Israel and the Middle East News Update

Tuesday, August 22

Headlines:

• Israel Condemns Finland Terror Stabbing, Expresses ‘Shock’ • PA Threatens to Cut All Funds to Gaza • Israel Threatens to Demolish Bedouin Homes Despite Court Order • Report: US Works to Thwart UN Settlements Blacklist • Israeli General Mocks Abbas for Sending Aid to Venezuela • Netanyahu to Attend West Bank Event on 50 Years of Settlements • Court Orders to Disclose PM's Wife's Employment Records • Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Express Train Line Makes First Test Run

Commentary:

• The Atlantic: “Benjamin Netanyahu and the Politics of Grievance” - By Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution • Ynet News: “We're Not Going Anywhere” - By Lior Meiri, one of the founders of 'the New Likudniks'

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 August 22, 2017 Times of Israel Israel Condemns Finland Terror Stabbing, Expresses ‘Shock’ The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Monday expressed “shock” at Friday’s deadly stabbing attack in Turku, Finland. The Israeli government expresses its shock and strongly condemns the terrorist attack in the city of Turku last Friday in which two people were killed and eight wounded,” it said in a statement released Monday. Finland observed a minute of silence on Sunday for the victims of the stabbing attack in the southwestern port city, in what is being investigated as the country’s first-ever terror attack. The Israeli statement went on: “Israel expresses its solidarity with the people of Finland, and sends condolences to the families of those killed and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.”See also, “Finland struggles to come to terms with terror attack” (Financial Times)

Jerusalem Post PA Threatens to Cut All Funds to Gaza PA President Abbas threatened to gradually cut all funding to the Gaza Strip until Hamas agreed to reconcile with Fatah. He declared his intentions during a meeting in Ramallah with Meretz head Zehava Gal- On, whose office later reported his statement. “We transfer $1.5 billion a year [to Hamas in Gaza],” he said, adding that he had already cut 25% of that amount. Abbas is in the midst of a push to regain control of Gaza, a decade after Hamas took over the Strip from Fatah in a bloody coup. He has imposed a series of stiff economic sanctions, including reduced funding for electricity. Abbas told Gal-On that if the situation with Hamas did not change soon, “we’ll gradually reduce our [financial] support to Gaza by 100%.”See also, “Can a $830 Million Construction Project Stop Hamas on the Israel-Gaza Border?” (Ha’aretz)

Ha’aretz Israel to Demolish Bedouin Homes Despite Court Order The High Court of Justice has forbidden the demolition of Bedouin homes in the E1 area near Ma’aleh Adumim until it is determined whether they can be legalized. However, the Israeli army’s Civil Administration in the West Bank is threatening to destroy them. A group of Bedouin from Jabal Baba and Bir Al-Maskub are waging a legal battle after the Oversight Subcommittee in Judea and Samaria – a Civil Administration body – threatened to destroy their homes. The group submitted a request last Thursday to declare the Civil Administration in contempt of court, with their lawyer, Shlomo Lecker, asking the court to make it clear that the homes cannot be demolished at this time.

Washington Post Report: US Works to Thwart UN Settlements Blacklist The Trump administration is urging the UN not to publish what it calls a “blacklist” of international firms that do business in Israeli settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state, diplomats and others said. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights voted to approve the database of companies last year, over objections from the US and Israel, which describe the list as a prelude to anti-Israel boycotts. American companies on the list include Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline.com, Airbnb and others, according to people familiar with it. It is not clear whether the list has been finalized. See also, “US reportedly works to thwart UN list of firms operating in Israeli settlements” (i24 News)

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Times of Israel Israeli General Mocks Abbas for Sending Aid to Venezuela An Israeli general sharply criticized PA President Abbas on Monday for sending medical aid to distant Venezuela while cutting down on help to the beleaguered Gaza Strip. “We draw the PA’s attention to the fact that traveling from Ramallah to Gaza is only one hour, while the distance between Venezuela and Ramallah is more than 10,000 kilometers,” wrote Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Major General Yoav Mordechai on his official Facebook page. COGAT is the Defense Ministry department in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs. On Sunday, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki announced they were sending three truckloads of medical supplies to Venezuela, including antibiotics, drugs for the treatment of chronic diseases and “everything necessary for emergencies.” See also, “PA under fire for sending medical aid to Venezuela amid Gaza crisis” (Ma’an)

Jerusalem Post Netanyahu to Attend WB Event on 50 Years of Settlements Next Monday Prime Minister Netanyahu plans to attend his first West Bank celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War and the settlement of Judea and Samaria. The Samaria Regional Council, which announced Netanyahu’s attendance, will be hosting and organizing the August 28th event at the Barkan Industrial Park. Ministers and parliamentarians will be among the attendees. This includes Likud ministers Israel Katz, Ofir Akunis, and Tzahi Hanegbi as well as Bayit Yehudi ministers Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel. The event takes place two weeks prior to the formal governmental ceremony scheduled for September 13th at Kfar Etzion in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank.

Ynet News Court Orders to Disclose PM's Wife's Employment Records The Jerusalem District Court partially accepted the petition put forward by journalist Ben Caspit and ordered the Jerusalem municipality to divulge the scope of Sara Netanyahu's employment as a psychologist in several of the city's education institutions. The court also instructed the municipality to detail the number of hours Mrs. Netanyahu was employed and the time that elapsed between periods she was employed there. Netanyahu herself has claimed the request should be denied due to the personal rivalry between herself and Caspit, which amounts to "persecution" according to her. The petition's sole goal, she said, was to harm her and her husband, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Judge Arnon Darel, however, rejected the claim of any ulterior motives behind the request. See also, “Jerusalem Ordered to Release Data on Sara Netanyahu’s Work History” (Ha’aretz) i24 News Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Express train Line Makes First Test Run An express-train route between Jerusalem-Tel Aviv made its first test run on Sunday, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 2.“This is a fast train which will take 28 minutes to get from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” noted Transporation Minister Yisrael Katz. “This will ensure Jerusalem’s status and will give people the ability to live in it, to set up businesses and will completely change the connection between Jerusalem and the rest of the State of Israel.” The new Jerusalem-Tel Aviv line was tested with a freight train weighing some 1200 tons that was used to help ascertain the strength of the route’s bridges and rails. The freight train was also intended to help stabilize the line’s concrete and tracks. See also, “LONG-AWAITED TEL AVIV-JERUSALEM RAILWAY EDGES CLOSER TO MAIDEN JOURNEY” (JPost) 3

The Atlantic– August 21, 2017 Benjamin Netanyahu and the Politics of Grievance By Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution

• A leader who portrays himself as one of the persecuted, the target of an incessant witch-hunt by the so-called deep state. A liberal media intent on revisiting an election gone badly. And a left-wing political machine supposedly out to get him. This leader, of course, is Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel. • On August 4, Netanyahu’s former chief of staff signed a deal with the Israeli police to become a state’s witness in two criminal investigations in which the prime minister is a suspect. One of the cases involves gifts from billionaires abroad; the other concerns an alleged attempt to negotiate favorable press coverage. Three other investigations involve people close to Netanyahu: his lawyer (a second cousin), a political appointee, and even his wife, Sara. Netanyahu has not been indicted by the attorney general, let alone convicted by a criminal court—that could take months. • And yet, things don’t look good for Bibi, as the leak-happy Hebrew press keeps reporting. The state’s witness, Ari Harow, must provide the goods if he himself is to avoid a prison sentence for suspected bribery and fraud; few know more about Netanyahu’s dealings than him. Netanyahu’s many rivals at home, both within and outside his own Likud party and coalition, have long been preparing for the end of his tenure. Now, they smell political blood. • Netanyahu’s response has been one of defiance. On August 9, Likud party officials and supporters—the Bibi faithful—gathered at a rally in Tel Aviv to voice their support for the prime minister. There, he delivered a message of persecution, railing against the despised liberal media and the even-more despised left-wing. The two, he said, are one and the same. They had failed to beat him at the polls, and were now out to get him by other means, which that amorphous elite—the left-wing, the media—presumably control. Never mind that the attorney general, who holds sole discretionary power to indict him, is a Netanyahu appointee and certainly no lefty, or that his rival and predecessor, Ehud Olmert, just left prison, where he spent nearly 18 months after being convicted on charges similar to those Bibi now faces. • At the rally, Netanyahu seemed to channel Donald Trump. He even explicitly (mis)used the English phrase “fake news” to attack the supposedly biased mainstream media that’s out to get him. While Netanyahu and Trump are profoundly different—Bibi’s many faults aside, he is erudite, cautious, and experienced—the two men share an approach to confronting political adversity: divide and conquer, turn the spotlight on the “other,” create an other when none is available, and always, always, feed the base. • Therein lies a long-term danger for both Israel and America. The governing institutions of each are strong, but their leaders have the power to shape or erode basic norms of democracy and codes of national unity; both Netanyahu and Trump have been careless at best in this regard. Faced with a real threat to his position, perhaps even to his liberty, Netanyahu is once again playing with fire.

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• Netanyahu’s performance at that Likud gathering was vintage Bibi, recalling his first run for prime minister in the 1990s. Back then, Netanyahu led the opposition to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor Party, as a vicious public campaign against him swept through Israel’s right- wing. After his assassination by a right-winger, Netanyahu defeated Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres, to become Israel's youngest-ever prime minister. In Netanyahu’s mind, the same elite he now attacks—the media, the left-wing, the supposed deep state—never forgave him, blaming him for the incitement against Rabin, and for daring to defeat Peres fair and square. They never accepted this outsider who was raised partly in America, who had never been a minister (he had been a deputy minister), and who had never been part of any of the main cliques of the Israeli elite. • Netanyahu’s paranoia was not entirely unwarranted. On the morning after his first electoral victory in May 1996, for example, a mere six months after Rabin’s assassination, signs lamenting that “Rabin was assassinated twice”—equating his win to the prime minister’s death—adorned signposts on the streets of Tel Aviv. Many Rabin-Peres supporters never got over Netanyahu’s victory. (They were also appalled by many of his subsequent policies.) Yet there was also political opportunity for Netanyahu in that narrative, which he exploited. • The “old elites,” a phrase that gained currency in Israel during Netanyahu’s first term, were the bogeymen for the disparate parts of his political base: the Mizrahim, the ultra-orthodox Jews, the National-Religious, the Russian-speaking immigrants from the former Soviet Union. They shared little except their antagonism to Israel’s perceived elite, the left-wing and largely secular Ashkenazi Jews of Israel. As Menachem Begin did 1977, Netanyahu, an Ashkenazi Jew, enlisted the votes of these “left-behinds,” sometimes called “second Israel,” to the political cause of the (Ashkenazi) right-wing. Almost every segment of Jewish-Israeli society that felt disenfranchised opposed the hated establishment, leaving only Israel’s Arab citizens aligned with the left. • For Netanyahu, catering to the base also came with political risk. Many in the Israeli political center were taken aback by his tone when, for example, he was caught on camera whispering into the ear of an octogenarian rabbi influential among religious Mizrahi voters that the left had “forgotten what it means to be Jewish.” Many voters in the center—not leftist themselves—disliked such tactics. Netanyahu was routed in the elections of 1999 in no small part because of a sense of fatigue with the partisanship of his first term. Like in the United States, a base offers loyalty and energy, but not always sufficient numbers. • At the same time, Netanyahu’s choice to voice the legitimate, sometimes-justified concerns of those who felt left behind had important benefits for Israeli society, in the symbolic realm at least. Mizrahi culture and heritage, for example, received more recognition and airtime in mainstream media. • In the United States, too, one lesson of Trump’s rise is that its ruling elite need to take a hard look at the many Americans alienated by the current power structures. It may have been high time for Washington to be shocked by its disconnect from much of the country. But without a leader able to transform grievance into empowerment and political victory into responsibility and ownership, the disconnect will only widen. • In the end, Netanyahu failed to transform his victory into a cathartic experience for the groups he claimed to elevate; he never stopped campaigning as the antithesis to the hated elite. The

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never-ending, cynical invocation of the political base’s grievances—something Netanyahu and others have now perfected—had severe consequences for Israeli society and politics. Even as he secured political power, Netanyahu preferred to play the role of leader of the opposition, to perpetuate a sense of victimhood among his supporters rather than transform his numerous political victories into agency, empowerment and, above all, responsibility. • Today, Netanyahu's gamble of catering to the base while neglecting the center is less risky than it was in the 1990s, as the Israeli right-wing has expanded. Hasmol, or “the left” in Hebrew, is now often used as a pejorative phrase. Rabin’s Oslo peace process, and the left as a political camp, were decimated by the Second Intifada, which began in the summer of 2000. The political center of Ariel Sharon and Olmert, which pushed for unilateral separation from the Palestinians, was rebuffed in Israeli voters’ eyes by the rockets that followed the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. It has now been 40 years since the rise of the Likud party of Begin and Netanyahu. Over that time, Labor, the once-hegemonic party of Israeli politics, has held the prime ministership for less than eight years (the centrist Kadima held it for three more). The right-wing’s reign in Israel today is no temporary fluke. • And yet Likud still speaks as the underdog, as the opposition to a deep state and an amorphous elite. (That elite, incidentally, feels more besieged and marginalized than ever.) This thinking helps explain, at least in part, why in the last election in 2015, Netanyahu posted a video warning his supporters that foreign-funded NGOs were busing Arab voters in “droves” to polling stations—a false story, and reckless for Netanyahu, leader of a country where 20 percent of the citizenry is Arab, to disseminate. • The power of Netanyahu’s base does not mean he will evade legal trouble, however. The rule of law in Israel is strong. If the state prosecutor recommends indictment, the attorney general will then weigh the evidence and the chances of conviction, and likely grant Netanyahu a special hearing before any final decision to indict. • Netanyahu has hinted that he does not intend to resign even if indicted. He may even try to call for early elections in order to gain a popular mandate in the face of a legal decision. Yet if Bibi is indicted, he will likely eventually have to resign; polling suggests that even many right-wing voters expect him to do so. • After Netanyahu, the opposition would aim to capitalize on the scandals and seek to replace him. Yet the power of his base means that his replacement may well come from within his own camp. If he resigns, Likud might also maintain its coalition and simply appoint one of its own as prime minister, bypassing a general election. • If the right-wing prevails, Israel’s policies, including its stance toward the Palestinians, would remain largely unchanged. Yet a new prime minister, whether a hawk or a dove, would have a chance to change a central aspect of the Netanyahu legacy: the divisiveness of his politics. Even after over 11 years as prime minister, Netanyahu has, deliberately, never lost the appeal of an oppositional figure pitting himself against a hated establishment. In Israel, as in the United States, that is a dangerous approach to leadership.

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SUMMARY: Today, Netanyahu's gamble of catering to the base while neglecting the center is less risky than it was in the 1990s, as the Israeli right-wing has expanded. Hasmol, or “the left” in Hebrew, is now often used as a pejorative phrase. Rabin’s Oslo peace process, and the left as a political camp, were decimated by the Second Intifada, which began in the summer of 2000. The political center of Ariel Sharon and Olmert, which pushed for unilateral separation from the Palestinians, was rebuffed in Israeli voters’ eyes by the rockets that followed the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. It has now been 40 years since the rise of the Likud party of Begin and Netanyahu. Over that time, Labor, the once- hegemonic party of Israeli politics, has held the prime ministership for less than eight years (the centrist Kadima held it for three more). The right-wing’s reign in Israel today is no temporary fluke.

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Yediot Ahronot– August 21, 2017 We're Not Going Anywhere

Lior Meiri, one of the founders of 'the New Likudniks,' explains the controversial new movement's ambitions to change the Likud party from within; 'The people responsible for our lives and our deaths, our present and the future of our children are not worthy of the positions they hold. It's time we do something about it.' By Lior Meiri, one of the founders of 'the New Likudniks'

• On 14 August 2006, at the end of the war, I left Lebanon. We were inside in the western sector for three weeks. Three separate occasions, I got too close to death. When I came home, I discovered that the finance minister had embezzled, and the president was being investigated on suspicion of rape, while the prime minister was suspected of corruption. I understood something sad and important: the people responsible for our lives and our deaths, our present and the future of our children are not worthy of the positions they hold. They were entrusted with a responsibility that must be treated with reverence, and instead they deal with trifles, corruption, intimidation, hatred and spin. • Since then, people have changed, parties have risen up and fallen to the wayside, but this feeling, of people who are not good enough to deal with the most important things for every person in Israel, has only gotten stronger. When I tried to understand how such unworthy people are given such great responsibility, I discovered the least-kept secret in Israel: the primaries system. A voting method that grants party members the ability to choose those who will determine all of our fates. Adding insult to injury, these party members—who make up one percent of the general population—are bound by pressure and special interests groups. • 13 Likud MKs were voted into the current Knesset by less tham 8,000 votes, most of them with much less. Coalition Chairperson David Bitan, who yells at bereaved parents and calls Shin Bet agents "cowardly," is now trying to stop "the New Likudniks" from joining the party. Bitan himself received 6,200 votes in the party's primaries. MK Mickey Zohar, who wants to shut down Tel Aviv on Shabbat, received 1,906 votes. And MK Oren Hazan, the man who wants to visit "singer" and provocatuer "the Shadow" up to be a registered party member, got 5,986 votes. • Anyone with eyes in their head understands that these figures are ridiculous, and that the fact that a disproportionately huge power is granted to people who make every reasonable citizen recoil in shame necessitates some sort of balance. In order to change this situation, I and other like-minded liberal nationalists have established the New Likudniks. For six years we have been working on a volunteer basis, adding individual members one after the other. Not by the boxload from the settlements or from one committee or another that forces its members to sign up. • Today, the New Likudniks include more than 12,000 members—united, determined, and angry. Likud voters from the past and present. 30 new members join every day, and that number is only growing. In less than a year, we will have become the largest union in the Likud. The attempt to stop the New Likudniks from joining the party, beyond being anti-democratic (I am wary of using a harsher word), is doomed to failure like the war of the cart drivers against the use of internal combustion engines.

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• No parlor trick, the taking down of the Liku's registration site (ask Likud critic Shai Galili about that) or the breaking of the fax machine will not stop us. We will continue to add 800 – 1,000 new members every month. The only way to silence us is simply to ask what we want and start to do: a liberal secular unity government, a constitution, an education reform, a pension reform, equal burden, transparency, a war on corruption, the rule of law, equality before the law, a free market and deregulation. • Our party must choose whether it is the People's Party—open, democratic, alive and vibrant, growing from elections cycle to elections cycle—or where it is to allow members like Bitan and his friends to turn it into a rotten, frightened and withdrawn party, shrinking into irrelevance, an indentured servant of special interests lobbies, and worst of all—a party that will lose the elections.

SUMMARY: 13 Likud MKs were voted into the current Knesset by less tham 8,000 votes, most of them with much less. Coalition Chairperson David Bitan, who yells at bereaved parents and calls Shin Bet agents "cowardly," is now trying to stop "the New Likudniks" from joining the party. Bitan himself received 6,200 votes in the party's primaries. MK Mickey Zohar, who wants to shut down Tel Aviv on Shabbat, received 1,906 votes. And MK Oren Hazan, the man who wants to visit "singer" and provocatuer "the Shadow" up to be a registered party member, got 5,986 votes. Anyone with eyes in their head understands that these figures are ridiculous, and that the fact that a disproportionately huge power is granted to people who make every reasonable citizen recoil in shame necessitates some sort of balance. In order to change this situation, I and other like-minded liberal nationalists have established the New Likudniks. For six years we have been working on a volunteer basis, adding individual members one after the other. Not by the boxload from the settlements or from one committee or another that forces its members to sign up.

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