Israel and the Middle East News Update

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Thursday, December 27

Headlines: ● Likud Denies PM Will Stay in Office No Matter What ● Former IDF Chiefs Gantz, Ya’alon May Unite for Election ● Report: 5 Zionist Union MKs Considering Joining Meretz ● Israel Approves 1,450 New Homes in West Bank Settlements ● Israeli Official Says Israel Carried Out Syria Strike ● Abbas: Ready to Negotiate Based on UN Resolutions ● Bennett Held Secret Meetings with Settler Leaders ● Qatar to Welcome Jewish, Israeli Fans for World Cup

Commentary: ● The New York Times: “Donald Trump is Bad for Israel” − By Bret Stephens, Senior Columnist ● Al Monitor: “Fear of Indictment Drives PM to Call Early Elections” − By Ben Caspit, Senior Columnist

S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 The Hon. Robert Wexler, President ● Yoni Komorov, Editor ● Aaron Zucker, Associate Editor

News Excerpts December 27, 2018

Jerusalem Post Likud Denies PM Will Stay in Office No Matter What The Likud party released a statement Thursday denying reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not resign even if indicted. The statement said, "The threats and pressure to release an indictment against Netanyahu, no matter the cost and no matter the circumstances, comes every day from the Left and the media." The article claimed that Netanyahu told confidants that he does not believe that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will dare to indict him during the election campaign, and that even if he does, Netanyahu will not resign.

Times of Israel Former IDF Chiefs Gantz, Ya’alon May Unite for Election Former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz has been holding talks with Moshe Ya’alon, also once the army’s top officer, with a view to forming a new centrist political alliance in elections next year, Hadashot television news reported Wednesday. Gantz would supposedly lead the faction and the rest of the spots on the list would be filled by alternating between parties. Gantz has emerged as a dark horse candidate as the election campaigns kick off, with polls indicating either the center-left Zionist Union or centrist Yesh Atid could only present a realistic challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud if Gantz were to join their ranks.

Times of Israel Report: 5 Zionist Union MKs Considering Joining Meretz A group of lawmakers is planning to leave the Zionist Union, an official in the opposition party told The Times of Israel on Wednesday, as the leaders of the two factions that make up the center-left alliance appeared to be at loggerheads over how best to defeat Netanyahu. The party official said the MKs were Eitan Cabel, Mickey Rosenthal, Nachman Shai, Yossi Yona and Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin. A third of a party’s lawmakers must make such a move together if they wish to leave without forfeiting their seats in the parliament.

Ha’aretz Israel Approves 1,450 New Homes in West Bank Settlements Israel's Civil Administration has approved the construction of 1,451 new housing units in West Bank settlements and advanced plans for the construction of 837 additional units, some in relatively isolated settlements. The council approved 220 housing units in Givat Ze'ev, 180 in Neveh Daniel, 120 in Karmei Tzur, 129 in Avnei Hefetz, 62 in Ma'aleh Mikhmash, 61 in Tzofim, 42 in Alfei Menashe, 55 in Tomer, 18 in Adora, 16 in Metzad and one in Shiloh.

Washington Post Israeli Official Says Israel Carried Out Syria Strike An Israeli security official confirmed that Israel carried out a Tuesday night airstrike in Syria. The official says the airstrike hit Iranian storage and logistic targets being used to transfer weapons to the Hezbollah militant group. The official said Israel also took out a Syrian anti-aircraft battery near Damascus that fired at the Israeli warplanes. Earlier Wednesday, Russia criticized the airstrikes, saying they had endangered civilian flights. The Israeli official said, however, that Israel alerted Russia about the airstrikes ahead of time.

Times of Israel Abbas: Ready to Negotiate Based on UN Resolutions Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said late Tuesday that the Palestinian leadership is prepared to enter a peace process based on international law and United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, the official PA news site Wafa reported. Abbas made the comments hours after Pope Francis said in a Christmas message he hoped Israelis and Palestinians would “resume dialogue and undertake a journey of peace.” An Israeli official said, “Israel has repeatedly expressed its readiness to enter a diplomatic process with the Palestinians without preconditions.”

Al Monitor Bennett Held Secret Meetings with Settler Leaders In secret meetings between Education Minister and Jewish Home Party Chair Naftali Bennett and several settler leaders, among them Rabbi Hayim Druckman, he was asked to wait on breaking up the coalition and to advance bills and resolutions regarding the settlements before this legislative term is over. Bennett was reportedly told, “This is the most practical right-wing government we have seen and we have to make use of it until the end. After the election, if Netanyahu remains in power, he may form a unity government, and if he loses because of the police investigations, who knows who will form the next government.” The main goal of the meeting was legislation that would legalize West Bank outposts.

Ynet Qatar to Welcome Jewish, Israeli Fans for World Cup Authorities in Qatar are preparing to host thousands of Jews and Israelis during the 2022 FIFA World Cup competition. Arrangements need to be made to supply kosher food and places of prayer for soccer fans traveling to the Gulf state. A senior Qatari official in charge of the preparations met with US Rabbi Marc Schneier, considered the unofficial Jewish chaplain of the Persian Gulf states, and asked him to serve as an adviser on welcoming Jewish fans. "This is an exceptional development that attests to the sensitivity that the Qataris show toward Israelis and the Jewish world," said Rabbi Schneier.

The New York Times – December 26, 2018 Donald Trump is Bad for Israel By the Bret Stephens, Senior Columnist

● Suppose you’re the type of smart conservative reluctantly inclined to give Donald Trump a pass for his boorish behavior and ideological heresies because you like the way the economy is going and appreciate the tough tone of his foreign policy, especially when it comes to Islamic fundamentalism. These last few weeks haven’t exactly validated your faith in the man, have they? You can track the performance of your I.R.A. as well as I can mine, so there’s no need to dilate on the broad rout in the markets (Wednesday’s gains notwithstanding). But let’s focus on something possibly as dear to your heart as it is to mine. The president has abruptly undermined Israel’s security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever.

● I write this as someone who supported Trump moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous and correct. I also would have opposed the president’s decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds, maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on the Levant. Powers that maintain a reputation as reliable allies and formidable foes tend to enhance their power. Powers that behave as Trump’s America has squander it.

● But leave that aside and consider the Trump presidency from a purely Israeli standpoint. Are Israelis better off now that the U.S. Embassy is in Jerusalem? Not materially. The move was mostly a matter of symbolism, albeit of an overdue and useful sort. Are Israelis safer from Iran now that the U.S. is no longer in the Iran deal and sanctions are back in force? Only marginally. Sanctions are a tool of strategy, not a strategy unto themselves. What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a president. From that, everything follows. It means that the U.S. should not sell out small nations — whether it was Israel in 1973 or Kuwait in 1990 — for the sake of currying favor with larger ones. It means we should resist interloping foreign aggressors, whether it was the Soviets in Egypt in the 1960s, or the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade. It means we should oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order.

● Trump has stood all of this on its head. He shows no interest in pushing Russia out of Syria. He has neither articulated nor pursued any coherent strategy for pushing Iran out of Syria. He has

all but invited Turkey to interfere in Syria. He has done nothing to prevent Iran from continuing to arm Hezbollah. He shows no regard for the Kurds. His fatuous response to Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi is that we’re getting a lot of money from the Saudis. He speaks with no authority on subjects like press freedom or religious liberty because he assails both at home. His still-secret peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians will have the rare effect of uniting Israelis and Palestinians in their rejection of it.

● Is any of this good for Israel? If you think the gravest immediate threat to Israel is jihadist Hezbollah backed by fundamentalist Iran backed by cynical Russia, the answer is no. If you think the gravest middle-term threat is the continued Islamization of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan — gradually transforming the country into a technologically competent Sunni version of Iran — the answer is no. If you think that another grave threat to Israel is the inability to preserve at least a vision of a future Palestinian state — one that pursues good governance and peace with its neighbors while rejecting kleptocracy and terrorism — the answer is no. And if you think that the ultimate long-term threat to Israel is the resurgence of isolationism in the U.S. and a return to the geopolitics of every nation for itself, the answer is more emphatically no. During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel — the hectoring, the incompetent diplomatic interventions, the moral equivocations, the Iran deal, the backstabbing at the U.N. — couldn’t get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his predecessors look good.

Al Monitor – December 26, 2018 Fear of Indictment Drives PM to Call Early Elections By Ben Caspit, Senior Columnist

● The decision to hold early elections in Israel is intended to turn the event into a national referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his last, desperate battle to replace the criminal trial that evidently awaits him with a trial by public opinion. The Likud plan is to focus the campaign on the investigations, convince the electorate that Netanyahu is being framed and win a stunning electoral victory that should protect Netanyahu from Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit while the latter is deciding the fate of the prime minister. Much like the 2015 elections, Netanyahu himself will run the campaign, sharing his strategies only with family members and a handful of associates (most of his other favorites are either under suspicion or have turned state’s witness against him). He will focus the campaign on one message: his own innocence.

● Not everyone in the Likud is happy that the ruling party is being used to shield the prime minister. Many Likud seniors are not convinced that coming down against the police and state prosecutors, the country’s gatekeepers and regulators, is the best strategy. They would rather focus on the government’s achievements in the spheres of security, economics and foreign policy. The problem is that besides weak criticism from Gideon Sa’ar, the former minister reviled by Netanyahu’s associates, all the rest in the Likud are following the party line. Twenty-nine Likud lawmakers and several other politicians are keeping unprecedentedly low profiles and avoiding confrontation with the Netanyahu family. Israel has never gone to elections with so many crucial questions still open. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak says that the upcoming vote is the most important since that following the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

● Though the date is set for April 9, 2019, there is still no organized list of candidates. No one knows who will lead the Zionist Camp list. Will it be current chair Avi Gabbay, or will we witness another political big bang that will push a highly regarded general such as former IDF chief Benny Gantz to the top of the list? Will Gantz create a new party as he planned, or because time is pressing, will he instead join an existing one such as the Zionist Camp or Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid? Will there be new constellations and mergers in the center-left bloc? On Dec. 25, opposition leader Tzipi Livni again called for the center-left bloc to unite and revolt. Could such a plan succeed? Will Gabbay, Lapid, Gantz, Livni, Barak and perhaps even former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi and others agree to square the circle, put their egos on hold and fight for the good of the state rather than for themselves? What are the chances of a major upset on the right? Will Netanyahu throw together an emergency plan in response to a potential center-left unification? Will he try to unify the Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and even HaBayit HaYehudi on one list, offering them parties guaranteed spots on the Knesset list, ensuring Netanyahu’s victory even against a unified leftist coalition? Will the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah split into two parties? Will there

be a historic reconciliation in Shas between current chair Aryeh Deri and former head Eli Yishai?

● Of course, the ultimate question is what Mandelblit will do. He has become a tragic figure of this election campaign. Netanyahu’s fate and Israel’s future rest in his hands, bound up in files bursting with evidence and testimonies that are ticking on his desk like a bomb. Mandelblit has already begun final discussions on whether to put Netanyahu on trial and for which crimes. Mandelblit originally intended to finish up by February or March 2019, but everything collapsed on Dec. 23. Publishing Mandelblit’s decision on the eve of elections could be viewed as political interference. Legally, it is possible, perhaps even advisable — better that the Israelis go to the voting booths knowing the legal system's conclusions regarding their leader. But the choice is a heavy weight for the attorney general to bear and the responsibility on his shoulders is huge. Mandelblit will not want to be perceived as swaying the election. The decision was made over the weekend. State Attorney Shai Nitzan had jump-started the process when he spoke at a Globes convention Dec. 19 and revealed that the state prosecution was already holding intensive discussions regarding a final decision on Netanyahu. Netanyahu had been convinced that he had several months left. He thought that the discussion process had not even started, let alone been completed and transferred to Mandelblit for the final ruling. Suddenly the prime minister realized that the process was winding down.

● Netanyahu realized that time was running out on his political life. On that same evening, it was leaked that the entire state prosecution, including Nitzan himself, were united on the bribery indictment recommendation. Now only Mandelblit remains, and he's made it clear that everything will happen quickly. Netanyahu took the cue. Almost overnight, the northern security threat that Netanyahu had used to avert early elections only a few weeks ago is “almost entirely behind us.” The same person who had spoken grimly Nov. 18 about the “complex security situation” and the need for self-sacrifice shifted nimbly into the next spin. According to Netanyahu on Sunday, the Hezbollah tunnel threat has been removed, so now it’s time for elections. The coalition offered no resistance. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman already resigned and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Education Minister Naftali Bennett both want elections, so the decision was unanimous.

● At this stage, there are numerous unknown variables. No one knows yet who is against whom, what is on the agenda and what the campaign will look like. But most people believe that it will be violent, coarse and full of fake news, slander and invectives, as befits the social network traditions of bots and riots. The last US presidential campaign inspired Netanyahu, so let all the good people beware. But the really decisive issue is the timing: Will Mandelblit make and publicize his decision before the election, perhaps in February, or postpone it? Will Netanyahu win and assemble a coalition government before being indicted, or will the indictment decision be made before the balloting? How will all this drama affect the voters? We will soon find out.