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Israel and the Middle East News Update Thursday, April 30 Headlines: • Likud, Blue and White: Coalition Definite Next Week • High Court to Hear Petitions Against Unity Government Next Week • Lapid Offers to Back Netanyahu in Canceling Rotation Deal with Gantz • Biden Says He’ll Keep US Embassy in Jerusalem if Elected • Senior Aid Says Biden Against Annexation • FBI Document Hints at Israeli Efforts to Help Trump in 2016 Campaign • Germany Classifies Hezbollah as Terrorist Organization, Conducts Raid • Israeli Land Lease at Tzofar Under Jordanian Peace Deal ends Thursday Commentary: • Yedioth Ahronoth: “Supreme Court Justices, Give the Government a Chance” - By Ben Dror Yemini, commentator at Yedioth Ahronoth • Al Monitor: “Can Anyone Stop Netanyahu’s Annexation Plans?” - By Ben Caspit, commentator at Al Monitor S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 www.centerpeace.org News Excerpts April 30, 2020 Times of Israel Likud, Blue and White: Coalition Definite Next Week With next Thursday’s deadline to build a coalition fast approaching, Likud and Blue and White officials expressed confidence on Wednesday night that they will pass the necessary legislation to enable a government in the week ahead. President Reuven Rivlin’s three-week mandate for any MK to obtain the support of 61 MKs to form a government expires next Thursday night at midnight. That has become the deadline to pass two separate bills that Likud and Blue and White see as a prerequisite for the government’s formation. A filibuster by Yesh Atid-Telem put making that deadline into jeopardy. But Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who is now Knesset Speaker, added three extra voting days in the Knesset plenum on Thursday, Sunday and next Sunday to ensure that the bills will be passed. Ha’aretz High Court to Hear Petitions Against Unity Government Next Week The High Court of Justice is set to hear on Sunday and Monday eight petitions filed to it against the coalition agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan, and against allowing a person who is under criminal indictment – as Netanyahu currently is – to form a new government. Supreme Court President Justice Esther Hayut announced on Tuesday that 11 out of the court's 15 justices will hear the petitions. Earlier on Tuesday, Likud and Kahol Lavan submitted their official responses to the petitions, arguing that the High Court must not intervene in political matters. The court also accepted Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit's request to delay the deadline for his response to the petitions. Ha’aretz Lapid Offers to Back Netanyahu in Canceling Rotation Deal With Gantz Yair Lapid on Monday offered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the support of his party, Yesh Atid- Telem, if Netanyahu wants to cancel the prime ministerial rotation with Knesset Speaker Benny Gantz.“At any given moment that Bibi does not feel like carrying out the rotation, all he has to do is to come to me and say: ‘We want to return these laws to their original wording,’ and I want to tell you something – we will say yes,” said Lapid in a session of the Knesset Arrangements Committee on amending the Basic Law on the Government. The changes are intended to pave the way for the implementation of the coalition agreement between Netanyahu and Gantz and allow the automatic rotation of the prime ministership between the two. Ha’aretz Biden Says He’ll Keep US Embassy in Jerusalem if Elected Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday that the US embassy in Israel would remain in Jerusalem if he’s elected, even as he called US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the diplomatic base from Tel Aviv “short-sighted and frivolous.” Biden, speaking during a virtual fundraiser, suggested relocating the embassy again would not help the stagnant peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. “But now that it’s done, I would not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv,” Biden said. Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, when he announced plans to move the embassy there. 2 I24 News Senior Aid Says Biden Against Annexation A top-level aide to former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee is against Israel's unilateral annexation of the West Bank, as laid out in the Trump administration peace plan and which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports. According to online publication Jewish Insider, senior foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken said that Biden had been “on the record several times [that] unilateral steps taken by either side that make the prospect of a negotiated two-state outcome less likely is something he opposes, and that includes annexation." Blinken made the comments while speaking via webinar to representatives of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “In many ways, pulling the plug on a two-state solution is pulling the plug, potentially, on an Israel that is not only secure but is Jewish and democratic — for the future. That’s not something any of us, who are ardent supporters of Israel, would want to see,” Blinken added. Times of Israel FBI Document Hints at Israeli Efforts to Help Trump in 2016 Campaign Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump who was convicted last year in Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was “going to be defeated unless we intervene” and promised “we have critical intel [sic].”The exchange between Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday. The documents — FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone — were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations. Ynet News Germany Classifies Hezbollah as Terrorist Organization, Conducts Raids Germany has banned Iran-backed Hezbollah activity on its soil and designated it a terrorist organization, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. Police conducted early morning raids in Germany to detain suspected members of the group. Security officials believe up to 1,050 people in Germany are part of Hezbollah's extremist wing. "Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has banned the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah in Germany," tweeted a ministry spokesman. "Even in times of crisis, the rule of law is capable of acting," he added. Officials raided four mosque associations in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen and Berlin which they believe are close to Hezbollah. Germany had previously distinguished between Hezbollah's political arm and its military units. Jerusalem Post Israeli Land Lease at Tzofar Under Jordanian Peace Deal ends Thursday Israeli farmers from Moshav Tzofar are scheduled to hold a small ceremony on Thursday afternoon to mark the end of a 25-year land lease from neighboring Jordan that had been set out under the terms of the 1994 peace deal between the two countries. Members of IDF Division 80 and farmers from Tzofar are set to take part in the ceremony Under an annex in the 1994 peace deal with Israel, a 25-year arrangement was reached in which land at Naharayim and Tzofar, which had been set to be returned to Jordan, remained in Israeli hands. It was expected that after 25 years, the Hashemite Kingdom would extend the arrangement. But in light of strained relations between Israel and Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom ended the arrangement last year. 3 Yedioth Ahronoth – April 30, 2020 Supreme Court Justices, Give the Government a Chance By Ben Dror Yemini, commentator at Yedioth Ahronoth • On Sunday, the High Court of Justice, in an expanded panel of 11 justices, is due to hear the petitions against the coalition agreement. Many good people have pointed out the flaws in the agreement. It stipulates a huge government, wasteful, all the signatories mistrust each other, it requires basic laws to be changed for political needs. These are indeed problems. But striking down the agreement would be a much bigger problem. • In the last few years, allegations have repeatedly been made about the end of democracy or its fragility. It’s not at all clear whether these allegations are correct. But one thing is clear: a sweeping disqualification of the agreement will not strengthen democracy, it will hurt it. It’s true that the agreement contains some insufferable sections, like the revised Norwegian law, which is interesting because the signatories realized that this section was unreasonable. They didn’t wait for the High Court of Justice to disqualify it—they did so themselves. • The labor pains of the biggest government in Israel’s history are difficult. It comes after years of polarization and extremism and incitement and mutual invective. It’s not what the majority of the people want, neither the right wing nor the left wing, and certainly not the center. Israel needs a calming process. The only way to have one is by means of a unity government. It’s not that this government will resolve all the problems, nor will it quiet the serial inciters on social media. But, nevertheless, it is the first step in the process of national reconciliation. It will improve the situation. All the drawbacks that Yair Lapid has enumerated in the coalition agreement are less bad than another round of elections. After all, as the prophets of “the end of democracy” see it, another right-wing government would turn Israel into Turkey. So why do they want another election that is liable to put another right-wing government into power? • We are at a crossroads in the relationship between government and justice, and in the relationship between the rival blocs.
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