Israel and the Middle East News Update

Friday, September 23

Headlines:

 Netanyahu: UN a 'Moral Farce'; we Will Never Accept Dictates  In Fiery UN Speech, PM invites Abbas to Address Knesset  Abbas Calls to Return to 1947 Partition Lines  PM Explains Russia's interest in Cooperating with Israel  World Crises Push Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Off U.N. Center Stage  New Attacks against Israelis Show Palestinians are Losing Hope  Beduin Drama wins 'Israeli Oscar' in a Controversial Event

Commentary:

 Ha’aretz: “Netanyahu Does His Usual “Shtick” Before UN Audience With Zero Expectations” - By Chemi Shalev Senior Correspondent at Ha’aretz  Politico: “Trump's Israel Ground Game”  By Katie Glueck, national political reporter at POLITICO

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 September 23, 2016 Ha’aretz Netanyahu: UN a 'Moral Farce'; Will Not Accept Dictates Prime Minister Netanyahu attacked the UN at his General Assembly address on Thursday. In his speech, Netanyahu said he will resist any attempt by the UN to dictate terms to Israel and said he welcomes "the spirit" of the Arab Peace Initiative and boasted that most of the Arab world was already in talks with Israel, despite the way they vote at the UN. Netanyahu was harshly critical of the UN, for "obsessive bias against Israel." He described the General Assembly as a "disgrace," the UN Human Rights Council as a "joke" and UNESCO, the UN's cultural organization as a "circus." "Began as a moral force, the UN has become a moral farce," the prime minister said. See also: “Analysis: In stark contrast to Abbas, Netanyahu radiates optimism at UN” (Jerusalem Post)

Times of Israel In Fiery UN Speech, PM invites Abbas to Address Knesset Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to speak at the Knesset and offered to speak at the PA headquarters in Ramallah to advance peace. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to speak at the Knesset and offered to speak at the PA headquarters in Ramallah to advance peace. “You have a choice to make,” Netanyahu said, still addressing Abbas, who had spoken in the plenum only minutes before. “You can continue to stoke hatred, as you did today. Or you can confront hatred and work with me to establish peace between our two nations.” See also, “PA official: Netanyahu’s invitation to address Knesset ‘bluff’ ’’ (Times of Israel)

Ynet News Abbas Calls to Return to 1947 Partition Lines Palestinian President Abbas called to return to the borders originally proposed in the UN's 1947 Partition Plan that divided Mandatory Palestine into two countries—a Jewish one and an Arab one. "Israel, since 1948, has persisted in its contempt for international legitimacy by violating UNGA Resolution 181 (II): The partition resolution... Israeli forces seized more land than those allotted to them," Abbas said during his address to the UN General Assembly. "Regrettably, however, the SC is not upholding its responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its seizure of the territory allotted to the Palestinian State according to the resolution. I appeal to you read this resolution once again. "The Israeli War of Independence was fought due Arab refusal to accept this initial partition plan.” See also, “Netanyahu: Road to peace runs through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not NYC' (Ynet News)”

Jerusalem Post PM Explains Russia's interest in Cooperating with Israel Netanyahu explained Russia's possible interests in cooperating with Israel on Thursday during a discussion organized by a New York-based think tank. "I think Russia has variegated interests. The first interest is to make sure militant Islam does not penetrate and destabilize Russia. Netanyahu addressed the crowd gathered for the Hudson Institute's annual gala at the iconic Plaza Hotel.

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New York Times World Crises Push IL.-Pal. Conflict Off U.N. Center Stage They took the stage, one after the other, two aging actors in a long-running drama that has begun to lose its audience. As the Israeli and Palestinian leaders recited their lines in the grand hall of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, many in the orchestra seats recognized the script. “Heinous crimes,” charged Mahmoud Abbas. “Historic catastrophe.” “Fanaticism,” countered Netanyahu. “Inhumanity.” Still, if the diplomats were not ready to embrace Israel, they were also focused elsewhere. It did not go unnoticed in Jerusalem that Mr. Obama devoted just one sentence to the Israeli-Palestinian issue in his final United Nations speech as president, compared with some years when the topic took up to a quarter of his address. See Also, “After Much Rancor, Obama and Netanyahu Meet, Probably for Last Time” (New York Times)

Washington Post New Attacks against Israelis Show Pal. are Losing Hope A 13-year-old Palestinian girl approaches an Israeli checkpoint and is shot in the legs when she refuses to stop. A 16-year-old Palestinian boy tries to stab Israeli soldiers at a different checkpoint and is immediately shot and killed. A Jordanian holding a kitchen knife in each hand and shouting “Allah Akhbar attempts to stab Israeli police officers. He, too, was shot. These and other incidents over the past week show a sudden uptick in violence in Israel and the West Bank. Six Palestinians — who Israelis say carried out attacks or attempted to — have been killed, plus the Jordanian. At least six Israelis — civilians and security forces — have been injured. Palestinians say the attacks are a natural reaction to a situation of hopelessness fostered by the growth of Israeli settlements on land they want for a future state, a rightward shift in government policies and ineffective Palestinian leadership. “It is like an accumulation of water in a glass; each drop adds to the water, and eventually it spills over,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst who was once involved in peace negotiations. “There is no progress. The Palestinian people are just fed up.” See also“At UN, Abbas Highlights the Palestinians' Despair While Calling for the World's Help” (Ha’aretz)

Jerusalem Post Beduin Drama wins 'Israeli Oscar' in a Controversial Event Sand Storm, a drama about two strong Bedouin women, won the Best Picture Prize at the Ophir Awards, which were presented in a ceremony at the Performing Arts Center in Ashdod on September 22. Sand Storm is now Israel’s official choice for consideration for a nomination for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. This is the first time that a movie entirely in Arabic has won the Ophir Award for Best Picture. But the evening was marred by an ugly and unprecedented confrontation between the audience and Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev. It had its origins in a controversy over a performance by Palestinian rapper and actor Tamer Nafar, who said he would refuse to appear at the ceremony over a controversy concerning his decision to perform a musical rendition of a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, but he did perform the poem. Regev said, just before the Best Picture Prize was awarded, that she had left the auditorium during Nafar’s performance because she did not approve of the lyrics by Darwish and said that no other Israeli should either. She spoke strongly against the, the late Palestinian poet, and drew many boos and some walkouts and refused to leave the stage till she had finished, in one of the most acrimonious appearances by an Israeli government official in recent memory. 3

Ha’aretz– September 23, 2016 Netanyahu Does His Usual “Shtick” Before UN Audience With Zero Expectations Right wing Israelis are willing to turn a blind eye to Netanyahu’s declarations, as long as they see he’s winking himself. By Chemi Shalev

 Benjamin Netanyahu is lucky that his competition comes from such an underwhelming orator as Mahmoud Abbas. Besides the fact that the Palestinian president prefers to speak in Arabic in a decidedly, excuse the pun, subdued manner, Abbas always sounds as if he’s more concerned what the guys in Hamas and Islamic Jihad at home will say than how his speech will be received by diplomats and public opinion in Paris or New York. Conventional Israeli wisdom once held that Arab leaders tell their public one thing in Arabic and sound much more moderate when they speak to international audiences in English, but it seems to be the other way around. Palestinians don’t allow their leaders to tailor their words to please foreign ears nor are they willing to make allowances for the sake of hasbara, as most Israelis do.  It’s highly doubtful, after all, if there are many Israelis who actually believe Netanyahu when he says he is full committed to a two-state solution. All but the most delusional of Israelis understand that someone who depicts evacuation of settlers as “ethnic cleansing,” who has no intention of giving the Palestinians an inch in Jerusalem, who insists that the Israeli army will remain responsible for security in every nook and cranny inside the so-called “Palestinian territories” doesn’t really mean “two states for two peoples” in any ordinary sense of the term. But for the sake of hasbara, for the show that Netanyahu puts on every year at the United Nations, for the hope that our winning arguments will melt hearts and break down walls, even right wing parties such as Habayit Hayehudi and its Tekuma faction are willing to turn a blind eye, as long as they can discern that Netanyahu himself is winking.  This time Netanyahu invited Abbas to Jerusalem and himself to Ramallah, as he has in the past, and the novelty, such as it was, lay in his promotion of a regional framework for peace which the Palestinians can join or not, it’s up to them. Everyone knows such a proposal isn’t serious, that Netanyahu’s new friends in Cairo, Riyadh or Amman wouldn’t dare come to talks unless the Palestinians take center stage. But it gives the prime minister’s fans an opportunity to cheer his rhetorical prowess, to admire how he put the bad world in its place, to clap at his exposure of Abbas and the Palestinians for the terrorists that they are. Each and every member of the cheerleader squad that traditionally accompanies Netanyahu to his General Assembly speech - and which had to work extra hard this year to make up for the nearly empty UN auditorium - probably walked up after his address to tell him he was at his best.  In fact, he wasn’t. Without an awesome gimmick such as a caricature of a nuclear bomb or diagrams from Auschwitz or a full minute of silence from the podium, Netanyahu’s speech lacked a tag line or peg or a surprise or an innovation that will etch it in anyone’s memory. It was a polished speech, of course, but one that wandered rather dramatically from high points to low, manic-depressive style, from a strange new dawn about to rise over Israel’s stature at the UN to the familiar complaints that the whole world is against us. Most world leaders use 4

their General Assembly speeches to show solidarity with the persecuted and downtrodden throughout the world or to address some universal challenge, such this year’s blockbuster, global warming, but Netanyahu sticks to Israel and himself. We are alternatively greater and smarter than everyone else, but, concurrently, the helpless nebbish that everyone is ganging up on.  It’s true, however, that Netanyahu had good reason to be smug this year, and the best evidence of that was, in fact, the scores of UN diplomats who abandoned their seats in favor of a lunch at some posh East Side restaurant or solid schmoozing over a sandwich outside in the hall. They didn’t leave because of anti-Semitism, God forbid, but to prevent themselves from falling asleep in their seats. Netanyahu, in a surprising collaborative effort with Abbas, has managed to exhaust just about everyone. After nearly 50 years of occupation, most of the international community is fed up with both leaders, with both nations, with one state or two- states, with direct negotiations, regional conferences, outside mediation and all that peace process mumbo jumbo. Do whatever you want, the world is saying, kill each other if you are so inclined; just leave us alone because we’re dealing with bigger problems.  This was especially true this year, in a twilight zone between a departing U.S. president and the fateful decision by American voters between his two potential successors; because the Iran nuclear issue is effectively off the table for the next few years, despite Netanyahu’s bombastic warnings that “we’ll never allow” etc. and the GOP stirring up trouble in the Senate; because the spate of Palestinian knifing attacks that put Israelis on edge doesn’t cross the threshold of what interests the world; and because there’s a limit to how many times the world can hear the listless speeches of Abbas or the verbal acrobatics of Netanyahu, when nothing on the ground ever changes.  Maybe that’s the reason Netanyahu could extract $38 billion from the U.S. without Washington asking for anything in return: they knew there was no point. The measured smile on Obama’s face as he met Netanyahu on Wednesday said it all: his frustration at failing to change the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was tempered by his relief that he won’t have to deal with Netanyahu’s perennially self-satisfied speeches any more. Chemi Shalev is a Senior Correspondents at Ha’aretz

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SUMMARY: Benjamin Netanyahu is lucky that his competition comes from such an underwhelming orator as Mahmoud Abbas. Besides the fact that the Palestinian president prefers to speak in Arabic in a decidedly, excuse the pun, subdued manner, Abbas always sounds as if he’s more concerned what the guys in Hamas and Islamic Jihad at home will say than how his speech will be received by diplomats and public opinion in Paris or New York. It’s highly doubtful, after all, if there are many Israelis who actually believe Netanyahu when he says he is full committed to a two-state solution. All but the most delusional of Israelis understand that someone who depicts evacuation of settlers as “ethnic cleansing,” who has no intention of giving the Palestinians an inch in Jerusalem, who insists that the Israeli army will remain responsible for security in every nook and cranny inside the so-called “Palestinian territories” doesn’t really mean “two states for two peoples” in any ordinary sense of the term. But for the sake of hasbara, for the show that Netanyahu puts on every year at the United Nations, for the hope that our winning arguments will melt hearts and break down walls, even right wing parties such as Habayit Hayehudi and its Tekuma faction are willing to turn a blind eye, as long as they can discern that Netanyahu himself is winking.

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Project Syndicate– September 21, 2016 Trump's Israel Ground Game The Trump organizing efforts are more extensive in the West Bank than in West Palm Beach, Fla. By Katie Glueck

 There’s one state where ’s ground game appears to be a model of efficiency, rather than a ramshackle operation lacking organizers and field offices: Israel.  As part of an effort to target what the Israeli chapter of Republicans Overseas says are as many as 300,000 U.S. citizens living there — many of them registered in places ranging from safe Democratic states like New York, New Jersey and California to swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania — the pro-Trump group is employing all the traditional tools long eschewed by the campaign itself.  In some ways, the Trump organizing efforts are more extensive in the West Bank than in West Palm Beach, Fla. While the Trump campaign and its allies spent much of the summer waving off the importance of brick-and-mortar offices in the U.S., the Israeli team is expanding its physical footprint. So far, there are five offices open in areas around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. And the group has plans to open three more offices starting as soon as this week: In Gush Etzion, which is also in the West Bank, near Jerusalem; and two others around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  There’s even coalition-specific engagement—a top adviser to the Chief Rabbi of Israel is focused on courting the ultra-Orthodox vote for Trump, according to the campaign manager for the Israel effort. Compare that to the Trump campaign in Florida, for example, where there is little evidence of tailored Jewish outreach at all, much less constituency-focused outreach to various Jewish subgroups.  Marc Zell, who heads up Republicans Overseas Israel, said they are “closely coordinated” with both the RNC and the Trump campaign on messaging. But the Israeli-based Trump effort is supported by local fundraising, not the GOP nominee’s campaign or the RNC.  A Marco Rubio backer in the GOP primary, Zell tried to resign his GOP leadership position after Trump won, he said, initially distraught over Trump’s nomination. But Zell has since come to support the Republican nominee, heartened by the strong pro-Israel language included in the platform passed at Trump’s convention. Many Israelis who whole-heartedly embrace Trump appreciate his tough talk on terrorism and the fact that he represents a clear break with the Obama administration, which has had a tumultuous relationship with conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One poll of Israelis from June, however, found that 42 percent of Israeli citizens overall would vote for Hillary Clinton if they were American citizens, and 35 percent would back Trump.  Other organizations estimate that there are only around 200,000 U.S. citizens in Israel. But whatever the number, the pro-Trump forces are targeting a group that includes many Orthodox Jews, who tend to be more conservative — and more likely to vote for Trump.

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 “People, they…come back from work, they’re going to get help through the registration process from our specialists,” said Tzvika Brot, a former Israeli journalist who is campaign manager of the Israel effort. “Every evening, we’ll come to that office or some base in the houses of our volunteers. We even appoint area captains for each area in Israel.”  To American political operatives who have worked with the Jewish community stateside, the intensive Israeli efforts to target U.S. citizens on Trump’s behalf underscore how little the Republican is doing to court Jewish voters in key American swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and especially Florida.  “Instead of focusing on expats who are Floridians who live in Ashdod [in Israel], I would focus on Jewish Americans who live in Boca Raton,” said Michael Fragin, a consultant who worked on Jewish outreach for the Republican National Committee in Florida in 2004, and remains plugged in to the Jewish political world. In the U.S., he continued, “Nobody I know is aware of anything going on specific to Jewish outreach.”  Added Lisa Spies, who ran Jewish outreach for and remains heavily involved on the pro-Israel donor landscape: “With Trump, yes, there are pro-Israel Republicans listed on invites, or that go to events, but what they still haven’t done, and every campaign before has done, and Hillary is doing, is have a concerted Jewish outreach.”  While the Jewish vote in the U.S. is traditionally heavily Democratic, there have been major efforts in recent years to convert more Jewish voters to the GOP. In 2012, Romney surrogates like former Sen. Norm Coleman hit the synagogue circuit for Romney and billboards reading “Obama…Oy vey!” littered South Florida roads. Romney personally visited Israel. And four years earlier, former Sen. Joe Lieberman was a top surrogate for John McCain.  For several election cycles, Florida Republicans have targeted Orthodox Jews, Israeli- American Jews and Jews from South America, some of whom tend to be more conservative than their generally liberal co-religionists. And Jewish Republicans could claim some success in 2012: President Barack Obama won 69 percent of the Jewish vote in 2012 — down from 78 percent in 2008.  But Trump, who has had to spend time swatting down accusations of racism and anti- Semitism following support from bigoted backers like former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke, already has built-in challenges with the community. And his lack of campaign infrastructure and outreach doesn’t help either, some Jewish political operatives say.  It’s a missed opportunity, they add, especially in Florida, a battleground state crucial to Trump’s path to victory, where five percent of the electorate is Jewish and presidential elections are routinely close. “Who are their surrogates doing rallies, getting out the vote, speaking to this specific group?” Spies asked. “There doesn’t seem to be an actual effort.”  Aaron Keyak, the co-founder of the firm Bluelight Strategies and a former top executive at the National Jewish Democratic Council who worked to counter Republican Jewish outreach in 2012, said he was surprised at the barebones effort in the U.S. this year. “’Incompetence’ was never a word that came up when it came to [Republican] Jewish voter

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outreach in 2012,” he said. “You don’t even know where to start now.” This time around, Coleman refuses to back Trump, Lieberman is supporting Hillary Clinton — and doing pro- Israel events with moderates and Republicans on her behalf — and Jewish supporters and detractors of Trump both agree there has been virtually no Jewish-focused outreach from his campaign in Florida, something the campaign itself acknowledges.  “We welcome and include everybody, so I would say our approach is more general,” said Susie Wiles, who this month took over Trump’s Florida campaign, an operation that until recently had almost no field offices at all. “Our approach is also more aggressive, our outreach, our voter contact is unprecedented, that includes everybody in Florida.” She didn’t deny the absence of a specific Jewish voter outreach plan in Florida.“I would say that’s not wrong,” she said. But the lack of concerted Jewish outreach effort from the campaign itself doesn’t bother some of Trump’s Jewish supporters in Florida, who think the campaign is wise to focus on more sizable, less liberal-leaning constituencies. “Those of us who are Republican Jews are plenty outspoken about the sell-out of Israel by liberal Jews, but there’s no part of us that thinks we’re going to change their minds,” said Sid Dinerstein, a former chair of the Palm Beach County GOP. “There are bigger fish to fry.”  The Clinton campaign doesn’t see it that way. They have both a director of Jewish outreach and a Florida-specific Jewish vote coordinator, as well as operatives in Ohio and Pennsylvania who focus on the Jewish vote. They conduct “bubbe banking” — using the Yiddish term for “grandmother” to describe programs through which Jewish senior citizens call their grandchildren and urge them to vote for Hillary Clinton. They’re also encouraging rabbi-to-rabbi phone banking.  There are Jewish Women for Hillary events across the swing states, and weekly calls with rabbis and community leaders. The campaign has plans for more surrogates to hit swing- state synagogues, and they are highlighting centrist validators like Lieberman, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and billionaire Seth Klarman, a major donor to Jewish causes and to Republicans. That’s part of an outreach effort to moderates and Republicans who care about a muscular foreign policy and strong support for Israel.  Jews for Progress, a super PAC chaired by former Congressman Ron Klein — who lives in Boca Raton, Fla. — is also planning to advocate on Clinton’s behalf in swing state Jewish communities, with the goal of raising a sum in the seven figures, Klein said, to fund that effort.  While there are Clinton volunteers in Israel as part of activities run by , their efforts don’t appear as extensive as those from Republicans Overseas Israel. Asked whether there was a similar Democratic effort, Israeli operative Nimrod Dweck replied, “No! No. There’s no reason. Three hundred thousand people, that’s like a small town.” Dweck, who works on center-left issues in Israel and has partnered with 270 Strategies, a consulting firm whose founders played key roles on Obama’s campaigns, continued, “If you want to work on your effort, go to key states in the U.S. Do get-out-the-vote in the .” Katie Glueck is a national political reporter at POLITICO, where she covers the 2016 presidential election.

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SUMMARY: There’s one state where Donald Trump’s ground game appears to be a model of efficiency, rather than a ramshackle operation lacking organizers and field offices: Israel. As part of an effort to target what the Israeli chapter of Republicans Overseas says are as many as 300,000 U.S. citizens living there — many of them registered in places ranging from safe Democratic states like New York, New Jersey and California to swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania — the pro-Trump group is employing all the traditional tools long eschewed by the campaign itself. In some ways, the Trump organizing efforts are more extensive in the West Bank than in West Palm Beach, Fla. While the Trump campaign and its allies spent much of the summer waving off the importance of brick-and-mortar offices in the U.S., the Israeli team is expanding its physical footprint. So far, there are five offices open in areas around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. And the group has plans to open three more offices starting as soon as this week: In Gush Etzion, which is also in the West Bank, near Jerusalem; and two others around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

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