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Home , Moshe Gafni

Battle Over Budget Risks Election, More Economic Gloom by Maayan Lubell @ Reuters

A festering crisis over passage of a national budget could push into its fourth election, further straining an economy hard hit by the pandemic. Crunch time is approaching: Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bickering coalition, patched together in May, has by law until Dec. 23 to pass the 2020 budget, a move held up by political stalemate and successive national ballots. Failure to do so by the deadline would automatically trigger an election that both Netanyahu and his governing partner, Blue & White chief , insist they do not want. Gantz wants a 2021 budget passed in tandem, saying it would speed up economic recovery and is demanding real progress be made soon. It’s a game of thrones, political and economic commentators said, with a budget crisis a potential means for Netanyahu to hold a new election and scupper a “rotation” pact under which he would hand over the premiership to Gantz in Nov. 2021. Three top finance ministry officials have already quit, in a sign of frustration over the budget bickering. Israel is still using a pro-rated version of the 2019 budget. The power-sharing accord between Netanyahu and Gantz stipulated Israel would pass a biennial budget for 2020 and 2021 - a de-facto insurance policy for a smooth transition of power. “Forget the pandemic, forget the economy, forget everything. Netanyahu wants to survive,” said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. “We’re basically in the hands of one person

After the ultra-Orthodox rebellion, Netanyahu looks weaker than ever Anshel Pfeffer | Oct. 19, 2020 | 5:04 AM | Haaretz Under the terms of the historic agreement signed by Israel’s founder David Ben-Gurion in 1947, the ultra- Orthodox community had every right to decide for itself when to open its schools this week. In what would become known as the “status quo letter,” Ben-Gurion promised the Haredi leadership he would preserve “autonomy of every education stream.” In principle, he was against separate school systems in the soon-to-be Jewish state. But 11 months before its foundation, he made the necessary concessions to ensure the Haredi leaders wouldn’t adopt a contradictory position to that of the Zionists in talks with the United Nations. Five years later, when all other education streams were combined under the new Education Ministry, Ben- Gurion kept his promise: “Chinuch atzmai,” ultra-Orthodoxy’s “independent education,” stayed out of the system. Over the years, various governments increased state funding for the Haredi schools – including Yitzhak Rabin’s in 1992. But the autonomy remained. The decision to reopen ultra-Orthodox boys’ schools on Sunday (Haredi girls can stay home for now; their education is deemed of secondary importance) while the rest of the country’s schools remain closed represents the total, perhaps terminal, failure of the status quo agreement on state and religion. The Haredi insistence on ignoring the government’s lockdown instructions and endangering their community, and all of Israel’s population, in further spreading COVID-19 is above all an act of belligerence. It may have an ideological base: the Haredi choice to continue teaching Torah to large groups, even at the risk to public health and life itself. But it wouldn’t have happened if the rabbis and their emissaries didn’t know they could get away with it. In his Saturday night press conference, Prime Minister was unusually frank when he told reporters that “we have a limited number of police officers. … We don’t have the capability to send an officer to every street corner, to every ally.” There are over 1,000 ultra-Orthodox schools, some very small. Even if the police and local councils were serious about trying to close them all, it’s extremely doubtful whether they could.

1 Of course, Netanyahu didn’t add that trying to enforce the law on the Haredi schools would be political suicide for him. and probably also would not remain in his government for one day. His power base as prime minister would disintegrate immediately. Netanyahu on Saturday night was vulnerable as he has never been since returning to power in 2009. The fragile foundations of his power were exposed for all to see. Netanyahu now knows he has no choice but to reach a compromise with Gantz on crucial issues such as the 2021 state budget and the appointment of a new state prosecutor. Holding an early election now, when the entire Israeli public is witnessing how he’s being held a helpless hostage by a merciless ultra-Orthodox leadership, is unthinkable. The Haredim may be able to do whatever they choose. But the tactical victory of the Haredi autonomy over the Israeli state could turn out to be a strategic defeat. They may have suborned the prime minister now, but one day Netanyahu will be gone. Their choice to detach themselves from the rest of Israeli society in such an overt fashion, at the depth of a national crisis, will not be forgotten. Not even when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available. In their power- drunk stupidity, the rabbis and Haredi politicians have irrevocably tainted their alliance with the right wing. This unshakable alliance was Netanyahu’s rock through three stalemated elections when he failed to win a majority. Now it’s weighing him down, into the electoral depths. And the other right-wing leaders are terrified it will drag them down along with him. It’s not just a political pack that’s in danger, though. The 73-year-old truce between the Haredim and the rest of Israeli society is sinking as well. The ultra-Orthodox leadership’s abuse of the status quo agreement is stretching it to breaking point. Those who have been arguing for years that it’s a woefully outdated document, irrelevant to life in 21st-century Israel, are now emboldened. The coronavirus is killing the status quo, and once it dies it will be much easier for the Israeli mainstream, including the secular right, to demand basic rights denied by the agreement – like the right to civil marriage, to public transportation on Shabbat, and the right for young Haredi men and women to choose a full education and their shared place in Israeli society.

Israeli Firm Signs Deal to Pipe UAE Oil to Europe By Raphael Ahren @ Times of Israel

An oil pipeline running from the Red Sea resort of Eilat to the Mediterranean port city of Ashkelon will be extended to the UAE, providing the country with a bridge to get fossil fuel directly to Europe, an Israeli company said. It is seen as one of the most significant collaborations to have emerged since the countries established diplomatic ties. The memorandum of understanding is between the state-owned Europe-Asia Pipeline Co., formerly the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co., and a company called MED-RED Land Bridge, which is a joint venture between Israelis and Emiratis, according to an announcement. EAPC said in a statement that the collaboration is significant news for the global energy market, since it will offer oil producers and refiners the shortest, most efficient and most cost-effective route to transport oil and related products from the Arabian Gulf to the consumption centers in the West, and provides access for consumers in the Far East to oil produced in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. The deal is worth $700-$800m over several years, according to Reuters, which cited an unnamed official with knowledge of the details. As a senior Emirati delegation made a landmark visit Tuesday to the Jewish state, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the UAE expressed its wish to facilitate the reciprocal opening of embassies in and Abu Dhabi “as soon as possible.” The UAE delegation signed four bilateral agreements with Israel on Tuesday, including a visa waiver agreement.

2 During a welcoming ceremony for the UAE officials at Ben Gurion Airport, the United States, Israel and the UAE also announced the creation of a trilateral fund seeking to foster regional cooperation and prosperity. The $3 billion Abraham Fund will be based in Jerusalem. The visa exemption treaty, which was signed and needs to be ratified by both countries before coming into force, is Israel’s first such agreement with an Arab country. On Monday, Etihad Airways Flight EY9607 — lauded as the first commercial shuttle from the UAE to Israel — landed at Ben-Gurion. That flight came a day after the two nations agreed to enable 28 weekly direct flights between their territories. The flight arrived without passengers but later ferried an Israeli travel and tourism delegation to Abu Dhabi. Last week Etihad Airways launched a website in Hebrew, aiming to attract Israeli customers. On Thursday, the approved Israel’s normalization deal with the UAE by an overwhelming majority, all but ensuring that it will be ratified in the near future.

Israel's tally of serious virus cases drops below 600 for first time in weeks Ynet 10.21.20

Israel on Wednesday morning reported the number of serious coronavirus cases in the country has dropped to below 600 for the first time in weeks. The Health Ministry said 1,165 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, after 41,193 tests had been conducted, putting the contagion rate at below 3%. The number of patients in serious condition now stands at 591, of whom 229 are ventilated. The official death toll has increased to 2,278, after seven patients passed away in the past 24 hours. The tally of active patients currently ill with the disease now stands at 21,010, almost one third from the same figure reported over two weeks ago.

Treating Saeb Erekat By DAVID HOROVITZ @ TOI

An early Palestinian advocate of talks with Israel on a two-state solution, Saeb Erekat over the years has also proved himself a formidable and malevolent adversary. At the height of the Second Intifada in April 2002, when the IDF entered the Jenin refugee camp from which waves of Palestinian suicide bombers were being dispatched to target Israelis, Erekat was at the forefront of an extraordinarily potent misinformation campaign that claimed Israel’s soldiers had killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians there, massacring them in cold blood and burying them in mass graves. In fact, 50-55 Palestinians, most of them armed gunmen, and 23 Israeli soldiers lost their lives in bitter fighting. The horrific false allegations disseminated by Erekat and his colleagues were given wide credibility and immense coverage in much of the international media; in Britain, for instance, where those allegations made front-page news and were quoted in Parliament, Israel’s image, already long under assault, has never quite recovered. Weeks later, I remember watching the articulate, passionate Erekat describing live on CNN how Israeli troops were in the process of storming and burning the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Erekat wasn’t there; he was speaking from his hometown of Jericho. The incendiary claim, again, was both false and immensely damaging to Israel. But PLO secretary-general Erekat has not only shown himself to be a malicious anti-Israel propagandist; he has also served as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s righthand man in pursuing a strategy profoundly damaging to his own people’s cause. Infuriated by Netanyahu’s annexation plans, the Palestinian leadership has severed most dealings with Israel, to the direct detriment of its people, notably refusing to accept the tax revenues that Israel collects on the PA’s behalf for Palestinian imports and exports. Most relevantly in Erekat’s case, the PA has canceled the

3 arrangements by which Palestinians needing medical treatment not available in PA areas can be transferred to Israeli hospitals. These measures have not been reversed even though annexation is now indefinitely off the table; Israel and the UN, however, have formulated a mechanism, outflanking the PA, by which Palestinian patients are again being transferred to Israeli hospitals. During the first wave of the COVID pandemic, Erekat declared: "The Israelis are spitting on Palestinian cars and Palestinian property in order to spread the virus and fulfill their wild desire to be free of them in some way." As I write, Saeb Erekat, 65, is on life support at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, suffering from COVID-19. Treating him, the hospital has said, is extremely complicated because he has a history of medical problems, including undergoing a lung transplant in 2017. The hospital said it has been reaching out to international experts for input. Erekat was taken to Hadassah, the PLO’s Negotiations Department said, because his condition required “special medical attention and supervision.” “Mr. Erekat is receiving top-notch professional care like all serious coronavirus patients at Hadassah,” Zeev Rothstein, the hospital’s director, said on Sunday. “And the staff will do everything to assist his recovery.” There’s a whole world of tragedies, hypocrisies, ironies and, potentially, lessons in this story — about what genuine coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians could achieve, about failed leadership, about what ultimately matters most to us all. I truly hope Saeb Erekat will live to internalize and benefit from some of those lessons. What is certain is that a leading hospital in the State of Israel is doing everything in its power to give him that opportunity. Of course it is. “At Hadassah,” said Rothstein, “we treat every patient as if he were our only patient.”

Israel's secret embassy in Bahrain Barak Ravid @ AXIOS

Israel has been conducting undercover diplomacy in Bahrain for more than a decade through a front company listed as a commercial consulting firm. Why it matters: The existence of the covert diplomatic mission in the Bahraini capital Manama shows the depth of a secret relationship that came out into the open with a White House ceremony last month. The existence of the secret diplomatic office remained under an Israeli government gag order for 11 years. A short report about it appeared on Israel’s Channel 11 news last week. The backstory: Negotiations over a potential secret diplomatic mission started in 2007-2008 through a series of secret meetings between Israel's then-foreign minister, , and her Bahraini counterpart, Khaled Bin Ahmad al-Khalifa. Their close relationship, along with a decision by regional rival Qatar to shut down Israel's diplomatic mission in Doha, convinced the Bahrainis to approve the opening of a secret Israeli mission in Manama, Israeli officials say. How it happened: On July 13, 2009, a company named “The Center for International Development” was registered in Bahrain. It was a front, providing cover for Israeli diplomacy. According to Bahraini public records, the company offered marketing, commercial promotion and investment services. The front company changed its name in 2013. We can’t disclose the current name for security reasons. According to the company’s website, it provides consultancy services to Western companies interested in non- oil investments in the Gulf — mainly in the fields of medical technology, renewable energy, food security and IT. The website claims the company's strong network of contacts in Bahrain and around the region helps it close deals. How it worked: The front company was in fact hiring a very specific type of employee: Israeli diplomats with dual nationality.

4 One of the shareholders listed in public records is Brett Jonathan Miller — a South African national who was appointed in 2013 as Israel’s consul general in Mumbai. A second shareholder, Ido Moed, is a Belgian national who today serves as the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s cyber coordinator. On the company's board was Ilan Fluss, a British national and now the Israeli Foreign Ministry's deputy director general for the economy. In 2018, the company appointed a new CEO — an American national whose name can't be revealed. He was recently replaced by another Israeli diplomat with dual nationality. The Israeli diplomats all had cover stories, backed up by unconvincing LinkedIn profiles. Behind the scenes: A small group of Bahraini officials was aware of the secret mission. Several times over the last decade, concerns about possible leaks led to urgent damage control consultations between the countries to make sure the secret would remain secret. Israeli officials tell me the secret mission really did promote hundreds of business deals struck by Israeli companies in Bahrain. It also served as a secret communications channel for the Israeli government. What’s next: On Sunday in Manama, minutes after the signing of a joint communique on establishing diplomatic relations, an Israeli official handed the Bahraini Foreign Minister a note with a request to open a genuine embassy in Manama. The infrastructure is already largely in place thanks to the secret mission, Israeli officials say. "All we have to do is change the sign on the door," one told Axios.

Alliance with ultra-Orthodox could bring Netanyahu down Mazal Mualem Oct 20, 2020 Al Monitor

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been suffering from a debilitating headache over the last few days, in the person of the 92-year-old leader of the Lithuanian faction of the ultra-Orthodox sector, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. On the night of Oct. 18, the rabbi ordered that his community’s school must be opened at once. His ruling ran counter to the government’s instructions for the nationwide lockdown exit plan, set in place to help the country get through the second wave of the coronavirus. Most people were furious about the rabbi’s decision. Some 2 million students have been forced to spend the last month at home to prevent the spread of the pandemic’s second wave. And yet dozens of ultra-Orthodox schools are acting in blatant disregard of the government by bringing their students back prematurely. When Netanyahu appealed to Kanievsky’s parliamentary representative, Knesset member Moshe Gafni (Yahadut HaTorah), he was informed outright that Gafni and his community take orders from Rabbi Kanievsky only. Just two weeks ago, Kanievsky himself fell ill with the coronavirus but has since recovered. Yet even his own experience with the virus hasn’t kept him from becoming the ultimate personification of the ultra-Orthodox sector’s disengagement and alienation from official Israeli policy and institutions. Netanyahu may have a tight alliance with the ultra-Orthodox parties and their leaders — Kanievsky among them — but this is now harming him publicly and electorally. The overall impression is that he is not being tough enough with them and that the only people really paying the price for that are those who do follow the government’s instruction. Public ire at the ultra-Orthodox community is a direct product of the rates of infections. Most cities in red zones are ultra-Orthodox. In other words, the spread of the virus can be attributed directly to the violation of official orders, public prayer services, weddings and school openings. All of these come at a steep price. A poll released by Channel 13 on Sunday found that over 60% of the public believes that decisions about lifting the second closure are being made for political, rather than professional, reasons. The poll also found that Netanyahu has been treading water when it comes to the number of seats he would win if elections were held now. While he hasn’t collapsed entirely, people now believe that party leader is the one political leader who takes a practical approach to the coronavirus pandemic and that he is benefiting from the public lack of trust in the Netanyahu government. The shrinking gap in polls between the and Yamina is 5 certainly worrying to Netanyahu. While Netanyahu’s Likud would win 27 seats, Bennett’s New Right party is not far behind with 24 seats in the polls. Netanyahu is certainly well aware that any perceived submission to the ultra-Orthodox can be potentially damaging to him. That is why he has spent the last few days calling on the ultra-Orthodox to follow the rules. He has even warned that he would take steps to enforce them, but that is probably nothing more than an empty threat. The prime minister is caught in a cruel trap. If he does take steps against the ultra-Orthodox, he will lose their support, and without that support, he will no longer be able to continue in office as prime minister. On the other hand, if he does succumb to the ultra-Orthodox, he is likely to lose large swathes of his own electorate. The situation is expressed succinctly in a cartoon that appeared in Haaretz on Oct. 20. It shows the elderly Rabbi Kanievsky, with his grandson beside him, holding out a colorful coronavirus ice cone. The caption has Kanievsky saying “Third time, ice cream” — the Hebrew equivalent to “Third time’s a charm.” The message is clear: As a result of his refusal to abide by official ordinances, a third closure is only a matter of time — and the cost to public health and the economy will be borne by those people who do follow the ordinances. The ultra-Orthodox community was livid. Journalist Avi Rabina tweeted: “The cartoon is infuriating and disgraceful. A caricature mocking a Muslim or Christian spiritual leader would not be published without creating a tumult.” But the secular community and even large parts of the religious and traditional communities feel no empathy for the rabbi and his followers. In fact, they are running out of patience. The coronavirus crisis has brought old disparities in the ways that the burdens of citizenship are shared between the ultra-Orthodox and secular communities back to the forefront of the public discourse, including such hot-button issues as serving in the military or receiving state stipendiums. If the debate has died down over the last few years, it has resurfaced in all its fury over the last few days. Business owners who have paid taxes all their lives are going bankrupt because of the closure and other government ordinances, while one sector of the population, the ultra- Orthodox, acts as if they have total autonomy. In a speech to the Knesset on Oct. 19, Lapid said: “If I was prime minister, educational institutions that failed to follow the ordinances would not get a 5,000 shekel fine. They would be fined 100,000 shekels. The next time it happened, they would be denied all budgets. Any educational institution that fails to follow the ordinances will wake up the next morning to discover that they won’t be getting another penny from the state. This is not intended to attack the ultra-Orthodox. This is intended to help the ultra-Orthodox. This will save their lives.” All this while, the public is learning from the press and internet about even more violations of public order in ultra-Orthodox cities and towns. Members of the community can be heard attacking Netanyahu and claiming that Kanievsky is their prime minister. He is even called as much in the ultra-Orthodox press. All of this coincides with reports of tensions between Netanyahu and the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox Knesset factions. Yet even the political leaders of the ultra-Orthodox factions are helpless in dealing with communities in crisis. Shas Party leader recently warned Netanyahu that the ultra-Orthodox community will rebel against coronavirus ordinances. What is worth noting is that these politicians also realize that they are headed in a bad direction and that if Netanyahu does fall, they could find themselves out of the government. The problem is that they are also being held captive by their base. In reality, they are caught in a trap that could cause Netanyahu’s alliance with the ultra-Orthodox to come tumbling down, burying him — and them — in its ruins.

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