Israel and the Middle East News Update

Friday, March 6

Headlines: ● Liberman Will Support Bill to Disqualify Netanyahu ● Blue & White Leader Backs Minority Gov't with Arab Support ● 14 Americans Stuck in Palestinian Hotel Due to Coronavirus ● PA Shutters , Quarantines Bethlehem ● Coronavirus at Pandemic Level, Israeli Health Official Warns ● US to Okay Annexation if Palestinians Don’t Negotiate ● Israel Attends Anti-terrorism Conference in Morocco ● Israelis and Palestinians Discuss Efforts to Counter Corona

Commentary: ● Ma’ariv: “Number Theory” − By Ben Caspit

● Times of Israel: “Ousting Bibi Could Become Gantz's Biggest Mistake” − By Haviv Rettig Gur

S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 The Hon. Robert Wexler, President News Excerpts March 6, 2020

Times of Israel Liberman Will Support Bill to Disqualify Netanyahu Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party is expected to recommend to President Reuven Rivlin that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz be tasked with forming a government. With Liberman’s backing, Gantz could receive more recommendations than Netanyahu. Liberman’s reported move to back Gantz is also aimed at giving Blue and White control over the Knesset speaker position, allowing the opposition parties to advance legislation that would prevent a person facing criminal charges from forming a government — effectively disqualifying Netanyahu from doing so. After holding a faction meeting earlier Thursday, Yisrael Beytenu said in a statement that it had decided “to move forward with the promotion of two laws: The first law will limit the tenure of a prime minister to two terms. The second law will prevent an MK facing indictment from forming a government.”

I24 News Blue & White Leader Backs Minority Gov't with Arab Support Moshe "Boggie" Ya'alon, former Defense Minister under Benjamin Netanyahu and head of Telem party within the Blue and White alliance, is backing the prospect of a minority government with outside support from the Arab Joint List, reported Friday. Previously, he reportedly opposed this idea, but now said during at least two recent meetings that he would be willing to back it on the condition that Joint List's hardline Balad faction is left out. As one of the more hawkish factions within the centrist alliance, Telem reportedly saw two of its members blamed for sinking the minority government as an option after the September vote. While the official results are yet to be announced, the tally released by the Central Election commission unofficially puts the Joint List at 15 mandates, its best performance on record. Three of those are to be held by Balad members.

Jerusalem Post 14 Americans Stuck in Palestinian Hotel Due to Coronavirus At least 40 people have been quarantined against their will in a Palestinian hotel near Bethlehem, in the West Bank, due to an outbreak of coronavirus. They include 14 American citizens, as well as about 25 Palestinian guests and employees. The Angel Hotel, in mostly Christian Beit Jala, just west of the city where Jesus is said to have been born, is where seven people were discovered to have the virus, making them the first known cases in the Palestinian Authority, a matter made public on Thursday morning. The Israeli Defense Ministry ordered an end to crossings from the area until further notice. There are currently 17 known cases of coronavirus in Israel, where harsh measures have been imposed in an effort to stop the spread.

2 Times of Israel PA Shutters West Bank, Israel Quarantines Bethlehem The Palestinian Authority declared an unprecedented state of emergency in the West Bank Thursday after seven Bethlehem residents were confirmed to be carrying the coronavirus, shutting schools, banning tourists and placing restrictions on gatherings and movement between cities. Israel, which controls the West Bank, placed Bethlehem on lockdown, banning Israelis and Palestinians from entering or leaving the storied city, as officials from both governments race to contain the virus’s spread in Palestinian population centers. PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday issued a presidential decree declaring a state of emergency in all Palestinian-controlled territory for 30 days beginning at 8 a.m. Friday, authorizing officials to take “all necessary measures to confront the risks resulting from the coronavirus and to protect public health.”

Times of Israel Coronavirus at Pandemic Level, Israeli Health Official Warns Health Ministry’s Asher Shalmon says situation around the world points to an emerging ‘full- blown international event,’ says vaccine a year away despite claims. The novel coronavirus spreading across the world is already at a “pandemic” stage, a top Israeli health official said Thursday, though world health authorities have held off from declaring a global outbreak. “Although officially the World Health Organization did not yet declare a pandemic, we do feel we are at a pandemic stage,” Asher Shalmon, the Health Ministry’s director of international relations, said Thursday. The coronavirus has infected nearly 98,000 people worldwide and killed over 3,300, the vast majority of them in China. Cases have been reported in 80 countries and in recent days, more people outside of China have been falling ill than inside the country, where the virus is on the decline.

Times of Israel US to Okay Annexation if Palestinians Don’t Negotiate Senior White House officials were quoted Thursday by an Israeli television network as saying that they intended to green-light Israeli annexation of swaths of West Bank land within months if the Palestinians don’t return to the negotiating table. According to Channel 13, the sources said they intend to go ahead with the implementation of the peace plan unveiled earlier this year by US President Donald Trump’s administration. They reportedly stressed that this would happen even if fourth successive Knesset elections are called following another deadlocked vote this week. They added that both contenders for the premiership, the incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu and challenger Benny Gantz, know that Trump’s presidency marks a unique opportunity.

3 Times of Israel Israel Attends Anti-terrorism Conference in Morocco Two major polls released Sunday evening show that embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a small lead over chief rival Benny Gantz just a week before Israel's general election. According to surveys published by Israel's Channel 12 and public broadcaster Kan, Netanyahu party is up one seat over the centrist Blue & White alliance. The Channel 12 poll gives Likud a 34 to 33 advantage in the race, while the Kan survey shows 35 seats for Likud and 34 for Blue & White. But experts believe that the fall out from the announcement of an investigation into Gantz's former security company, Fifth Dimension, has hurt the opposition leader. Gantz is currently not a suspect in the probe.

Ha’aretz Israelis and Palestinians Discuss Efforts to Counter Corona In a rare move, Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials met Thursday to coordinate joint efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19. Director of the National Security Council for Counter-Terrorism, Public Security and the Home Front, Yigal Slovik, as well as officials from Israel's Health Ministry and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories at the Defense Ministry (COGAT) represented Israel in the meeting. Both sides shared information that has been gathered so far about the spread of the global pandemic and coordinated stances about future steps to deal with the disease. In addition, the PA and Israeli officials decided to cooperate on epidemiologic investigations, particularly those involving tourists who visited both Israel and the PA-controlled West Bank.

4 Ma’ariv– March 6, 2020 Number Theory By Ben Caspit, ● Strange as it sounds, both boxers got pummeled mercilessly this week. The one who took a worse beating was Binyamin Netanyahu, who had already celebrated his “huge victory” with drums, dances and parties, only to find out two days later that he had become the new Shimon Peres. When we went to sleep, we had Bibi; when we woke up, we had Tibi. He doesn’t have a government, and he probably won’t have one either. The end of his political career seems closer than ever. The other one is Benny Gantz. A pale campaign and an outcome that wasn’t good enough made him “Mr. Almost.” The terrible defamatory campaign that Netanyahu waged against him left him deeply scarred. An unprecedentedly dirty wave of rumors, fabrications, smears and curses that the prime minister’s campaign surrogates spread tarnished Gantz’s good name and made him, at least for now, one of the people who despises Netanyahu the most. All that’s left is to wish that Bibi had used these methods in the war against Hamas. The lives of the residents of the Gaza periphery communities could have looked completely different. ● Now that the dust of battle has settled, it turns out that Gantz’s options are much better than Netanyahu’s possibilities. The “anyone but Netanyahu” camp is bigger than the “only Netanyahu” camp. Bibi doesn’t have a government, Gantz can go in a few interesting directions. But for the moment he’s in shock and licking his wounds, and not just him: the entire cockpit is trying to catch its breath again and reorganize its thoughts after getting off the crazy roller coaster that a campaigner as wicked, ruthless and uninhibited as Binyamin Netanyahu put them through. The disagreement revolves around a double issue: should they go for legislation to prevent a criminal defendant from serving as prime minister and block Netanyahu and end his political career that way? Should they form a minority government consisting of Blue and White and Labor- Gesher-Meretz, which will rely on the outside support of 12 MKs from the Joint List (without Balad) and Liberman? ● The second issue has begun to develop in an interesting way: former defense minister and chief of staff Moshe (Bogie) Yaalon has not rejected it out of hand. Yaalon’s disgust with Netanyahu has reached the upper red line, way before the Sea of Galilee’s. As of now, he is willing to hold his nose and swear in such a government, hoping that within a few months the right wing-Haredi bloc will fall apart and some of them will sneak, one by one and undetected, into the government, while Netanyahu tiptoes into the courthouse. Some members of the cockpit object to this option. One of them is Gabi Ashkenazi. The argument is underway. Lapid, as far as we know, is on Bogie’s side. And Gantz? He hasn’t made his final decision yet. ● The only one who knows what he’s doing is, as usual, Avigdor Liberman. While we deliberate about where the spin over the bill to prevent a criminal defendant from forming a government originated, as Blue and White cloaks itself in silence and uncertainty, and no one really knows what to do know, Avigdor Liberman emerged to make order: supports this bill. Not only starting from the next Knesset, but in the current 5 one. Liberman will hold his nose and recommend Gantz to the president. There’s a good chance that Gantz will receive the mandate first. An Arrangements Committee will be formed under Blue and White’s control, the confrontational Knesset speaker will be ousted, and the legislative proceedings can begin. ● Will that happen? It’s unclear and uncertain. What has happened is that Liberman has taken over the agenda again, seized the reins and told Netanyahu that he no longer controls his own fate. This leverage has threatened Netanyahu like he’s never been threatened before. He can create the energy needed to reshuffle the deck. Among the top Likud officials, and not only at the top, people are whispering that Netanyahu would do well to strive to come to a speedy plea bargain agreement that will allow him to get on with his life without going through Maasiyahu Prison and allow the country to move on under a unity government with an equal alternating premiership. ● The clock is ticking. On March 16, the 23rd Knesset will be sworn in. Netanyahu will be there and will rise when President Reuven Rivlin steps into the plenum. The day after, on March 17, he’s scheduled to sit in the District Court and rise when the panel of judges hearing his case steps in. These two locations and events are separated by only one day and a few kilometers, but they are worlds apart. In one he’s prime minister and calls the shots, while in the other he is a defendant who has been charged with serious crimes. Sic transit gloria mundi, although in our case it takes a very long time.

6 Times of Israel – March 6, 2020 Ousting Bibi Could Become Gantz's Biggest Mistake By Haviv Rettig Gur, ● The Yisrael Beytenu party announced on Thursday that it would support a law barring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming the next government because he is under indictment, in a move that may well have shifted the Knesset math decisively in favor of the legislation. ● “At the faction meeting that just ended, it was decided to move forward with the promotion of two laws,” the secular, right-wing party said in a statement. “The first law will limit the tenure of a prime minister to two terms. The second law will prevent an MK facing indictment from forming a government.” It was a bombshell. A great deal divides the anti-Netanyahu coalition — on nearly every issue, Blue and White is closer to Likud than to the Arab-majority parties of the Joint List. But all are temporarily united by the specific and narrow conviction that Netanyahu’s time in power should come to a close. ● As Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said on Friday in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster, “Our bloc is not a bloc of friends marching together on a shared path.” During an internal consultation in Yisrael Beytenu leaked to Hebrew media, Liberman reportedly described his goal thus: “One thing is clear: We won’t let Netanyahu go to a fourth election. Our goal is to establish a government as quickly as possible and to send Netanyahu to his retirement. Even Likud members of Knesset who talk to me are telling me, ‘Well done for making this move.’ They want to see Netanyahu finish his term and leave [the PM’s residence on] Balfour [Street in Jerusalem].” ● With Liberman pulling that trigger, Likud’s election-day celebrations suddenly imploded into the painful prospect of a very close and very sudden end to Netanyahu’s long reign. And yet. Israel’s electoral system seems simple on paper — a nationwide single- constituency party-list system with a government voted in by a parliamentary majority. But Israel’s complex and divided society means that any majority requires the support of a broad array of subcultures and divergent political interests and identities. Negotiating one’s way through Israeli politics can lead to strange crossroads and unexpected u- turns. ● Following Liberman’s announcement, Israel’s political system is now at one of those inflection points. Some in Likud are in sack cloth and ashes over the possibility that the law would exclude Netanyahu from the premiership, and deliver victory to a once unimaginable Gantz-Liberman-Joint List coalition — not a formal declared coalition, perhaps, but a decisive majority nonetheless voting together to replace Netanyahu. Yet not everyone in Likud is in mourning. Some are counseling patience and insisting this setback is no setback at all. ● The past 11 months have taught Likud three times over that the bloc it leads cannot win a majority outright. But they have also taught Likud that support for Netanyahu from perhaps 45-48% of the electorate is stable and reliable. Let Gantz attempt to govern through his minority government, wholly reliant on keeping both the Arab parties and the 7 right-wingers of Telem and Yisrael Beytenu all rowing in the same direction, this faction in Likud is now arguing. Let Gantz try to pass budgets, assign ministries, fight a bout with Hamas in Gaza and survive a no-confidence vote, all while satisfying the diametrically opposed agendas of his erstwhile allies. ● And when he fails, when the underlying claim at the heart of Blue and White — that it is a viable and stable alternative to Likud rule — is revealed as the mirage that it is, Likud will be there, swooping in on a not-too-distant election day to reclaim the throne for another decade of unassailable political dominance. It’s a comforting prospect for the right, and describes aptly Gantz’s main challenge going forward. And who knows? Maybe by the time Gantz falls, Netanyahu will have concluded his trial and returned unencumbered to the political battlefield. ● Netanyahu, for his part, appears to be angling for a more aggressive approach. If he cannot piece together a new term as premier from Monday’s results, his goal will be to push wedge issues onto the public agenda that will force Gantz’s divided partners to bicker and posture against each other. Rocket fire from Gaza or Gantz’s pre-election promise to carry out some unspecified parts of the Trump peace plan are good places to start. By pushing Gantz’s coalition over the edge, Netanyahu will force new elections in which his accusation that Gantz intends to form a government “dependent on the Joint List” will sound more believable — and in which he will explicitly ask for a mandate from his supporters to reverse the law prohibiting him from becoming prime minister. ● That will be his chance, facing what he hopes will be an undermined Gantz and discredited Liberman, to deliver the “knockout victory” that has eluded him since April. So Likud now finds itself in a complex internal debate about the future, with its prospects less bleak than its bitter Thursday pronouncements might suggest. But that internal Likud debate is not the strangest thing about this political moment. The strangest thing, perhaps, is the simple fact that Gantz’s best hope for prying the premiership out of Netanyahu’s hands may be the very thing that decisively and permanently denies Gantz his hard-fought victory. In an important sense, Netanyahu has already done his job for his party and his political camp. He delivered 36 seats for Likud on Monday, as well as a consistent and measurable plurality for the right-religious alliance. Indeed, with that stability, the only thing keeping Likud from an easy return to the PMO — is Netanyahu himself. ● Netanyahu is celebrated and lionized on the right, but is also hated by a surprisingly large number of right-wing leaders for reasons more visceral and personal than any political disagreement. Liberman, Yamina’s Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, Blue and White MKs Moshe Ya’alon, Yoaz Hendel and Zvika Hauser are among the many, many right-wing politicians who agree with Netanyahu on most policy issues but have a long litany of abuses and betrayals they believe they have suffered at Netanyahu’s hands. Netanyahu has a talent for driving close allies and supporters into the camps of his enemies, and some of those former allies and aides have grown to become potent political adversaries. Netanyahu accused his opponents during the campaign of being an “Anyone But Bibi” camp. His opponents largely agree. Liberman’s opposition to

8 Netanyahu flows from over 20 years of mutual enmity and distrust, a great deal of it caused by Netanyahu himself. Yisrael Beytenu’s backing for legislation that would deny Netanyahu the premiership was framed by Liberman himself on Thursday as a blunt instrument meant to accomplish one thing only: to finally get rid of the long-serving premier. ● But there’s the rub: Likud’s opponents are more keen on getting rid of Netanyahu than on replacing Likud as a ruling party. And that creates a surprising opportunity for the party. Removing Netanyahu from the equation uncorks a great deal of what stands between Likud and a clear Knesset majority for its rule. A Likud now led by a Yuli Edelstein or Israel Katz or Gilad Erdan, or any other front-bench leader, would find an extremely amenable Yisrael Beytenu and an even friendlier Labor party (not to mention Blue and White’s own Telem faction of former Likudniks) eager to secure for themselves and their constituents the privileges of power now that the campaign promise to oust Netanyahu has been achieved. Suddenly the interests of a 36-seat Likud and a single Netanyahu diverge. ● It’s important to note here that Likud will not, of its own accord, act on this interest and remove Netanyahu. He has shown, especially in Monday’s race, that his premiership has the backing of the party’s rank and file, and even of many supporters of allied parties like and Yamina. Someone from outside, like Gantz, would have to force the removal — but it is Likud that would likely enjoy much of the windfall. Or, put another way, it is quite likely that Netanyahu’s departure makes Gantz irrelevant to the very partners he needs to have any chance at winning the premiership. ● It’s a bitter and ironic trap. Gantz, the architect and enabler of the end of Netanyahu’s rule, the astoundingly successful herder of the many cats that compose the Blue and White coalition, a man who rebuilt for an as-yet unknown length of time a long-dormant center-left political identity, may be rendered moot by his very success. Even a unity government could be pushed further from his reach. Why would Likud share power with a 33-seat Gantz when it could monopolize the top posts in an arguably more stable coalition with the many newly available and much smaller partners? Gantz is now within throwing distance of toppling Netanyahu — but needs Netanyahu as a target to maintain his own position as Netanyahu’s alternative.

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