In these seven years, passions were inflamed by issues such as centralization of holding companies in the stock market, bank fees, prices of cottage cheese and dairy products, taxation of “trapped profits” (have you already forgotten what that means?), IDB’s debt settlement, the natural gas arrangement, high-tech exits and so forth. The public and political engagement in these issues was so intensive and took up so many resources that the moderate left wing and right wing did not have time and energy left to pick up their head, look beyond the Green Line and see what had changed in the Jewish settlements there. The seven fat years of the settlements passed under the radar.  Is this by coincidence? If I believed in conspiracy theories, I would write that this is no accident. I would write that there was a governmental plot to flood the Israeli discourse with many popular consumer-economic issues just so the issue of the growing settlements did not arise. I would write that the leaders of this discourse served—some unwittingly, some consciously—the diversionary plot. But I do not believe in conspiracies, but rather in free choice: public opinion in Israel did not see the growth in the settler population because it did not want to see it.

 In the near future it will no longer have a choice. If the growth rate of the settler population in Judea and Samaria continues for another seven years, at the end of 2022 the settlements will house 620,000 Jews. At that point, one million Jews will live in the entire geographic area that was once the West Bank and East Jerusalem, about 14% of the total Jewish population of Israel. One in every seven Israeli Jews will live in the territories outside the June 1967 borders.  Say goodbye to Zionism, say hello to a bi-national state.

Sever Plocker is an Israeli journalist and Chief Economic Editor for Yedioth Ahronoth.

Al-Monitor – February 1, 2016 How Bibi Was Blindsided by the French Ultimatum By Mazal Mualem  “The French initiative caught us unprepared. We didn’t expect them to surprise us like that,” admitted one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle in response to the diplomatic initiative announced by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Jan. 29. The initiative itself is quite problematic, at least as far as Israel is concerned.  Briefing French ambassadors a few weeks before leaving office, Fabius said that France will be taking steps over the next few weeks to convene an international conference with the participation of the United States, Europe and Arab states. The purpose would be to ensure that the two-state solution remains a viable and tenable option. As he put it, “Unfortunately, Israeli settlement construction continues. … We must not let the two-state solution unravel.”  This is not the first time France has presented an initiative to advance a two-state solution in recent years. What distinguishes this effort, however, is the ultimatum accompanying the proposal: If the conference fails, France will unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. This means the international pressure Israel faced over the past few years, because of diplomatic stalemates stemming from Netanyahu governments, has risen to a whole new level.  France is a country friendly to Israel. It is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, it took an even tougher stance than the Americans over the timing for lifting sanctions. The obstacles that the French put in the way were, among other things, a consequence of talks that Fabius had had with Netanyahu when the prime minister was still lobbying to block the agreement, which was ultimately reached last July.  When Fabius met with Netanyahu on June 21 during a visit to Israel, he expressed concern about the ongoing deadlock in the diplomatic process. At the time, Netanyahu told him that he was prepared to return to the negotiating table without preconditions and accused the Palestinians of incendiary rhetoric. It is quite possible that the prime minister believed that this would buy him more time, at least as far as France was concerned. Then Fabius popped up Jan. 29 with a new ultimatum, creating a whole new set of circumstances. In response, Israeli diplomatic sources took aim at the French foreign minister, alleging that the conference Fabius is orchestrating and the ultimatum he put on the table are direct consequences of his desire to leave a mark in the history books, before he leaves office, and that the move itself makes no sense. Thus, in the end, it will vanish just as quickly as it appeared.  Even if these sources are correct, it should not be taken lightly that a country like France is issuing an explicit ultimatum over the Palestinian issue. France is not Sweden. It is a major European state, and its ultimatum culminating in unilateral support for a Palestinian state should be a warning sign for Israel. Also, even if the reason behind the French ultimatum is Fabius' personal desire to go down in history, it still represents increased pressure on Israel by one of its closest friends. Unfortunately, as the train that is unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state barrels down the tracks, Netanyahu’s government continues to keep its blinders on, responding in a confused manner, without a systematic foreign policy approach.

 Israel responded as follows to the surprise Fabius dropped on it: First came attacks on Fabius' motives from the inner circle of the prime minister, who also happens to be Israel's foreign minister. This was followed by reported sarcastic remarks by diplomatic sources. For example, “Will France be calling for an international conference with the Islamic State, too? It has, after all, been conducting terrorist attacks on French territory.” Another snide remark attributed to diplomatic sources in Jerusalem asserted, “Past experience teaches that this is just another one of many French initiatives that will never be implemented.”  Amid these jumbled responses, Zionist Camp and Knesset opposition leader Isaac Herzog was accused of coordinating the move with the French during a visit to Paris Jan. 22. At that time, he met with Fabius, as well as with President Francois Hollande. Of course, Herzog denies the charges. Daniel Shek, a former Israeli ambassador to Paris who accompanied Herzog to meetings, said in an interview with the Israeli news site Walla that he left the meetings without any impression that the French were about to launch such an initiative. According to him, over the course of the talks, the French did say, however, that they were troubled by the absence of a diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians, and that consequently, they were considering a number of options. Nevertheless, he said, they did not sound like they were about to act immediately.  While Israel went on the defensive and took an aggressive stance against the initiative to relaunch negotiations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas praised the French effort. In a speech in Addis Ababa Jan. 30, Abbas promised that the Palestinians would make contact with France and other countries to advance the initiative. By doing so, he managed to present himself, yet again, as the side interested in negotiations in contrast to Israel’s stubborn rejection. In fact, Israel’s reaction to the ultimatum remained confused for some 48 hours. It took two whole days for Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Netanyahu to officially respond. As expected, he launched a bitter attack against the effort, using the photo op before the weekly Cabinet meeting Jan. 31 to say that the initiative actually offers the Palestinians incentive not to compromise. He added, “Our position is very clear: We are prepared to enter into direct negotiations without preconditions and without dictated conditions.”  Although Netanyahu’s response represented the death knell for the possibility of convening a regional conference, it will not be enough to stop even Israel’s closest friends from continuing in the general direction they have been going. Israel’s allies are losing patience with the diplomatic standstill of Netanyahu’s fourth government. They will not be satisfied by the prime minister’s platitudes about his desire for negotiations. While his previous two governments — which included parties from the center and the left — made attempts to restart negotiations, the current right-wing government isn’t even willing to give the impression that it is engaged in dialogue.  In this atmosphere, even if nothing comes of the French ultimatum, it is a step in a dangerous direction as far as Israel is concerned. It signals that even friendly states, like France, are no longer willing to simply keep waiting for Israel’s next move on the diplomatic front. Mazal Mualem is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Israel Pulse and formerly the senior political correspondent for Maariv and Haaretz. She also presents a weekly TV show covering social issues on the Knesset channel.