February 20 2020 Trying to Set the Agenda

Israel and the Middle East News Update

Thursday, February 20

Headlines:

• Gantz's Party Gains Two-seat Lead Over Likud in Latest Election Poll • Netanyahu Vows Not to 'Transfer' any Arab Citizens to a Future Palestine • Israeli Minister Tried to Push for Move to Postpone PM’s Criminal Trial • Iraqi MP: 'Deal of the Century' will Transfer Palestinians to Iraq • Israeli Envoys Abroad Begin Voting in Elections Amid Coronavirus Panic • Passengers of Quarantined Cruise Ship to Return to Israel on Friday • Jewish-American Pedophiles Flee Justice by Coming to Israel – Report • Rivlin Hails ‘True Friendship’ Ahead of First Official Visit to Australia

Commentary:

• Al Monitor: “Facing Trial, Netanyahu Left with Three Options” - By Ben Caspit, commentator at Al Monitor • Ma’ariv: “Trying to Set the Agenda” - By Anna Barsky, commentator at Ma’ariv

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

News Excerpts February 20, 2020 Ha’aretz Gantz's Party Gains Two-seat Lead Over Likud in Latest Election Poll Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan party would get two seats more than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud if elections were held on Wednesday, according to a Channel 12 poll. The poll shows Kahol Lavan getting 35 out of the Knesset's 120 seats, with 33 going to Likud. According to the survey, the country's third election in a year on March 2 could again be inconclusive, with the parties that Netanyahu previously managed to get on board to try and form a coalition getting a combined 56 seats – five short of a majority. The poll also projects 13 seats for the Joint List alliance of Arab-led parties; nine for the Labor-Gesher-Meretz left-wing alliance; eight each for the Shas and United Torah Judaism ultra-Orthodox parties; seven for Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu; and seven for the right-wing alliance Yamina. See also, “Polls cast doubt on 3rd Israeli elections” (TV7)

I24 News Netanyahu Vows Not to 'Transfer' any Arab Citizens to a Future Palestine Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Tuesday a surprising interview to Israel’s most popular news website in Arabic, PANET, vowing that no Arab citizen would be forcefully transferred to a Palestinian state amid the unveiling of Trump’s Mideast peace plan. “The transfer idea needs to be erased. There isn’t and there won’t be any transfer, not one -- Arab or Jew -- will be uprooted from his home. I oppose that ideologically and practically,” Netanyahu told PANET. With less than two weeks before Israeli citizens cast their ballots for the third time in a row, the Israeli premier said he hopes Israeli Arabs will vote for his Likud party in droves come March 2. See also, “Netanyahu disavows Trump plan idea to redraw border around Arab Israeli towns” (TOI)

Ha’aretz Israeli Minister Tried to Push for Move to Postpone PM’s Criminal Trial Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan had contacted an official in his office and asked him to re-examine a procedure to seal evidence from the public in criminal cases – a move that could have postponed the criminal trial against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Following Erdan's move, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit instructed him not to handle the subject because he is a witness on behalf of the prosecution in case 4000, in which Netanyahu has been charged with bribery. The report on Erdan's move was published by Israel's Channel 12 News on Wednesday. See also “ Likud ministers slam police for arresting, searching home of former MK Glick” (TOI)

Jerusalem Post Iraqi MP: 'Deal of the Century' will Transfer Palestinians to Iraq An Iraqi member of parliament has stated that the US is planning on transferring Palestinians to western Iraq as part of the "Deal of the Century" Middle East peace plan, according to the Iranian Fars news agency. "The US is plotting to keep out Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) from the Western provinces of Iraq, specially al-Anbar province, in a move to provide a proper ground for sheltering the Palestinians inside Iraq," Mohammad al-Baldawi, the representative of the al-Fatah coalition in the Iraqi parliament, said to the al-Ma'aloumeh news site on Tuesday. See also, “How Donald Trump’s Peace Plan Looks to the Gulf and Europe” (Chatham House)

Ynet News Israeli Envoys Abroad Begin Voting in Elections Amid Coronavirus Panic Israeli diplomats and envoys in 77 different countries around the world on Wednesday began voting in the national elections. This year the vote, which is set to take place in Israel on March 2, is clouded by the coronavirus outbreak making the process in East Asian countries where the virus is rampant, challenging. Besides the difficulty of getting to the polling stations, the diplomats in the Far East also have not yet figured out how the ballots will be returned to Israel since anyone returning from prominent East Asian states are required by the Health Ministry to self-quarantine upon landing for at least two weeks. The first Israelis to cast their votes in the third election in less than a year, were the staff of Embassy of Israel in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, who voted Tuesday night.

Ynet News Passengers of Quarantined Cruise Ship to Return to Israel on Friday The Israelis quarantined on the "Diamond Princess" cruise ship docked off the coast of Japan for fear of the spread of the coronavirus, are expected to land at Ben Gurion airport on Friday. According to a Health Ministry statement on Wednesday, the plane carrying the passengers will land in a remote part of the airport, away from the populated terminals. The plane itself will be handled by a small crew equipped with all the needed precautions, while the passengers will be quickly transported by Magen David Adom to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer for a 14-day mandatory quarantine. Additionally, the passengers' baggage will be transported to a vehicle belonging to the Health Ministry as an added precaution. See also “Israel readies for return of 11 ‘coronavirus cruise’ travelers” (JPost)

Jerusalem Post Jewish-American Pedophiles Flee Justice by Coming to Israel – Report Many Jewish people have decided to use the right of return to build their lives in Israel – after all, the law is meant to offer anyone who is Jewish a legal way to come to Israel and become a part of the Jewish state. However, the law can also be used by Jewish-American pedophiles to escape justice for their crimes, CBS reported on Wednesday. The CBS reporter joined Jewish Community Watch (JCW) activists as they were looking for Jimmy Karow, who fled the US in 2000 after being accused of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Oregon. Karow, who is wanted by Interpol, yet was able to remain in Israel, where he allegedly moved between different Jewish communities to avoid being exposed. See also “How Jewish American pedophiles hide from justice in Israel” (CBS)

Australian Jewish News Rivlin Hails ‘True Friendship’ Ahead of First Official Visit to Australia The Australian Jewish community “is the living bridge between our two countries”, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told The AJN this week ahead of his visit. Rivlin arrives in Australia on Friday as a guest of Governor-General David Hurley, the highest level of visit Australia affords foreign dignitaries. In addition to a day of meetings in Canberra, he will be the guest of honour at UIA’s major campaign events in Sydney and Melbourne and will also visit Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College.“It is a tremendous honour to be here,” Rivlin said, adding that despite the “enormous geographical distance, there are many things that connect us and create a relationship of true friendship”, including a shared commitment to democracy and equality. “Our government-to-government relations are already strong, and I am sure that my meetings with the Governor-General, as well with leaders at federal and state levels, will allow us to explore further areas of cooperation.” 3

Al Monitor – February 19, 2020 Facing Trial, Netanyahu Left with Three Options

By Ben Caspit, commentator at Al Monitor

• It's now official: Fifteen days after elections, one day after the 23rd Knesset will be sworn in, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will appear for a court hearing at the start of the corruption trial against him. This will happen on March 17 in the Jerusalem District Court. Even if he loses the March 2 elections to Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, Netanyahu will still be serving as prime minister on the first day of his trial — no new government will be composed in the laps of these two weeks. And so, the date will become historical. It will be the first time in the history of the State of Israel that a serving prime minister will be put on trial for indictments filed against him on bribery, fraud and breach of trust. • The event is expected to be especially bizarre because the Jerusalem District Court is situated in East Jerusalem, an area densely populated by Palestinians. Even the name of the street on which the court is situated has symbolic meaning: Salah al-Din, the Muslim leader who defeated the Crusaders in the 1187 battle of Hattin (the Battle of the Horns of Hattin). The prime minister of Israel — one of the most guarded and secured persons in the world — will be forced to appear in a courthouse planted in the very heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem. A reinforced division of guards will be needed to secure him, even before we’ve counted the local and Israeli media that will impose a siege on the event. In light of these factors, chances are high that the court's administration will decide to move the site of the trial to another, less explosive site where the historic event can be conducted under more reasonable conditions. • The decision regarding the opening date of the trial was made Feb. 18 by the presidency of the Jerusalem District Court, and the news took over Israel’s media agenda all at once. Netanyahu was not caught unprepared. Immediately after the broadcasting of the decision, the prime minister invited his rival Benny Gantz to a public debate. This was an attempt on Netanyahu’s part to recapture the agenda and turn public interest away from his trial, but Gantz did not fall into the trap. “You got spooked … so you’re pushing this spin?’’ he tweeted. “Netanyahu awaits a confrontation with the prosecutor in his trial. He’s not relevant anymore. He can’t lead the country. We won’t let him cover up this fact through a fake invitation to a debate,” a senior Blue and White member told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. • Israeli law allows a prime minister to continue to serve as such even if they are served with an indictment. A prime minister is forced to resign only after the conclusive court ruling. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine a situation in which a prime minister shows up each morning at the district court surrounded by dozens of security guards, spends time there until the afternoon hours while simultaneously managing the most complex state on the planet Earth in a role that is viewed as sensitive, explosive and difficult. Netanyahu, on the other hand, claims he will do so easily: “I work 16-17 hours out of every 24-hour day,” Netanyahu said this week in an interview with Army Radio Feb. 18. “So I’ll work 15 hours instead.” • The prime minister acts as if the opening date of the trial has nothing to do with him. He continues his campaign full speed ahead and manages to maintain 30 or more Likud seats in the polls. Blue and White, on the other hand, has not managed to open a serious disparity between them and the Likud, and this political standoff is a real Gordian knot. Meanwhile, the

public has lost faith in breaking through this dead end. The fact is that Netanyahu continues to dictate the public agenda and causes significant swathes of the Israeli public to forget their prime minister’s deep criminal entanglements, despite the fact that three indictments are filed against him. This is viewed as typical Netanyahu hocus-pocus. But sometime, sooner or later, the magic dust will settle and Netanyahu will understand the game is over, that he is cornered with real potential for jail time in Maasiyahu Prison where former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spent over a year. • Netanyahu’s escape strategies from the law are narrowing. His options are closing in on him. The immunity option has been off the table since he withdrew it from the current Knesset. Netanyahu’s lawyers claim he can ask for immunity again, but the likelihood of such a scenario is close to zero. The only thing left for Netanyahu is to try to win the elections. There are three possibilities here: either he will win or lose, or the election tie will remain and no bloc will win a Knesset majority. • The worst option from Netanyahu’s view would be losing to Gantz, who would form a government without him. Under such circumstances, Netanyahu would try for a plea bargain to avoid a trial. The chances are not high that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit would agree to let Netanyahu off the hook of doing real jail time. Once Netanyahu is no longer a serving prime minister, he won’t have the whole country in his grasp. Public opinion holds that Mandelblit will insist that Netanyahu spend time behind bars — even for a symbolic period. • Should Netanyahu win the elections, he will try to milk his unbelievable achievement for everything it’s worth: He’ll try to assemble a tough right-wing, ultra-Orthodox coalition that would legislate “the French law” on sovereign immunity allowing him to defer his trial to the day after his tenure is over. Or perhaps he'll create a situation allowing him to ask the Knesset for immunity again, despite the fact there is a law forbidding it. If he fails, Netanyahu will insist on serving as prime minister simultaneously with his court case. He’ll ask the court to exempt him from being present in the actual court discussions, and he'll exert heavy pressure on the legal system, appoint a justice minister who will follow his dictums and replace the attorney general with someone who will do his bidding. In short, he will do everything to speed up the self- destruction of the entire system. Israel’s liberal center-left sector views this scenario as a catastrophe. • But what will happen if the more logical scenario takes place: another electoral stalemate? Unclear. If Blue and White will have an advantage of three or four seats, it could demand that Netanyahu forfeit his insistence on serving first in a unity government rotation deal. This demand of Netanyahu is what grounded the entire political system after the September 2019 elections. Should Netanyahu refuse, Gantz and his people will try to undermine the right-wing, ultra-Orthodox bloc and pull out three or four Knesset members or one ultra-Orthodox party in order to create a 61 Knesset-seat majority and establish a government. • If the standoff is more significant, Israel may find itself having to hold its fourth election campaign in a row. Then its nightmare scenario will truly come to life under a serving prime minister who has not earned the trust of the public nor that of the Knesset since 2019 but continues to lead the most complex state in the world. Good luck to everyone with that!

Summary: Netanyahu’s escape strategies from the law are narrowing. His options are closing in on him. The immunity option has been off the table since he withdrew it from the current Knesset. Netanyahu’s lawyers claim he can ask for immunity again, but the likelihood of such a scenario is close to zero. The only thing left for Netanyahu is to try to win the elections. There are three possibilities here: either he will win or lose, or the election tie will remain and no bloc will win a Knesset majority. The worst option from Netanyahu’s view would be losing to Gantz, who would form a government without him. Under such circumstances, Netanyahu would try for a plea bargain to avoid a trial. The chances are not high that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit would agree to let Netanyahu off the hook of doing real jail time. Once Netanyahu is no longer a serving prime minister, he won’t have the whole country in his grasp. Public opinion holds that Mandelblit will insist that Netanyahu spend time behind bars — even for a symbolic period. Should Netanyahu win the elections, he will try to milk his unbelievable achievement for everything it’s worth: He’ll try to assemble a tough right-wing, ultra-Orthodox coalition that would legislate “the French law” on sovereign immunity allowing him to defer his trial to the day after his tenure is over. Or perhaps he'll create a situation allowing him to ask the

Knesset for immunity again, despite the fact there is a law forbidding it.

Ma’ariv – February 20 2020 Trying to Set the Agenda

By Anna Barsky, commentator at Ma’ariv

• In the time left until the elections Binyamin Netanyahu will do everything to prevent his trial from being discussed. So that he—and not Benny Gantz, Avigdor Liberman or anyone else—can control the agenda and benefit from doing so. He is willing to do anything, except for one thing: hold a debate with Gantz on live television, even though he personally has said otherwise and was even the one who threw down the gauntlet and told his political rival “Benny, come, I’m ready.” • But he’s not. Anyone can plainly see why Gantz is unwilling to hold a debate. Gantz is anything except an orator. He is handsome and has blue eyes and he is the embodiment of “anyone but Bibi.” But he’s no Cicero and is never going to be. Ostensibly, he is the ideal person to debate on live television and to defeat without too much effort. • That all true may be true, but Netanyahu still doesn’t want to hold a television debate. His usual explanation, as he said in the last elections was, “I’m not going to upgrade with my own two hands my rival’s public standing. After all, if I agree to debate him, I’ve basically agreed that I am declaring that he is equal to me, that he can run for the position of prime minister. No, I won’t give him that.” • But even before that, Netanyahu does not want a televised debate because he still remembers the trauma from the last time he entered this dangerous arena. That was on the night of April 13, 1999, just a bit over a month before the elections. Three people were running for prime minister: Netanyahu, as the incumbent prime minister, the former chief of staff and the leader of the Labor Party, Ehud Barak; and Yitzhak Mordechai, whom Netanyahu had fired as defense minister two months earlier, and served as the chairman of the new Center Party, and who was the one he debated. • The debate was aired lived and its rating was sky-high. Netanyahu showed up confident, in contrast to Mordechai who came “with hatred in his eyes” as Nissim Mishal, the moderator, subsequently described it. “Look me in the eyes, Bibi,” Mordechai hissed at him, in a phrase that he had rehearsed with his adviser, Avi Benayahu. • Go online and look it up, it’s worth it. See Netanyahu as you haven’t seen him in a long time— pressured, distracted, his eyes restlessly darting back and forth. Netanyahu was defeated, traumatized and received a life-long lesson. He later swore to his associates that that was the last time that he would leave anything to chance in his political doings. • In 2020, Netanyahu does not have the luxury of gambling and taking a risk, not even against the ineloquent Gantz. The Blue and White chairman only needs to make a reasonable appearance to earn points. In contrast, Netanyahu, the king of the screen and stage, will not be able to reverse the electoral situation even if he gives the performance of his life. That is why Netanyahu is not worried about calling on Gantz to “come” to hold a debate, time and time again, for one simple reason—he knows that “Benny won’t come.”