February 10 2020 Yazbak Case Is a Booster Shot for Extremism by Ben-Dror Yemini Contributor to Yedioth Ahronoth
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Israel and the Middle East News Update Monday, February 10 Headlines: • U.S. Warns Israel Against 'Unilateral' West Bank Moves • Settler Leaders Call on PM to ‘Put US In Its Place,’ Annex W. Bank Land • Meeting Between Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince in Works: Report • Iran Fails to Launch Satellite Into Space, After Two Failures Last Year • Supreme Court Okays Candidacy of MK Yazbak • Israel Blocks Palestinian Exports in Escalating Trade Crisis • App Used by Netanyahu's Likud Leaks Israel's Entire Voter Registry • Palestinian Lawyers Threaten to Sue Those who 'Accept' Trump Plan Commentary: • Ma’ariv: “Netanyahu Just Set the New Starting Point for Future Israeli-Palestinian Talks” - By Tamir Pardo, former director of Israeli Mossad • Yedioth Ahronoth: “Yazbak Case is A Booster Shot for Extremism” - By Ben-Dror Yemini contributor to Yedioth Ahronoth S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 www.centerpeace.org ● Yoni Komorov, Editor News Excerpts February 10, 2020 Reuters U.S. Warns Israel Against 'Unilateral' West Bank Moves A U.S. envoy warned Israel on Sunday not to declare sovereignty over West Bank land without Washington’s consent, pushing back against calls for immediate action by ultra-nationalists within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. With Defence Minister Naftali Bennett and other Israeli ultra-nationalists urging an immediate cabinet vote on sovereignty in the West Bank, the U.S. ambassador intervened. “Israel is subject to the completion (of) a mapping process by a joint Israeli- American committee. Any unilateral action in advance of the completion of the committee process endangers the Plan & American recognition,” envoy David Friedman tweeted. See also, “Friedman: Unilateral Israeli Action Risks Losing U.S. Support for Annexation” (Ha’aretz) Times of Israel Settler Leaders Call on PM to ‘Put US In Its Place,’ Annex W. Bank Land Settler leaders reacted in fury to US Ambassador David Friedman’s Sunday clarification that the White House would not support immediate and uncoordinated annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel, with one prominent West Bank mayor calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ignore the warnings from Washington and put the Trump administration “in its place.” “The United States cannot prevent Israel from doing anything,” said Jordan Valley Regional Council chairman David Elhayani, who serves as the chairman of the Yesha Council umbrella group of settlements. See also, “Israeli Settlement Leaders Demand Annexation” (Jerusalemonline) JNS Meeting Between Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince in Works: Report Intensive talks are underway between Washington, Jerusalem, Cairo and Riyadh to convene a summit in Cairo, possibly before Israel’s March 2 election, that would serve as a venue for a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, senior Arab diplomatic sources said on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his team have been mediating between Israel and Saudi Arabia for the past few months, the sources told Israel Hayom. See also, “US arranging meeting between Netanyahu and Saudi crown prince - report” (JPost) Ha’aretz Iran Fails to Launch Satellite Into Space, After Two Failures Last Year An Iranian rocket failed to put a satellite into orbit on Sunday, state television reported, the latest setback for a program the U.S. claims helps Tehran advance its ballistic missile program. The launch happened at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s Semnan province, some 230 kilometers (145 miles) southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran. A Simorgh, or “Phoenix,” rocket couldn't put the Zafar 1 communications satellite into orbit, however, due to a low speed, Iranian state TV reported. “Stage-1 and stage-2 motors of the carrier functioned properly and the satellite was successfully detached from its carrier, but at the end of its path it did not reach the required speed for being put in the orbit,” Defense Ministry space program spokesman Ahmad Hosseini told state TV See also “Netanyahu Hints at Israeli Hand in Iran Failed Space Shot” (Hamodia) 2 Ynet News Supreme Court Okays Candidacy of MK Yazbak The Supreme Court on Sunday overturned the decision to ban Arab Israeli Joint List MK Heba Yazbak from running in the March 2 elections. The Central Elections Committee disqualified Yazbak last month from running to parliament after the lawmaker came under for several Facebook posts she shared back in 2015 and 2013. Her 2015 Facebook post featured a photo of Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, who took part in a 1979 terror attack in Nahariya, killing Danny Haran and slashing the skull of his four-year- old daughter, Einat Haran. She shared the post following Kuntar's death in Syria, calling him the "martyr." In addition, she shared a post in 2013 with a picture of female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led the terrorist squad that carried out the attack on Highway 2 in 1978, in which 35 Israelis were killed, including 12 children. See also, “High Court green lights Israeli Arab Heba Yazbak's run for Knesset” (JPost) Washington Post Israel Blocks Palestinian Exports in Escalating Trade Crisis The Israeli military blocked Palestinian agricultural exports on Sunday in the latest escalation of a months long trade war that comes amid fears of renewed violence as well. Following Defense Minister Naftali Bennett’s instruction, the military said it would not allow the Palestinians to transfer their products through their land crossing to Jordan, the West Bank’s only direct export route to the outside world. The Western-backed Palestinian Authority said Israeli forces at checkpoints blocked vegetable shipments that were in their way to export abroad. The Ministry of Agriculture statement said vegetable exports to Israel were worth $88 million last year, comprising 68% of the West Bank’s overall vegetable exports. See also, “Israel blocks Palestinian exports in escalating trade crisis” (Ynet News) Ha’aretz App Used by Netanyahu's Likud Leaks Israel's Entire Voter Registry The Likud has uploaded the full register of Israeli voters to an application, causing the leak of personal data on 6,453,254 citizens. The information includes the full names, identity card numbers, addresses and gender of every single eligible voter in Israel, as well as the phone numbers and other personal details of some of them. Israeli political parties receive personal details of voters before the elections and commit to protecting their privacy, as well as not to reproduce the registry, not to provide it to a third party, and to permanently erase all the information once the election is over. The voter registry was uploaded by Likud to the Elector app, which is used by the party to manage Election Day. The firm that developed the application, Feed-b, commented that the vulnerability was a “one-off incident that was immediately dealt with," and that security measures have since been boosted. Times of Israel Palestinian Lawyers Threaten to Sue Those who 'Accept' Trump Plan Palestinian lawyers have launched an initiative to file lawsuits in the US and Europe against politicians and businessmen who accept US President Donald Trump's recently unveiled plan for Mideast peace. The initiative comes on the eve of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s address to the UN Security Council, where he is expected to urge the international community to reject the Trump plan.One of the lawyers behind the initiative, Gandhi Rubai, told official PA news agency Wafa that a number of lawyers volunteered to file cases to various international bodies, including the UN, against people who intend to cooperate with the Trump plan, called “Peace to Prosperity.” See also, “Abbas planning 'diplomatic intifada' against Trump peace plan” (Arutz 7) 3 Ha’aretz – February 10, 2020 Netanyahu Just Set the New Starting Point for Future Israeli- Palestinian Talks By Tamir Pardo, former director of Israeli Mossad • The United States, in its efforts to broker peace in the Middle-East, joined forces with Israel and left the Palestinians out of the festivities. Analyzing the chances of success of the White House's one-sided peace plan is hardly worth the effort – but we should not overlook the momentous character of the occasion. This is a historic step, one which neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his predecessors dared to take since the 1949 Armistice Agreements. • In 1967, I was in eighth grade. Up until the Six-Day War, in every social studies lesson, we drew a map of Israel showing its borders, cities and villages. Once the war ended, we stopped: We had become the only state in the world with undefined borders. • The Israeli government declared all the territories that were added in wake of this defensive war “held territories.” Others viewed them as “occupied territories.” With the exception of Jerusalem and, later, the Golan Heights, to which Israel applied its sovereignty, all the rest have remained “held territories” to this day • For 53 years, 13 of them with Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm, the Israeli leadership has refrained from applying Israeli sovereignty to the territories of the West Bank, arguing that it would then become a benchmark for future talks, which would see Israel compelled to make further territorial compromises. This made both settlement expansion, and the containment of controversial moves by settler groups, possible. • And then, lo and behold, on January 28, 2020, an Israeli prime minister agreed to define the eastern border, to transfer 70 percent of the West Bank and 14 percent of sovereign Israeli territory to a future Palestinian state, and to making the West Bank and Gaza into a single political entity. History could remember Benjamin Netanyahu as the statesman that set a starting point for negotiations. • When the plan is brought to the cabinet for a vote, the ministers will be asked to accept it as a single unit, a package deal.