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Home , Miki Zohar, Ofir Akunis

Israel and Middle East News Update

Thursday, June 17

Headlines: ● No-Confidence Vote Filed Against New Government ● Judges Reject Delaying Netanyahu Trial Until September ● Israeli Woman's UK Passport Lists Birthplace as 'OPT' ● Family Left in Shock by Shooting of Palestinian Woman ● Incendiary Balloons Spark Fires for Second Day in a Row ● New ICC Chief Prosecutor, to Decide ’s Fate ● , Jordan Hold Back in Congratulating New PM ● Urges Conditioning of Military Aid to Israel

Commentary: ● Yedioth Ahronoth: “The Big Experiment’’ - By Moshe Perl

● Yedioth Ahronoth: “The Budget Challenge’’ - By Gad Lor & Yuval Karni

S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 1725 I St NW Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006 The Hon. Robert Wexler, President News Excerpts June 17, 2021 Jerusalem Post No-Confidence Vote Filed Against New Government The first two no-confidence votes against the new government of Prime Minister were filed. The wrote in its no-confidence motion that “the government was formed with lies and tricking the public, and has no mandate from the public.” The motion was filed by Likud faction chairman and will be presented next week by MK . A separate no-confidence motion, filed by and , relates to matters of religion and state. The opposition also did not help the coalition pass the extension of an ordinance preventing family reunification of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. The coalition needed right-wing opposition MKs because Ra'am () does not support the ordinance. But the Likud responded it would only help if the coalition would authorize outposts in return. Dig Deeper ‘‘New Coalition Unable to Extend Ban on Palestinian Family Reunification’’ (Times of Israel)

Ynet News Judges Reject Delaying Netanyahu Trial Until September The judges in former prime minister 's corruption trial rejected a request by his attorneys to delay proceedings until after the Jewish High Holidays in September, but did eventually agree to a three-week postponement. The judges ruled that the trial will continue as scheduled and even extended the deadline for prosecutors to hand over the material to the defense lawyers until July 20. After a subsequent appeal by the defense teams, the judges agreed to postpone for three weeks and the next session in the trial will take place on July 5. The material is believed to be key in Case 4000, in which Netanyahu is accused of conspiring with Shaul Elovitch, who at the time owned both the Bezeq telecom giant and the Walla! news website, to allegedly provide the former prime minister with positive news coverage in return for favorable legislation that would have been very profitable for Elovitch.

I24 News Israeli Woman's UK Passport Lists Birthplace as 'OPT' A woman with dual British-Israeli citizenship who was born in Jerusalem said that her new UK passport listed her place of birth as the "Occupied Palestinian Territories," according to Kan. Ayelet Balaban, whose father is British, was born at Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem. Balaban said that she applied for her new passport online and sent the old passport by mail on May 23, two days after the 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas ended. I24 reached out to the UK Home Office, the ministerial department responsible for immigration, and a spokesperson clarified that it was a mistake. “We apologize for this error and are urgently investigating how this has occurred. We will contact Ms. Balaban about the issuing of a new passport showing the correct place of birth," the spokesperson said. Dig Deeper ‘‘Israeli’s New UK Passport Lists Birthplace as ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’’ (Times of Israel) 2 Associated Press Family Left in Shock by Shooting of Palestinian Woman Mai Afaneh appeared to have a happy family life and a fulfilling career. So when she left her West Bank home on Wednesday, no one thought anything was wrong. But a short while later, her family received the devastating news that she had been shot and killed by Israeli troops, allegedly after carrying out an attempted car-ramming attack. she became another statistic — the latest in a list of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military under unclear circumstances. The cases play out in a similar pattern. The army reports an attempted attack by a Palestinian assailant, usually acting alone and unaffiliated with any militant group. Then, it says troops “neutralized” the attacker. Some 20 Israelis have been killed in shootings, stabbings and car-ramming attacks since 2018, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Many others have been badly hurt. But not all cases are clear. Human rights groups say many of the attackers could have been stopped without killing them, and in some cases, have suggested innocent people were killed. Dig Deeper ‘‘Palestinian Attempts West Bank Car-Ramming and Stabbing Attack, Is Shot Dead’’ (Times of Israel)

Times of Israel Incendiary Balloons Spark Fires for Second Day in a Row Firefighters battled four blazes in southern Israel that were sparked by balloon-borne incendiary devices launched from the for the second day in a row. The fires, all located in the Eshkol region, were small and posed no risk to nearby communities, the Fire and Rescue Services said in a statement. Over 3 acres of lemon tree fields belonging to Kibbutz Nir Am were burned on Tuesday along with almost an acre’s worth of clementine trees, according to Kan. Wheat fields and tangerine orchards were also burned, with over 30 acres of land torched in total. The IDF struck Hamas military targets in Gaza in response to Tuesday’s arson attacks, which caused 26 fires in southern border towns. The retaliatory airstrikes were also the first since Naftali Bennett took over as premier. The chairman has long insisted that the IDF’s response to arson attacks should be the same as for rocket fire. Dig Deeper ‘‘Israel's Gaza Response Was Too Little, Too Late’’ (Ynet News)

Jerusalem Post New ICC Chief Prosecutor, to Decide Israel’s Fate British-Muslim international lawyer Karim Khan replaced Fatou Bensouda, after the latter’s nine-year term as the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In Bensouda’s place, Khan will be left to determine Israel’s fate in the criminal probe that Bensouda opened in March. Bensouda’s decision to open a full war crimes investigation against Israelis relating to the 2014 Gaza war, the settlement enterprise and the 2018 Gaza border conflict came after a legal battle dating back to January 2015. The outgoing chief prosecutor also threatened Israel and Hamas with new allegations of war crimes during the May 10-21 Guardian of the Walls conflict with Gaza. Still, Bensouda had strongly hinted at the possibility of her office eventually closing the probe against the IDF on the grounds that the Israeli military performs its own investigations, however imperfect, of alleged war crimes. Views are mixed about what to expect from Khan. Dig Deeper ‘‘ICC Prosecutor Went After Israeli Settlements, but Not Cyprus’’ (Jerusalem Post)

3 Israel Hayom Egypt, Jordan Hold Back in Congratulating New PM Moroccan King Mohammed VI congratulated Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on taking office, becoming the first non-Gulf Arab leader to do so. In his letter, the monarch wished the new prime minister success and emphasized that the kingdom was "determined to continue its active role and its best efforts to advance a just and lasting peace in the Middle East." Bennett was also congratulated by Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Crown Prince of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Several countries have so far held back from congratulating Israel's new leader, among them Egypt and Jordan. A senior official at the Egyptian embassy in explained to Israel Hayom that the delay did not stem from a deliberate disregard for the political change in the Jewish state. Similarly, a top official from Amman said: "During Netanyahu's 12 years in office, the relations between Israel and Jordan deteriorated in an unprecedented way, and there was quite a bit of bad blood between Netanyahu and King Abdullah II. The king has an excellent relationship with Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister . One could go as far as to say that the two are good friends." He also pointed out that the Jordanian people are not keen on Israel or Bennett, "who they perceive as someone more radical than Netanyahu," but the government would offer its congratulations as soon as "the situation becomes clearer." Dig Deeper ‘‘Sudan Said Disappointed With Results of Normalization With Israel’’ (Times of Israel)

Jewish Telegraphic Agency Peace Now Urges Conditioning of Military Aid to Israel Americans for Peace Now is calling for concrete conditions on defense assistance to Israel, a first for a group that calls itself “pro-Israel” and is a member of the Jewish community’s foreign policy umbrella group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “If the US wants to nurture peace and support international law, we must explicitly ensure that our taxpayer dollars serve our foreign policy objectives, that they do not go towards human rights violations, and that there are specific consequences if they do,” Hadar Susskind, the group’s CEO, said in an op-ed in Time magazine. “If new settlements are legalized or existing ones expanded — these international law violations would come with specific US aid reductions.” Until recently, assistance to Israel has been sacrosanct in the pro-Israel community and in Congress, even among Israel’s critics. Americans for Peace Now and another liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, J Street, said in April that they were in favor of a bill backed by progressive Democrats that would prohibit Israel from using U.S. funds to detain Palestinian minors, appropriate or destroy Palestinian property or forcibly move Palestinians, or annex Palestinian areas. The measure does not spell out specific consequences should Israel violate the restrictions. Dig Deeper ‘‘For the Good Of Both Countries, Us Military Aid for Israel Must Be Conditional’’ (Time Magazine)

4 Yedioth Ahronoth – June 17, 2021 The Big Experiment By Moshe Perl ● The outcry that the Haredi parties raised on their way into the opposition is a metaphor for a huge experiment on human beings that only one laboratory in the entire world is conducting—the State of Israel. There has been a dramatic drop in recent years in the size of the population. The average family in Europe has 1.7 children, the US is approaching a similar number, and in South Korea the number has dropped to less than one per family. In Japan, more diapers for adults were sold this year than for babies; the Swedes are diverting budgets earmarked for schools to retirement homes. Demographers estimate that by the end of the century, in 183 countries out of the 193 in the world, the population reproduction rate will be under two children per two parents, in other words—an historic reversal—the end of the era of which humanity grew, and the starts of an era in which its population shrinks. One of the only countries in the world that has chosen to go in the opposite direction is Israel, and this is by means of the Haredi sector. ● Whereas secular Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis are reproducing at a moderate rate, the Haredim bring 6.6 children per family on average into the world and cause the general Israeli average to surge to 3.1 per family, almost double the average in the OECD. In many senses this would be wonderful news were it not for the inverted correlation between the sector’s reproduction rate and its economic behavior. The Haredim are the greatest consumers of public services: they use public transportation and even harbor the expectation that separate vehicles will be made available for them to allow men and women to travel separately. Many of them refuse to ride in Sabbath elevators, which dictates that low-rise apartment buildings be constructed, increasing the size of Haredi neighborhoods. ● They insist on an independent school system, with separate classrooms for girls and boys. A total of 27% of a Haredi family’s income comes from government budgets, compared to 12% for a secular family. Parallel to their growing needs, their contribution to the state’s income is the opposite. In the last six years, the percentage of Haredi men who work has dropped to beneath 50%. This stemmed from the Netanyahu government’s decision to repeal the law that made funding for daycare contingent on the parents working. Yes, the Haredim are the biggest spenders of the state coffers, but its smallest contributors. The result of this demography is dragging the State of Israel into an experiment that no other modern country has allowed itself to do: bringing double the number of children into the world without creating the resources to pay for those children. Our leaders promise us that we will be Denmark, but what we are getting is Angola. The Haredim are well aware of these trends, and contrary to what they tell the media, they are not counting on divine providence. They abandoned the strategy of seclusion more than 30 years ago and realized that they had to be in politics. Their ability to organize as a single, monolithic and disciplined group affords them much greater influence than their relative size would otherwise justify.

5 ● They are the most efficient voter bank in Israel. That is why they are so stunned about having to be in the opposition. But don’t let the new coalition structure blur the bigger picture. The reproduction rate of the Haredi sector will compel it to return and be part of the government, which means that the friction between the Haredi sector and the general population will only increase in the coming years and it will continue until one of the two sides concedes its character. The Haredim’s outcry may be physically loud but, judging by the way things appear to be now, it is the general population that is making the concessions.

6 Yedioth Ahronoth – June 17, 2021 The Budget Challenge By Gad Lor & Yuval Karni ● With all due respect for the coalition’s difficulties in passing bills and trying to please and the United Arab List as well as Yamina and at the same time –the new government’s biggest challenge is going to be to have a state budget approved by November 4. The budget is critical for the government’s future, because if it is not passed, that could result in the Knesset’s dissolution and the fall of the government. The coalition agreements stipulate that a two-year budget must be passed for the years 2021- 2022 within 145 days of the government being sworn in. The coalition decided that it would be passed by the cabinet by the end of August and by the Knesset at the start of November. ● To pass in the Knesset the budget needs a regular majority, but with the delicate balance of power between coalition and opposition—every vote counts. “This is going to be a major hurdle,” admitted yesterday a prominent coalition member, “we have to pass the budget within 141 days, but in the meantime, we’re having difficulty even winning votes in the Knesset. In the last two days there were major disagreements between the right and left parts of the coalition in votes. If we survive the next month in the Knesset votes, we will also be able to pass the budget.” One of the hurdles in passing the budget is having it approved by the Finance Committee after its first reading. The coalition has therefore decided to invest great effort in having a large majority in that committee and to have smaller majorities in other committees. ● Why are members of the coalition optimistic about the state budget finally being approved? The members of the are likely to vote in favor this time, contrary to the vote of confidence. “Luckily for us, the opposition is not homogenous,” said a coalition source, “In the matter of the budget, we’ll work something out with the Joint List. It’s not like the vote of confidence. Bibi also reached arrangements with the Joint List.” Faction Chairman MK Boaz Toporovsky said that the coalition MKs were aware of the budget challenge: “Despite their ideological differences they realize that they have to work together and work out their disagreements behind closed doors. ● I am confident that the budget will pass in the cabinet as per the timetable set out by the coalition agreements.” But passing the budget will be particularly hard, not just because of political pressures, but because of the dismal state of the economy. Never before has a new finance minister assumed office during such difficult economic times and with so many disgruntled workers. Avigdor Liberman was shown the figures as soon as he assumed office: the deficit is nearly NIS 150 billion, an all-time high, while government expenditure in the fight against the coronavirus and to help businesses has remained very high. Unemployment is also unusually high, close to ten percent, and is very worrying, because many of the approximately 400,000 unemployed—as the National Insurance Institute and the Employment Service have warned—have no jobs to return to. And that’s not all.

7 ● Almost 100,000 businesses closed or were badly hurt during the coronavirus year, the cost of living not only has not gone down, but inflation has begun to rear its head and there is almost no item or service that has not become more expensive recently. Furthermore, three top Finance Ministry officials quit, one after the other: the accountant general, the director of budgets and the director general. The primary tasks that the finance minister and his top officials face are very clear: to draw up the first state budget since March 2018 along with the arrangements bill that will contain dozens of reforms. The situation will be even more difficult because of Liberman’s unequivocal declaration that he would not raise taxes and not make painful cuts in the coming budget. One prominent coalition member said that the state budget was ready even now and that the Finance Ministry was eager to move ahead with plans: “The budget has been ready for a long time, but Netanyahu and Katz stopped everything.”

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