Israel and the Middle East News Update Friday, September 13 Headlines: • Election Poll: Right-Wing Bloc Grows Stronger, But Still Needs Lieberman • Ma’ariv’s Last Poll: Right-Wing Bloc—57, Center-Left Bloc—54 • Right-Wing Jews Behind Billboards Calling on Arabs Not to Vote • Netanyahu to Putin: We Won’t Allow Iranian Aggression From Syria • Security Experts Stopped Netanyahu from Annexing West Bank Immediately • Netanyahu Determined Not to Stand Trial Commentary: • Ha’aretz: “The Nasty, Racist Campaign That Will Go Down in Israel’s History” − Yossi Verter • Yedioth Ahronoth: “The Day After” − By Nachum Barnea 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 ● Yehuda Greenfield-Gilat, Associate Editor News Excerpts September 13, 2019 Ha’aretz Poll: Right-wing Bloc Grows Stronger, but Still Needs Lieberman Kahol Lavan is set to be the largest party in the Knesset after next week's election, according to a poll released Thursday by the Kan public broadcaster. The poll gives the party led by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid 33 seats, compared to 31 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud. The poll also contains good news for Netanyahu – it has the far-right Otzma Yehudit party passing the electoral threshold and receiving four seats, giving the right-wing bloc led by Likud 59 seats without the support of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu – close to the 61 required to create a coalition, with the center-left bloc garnering 54 seats. See also, “Five Days to Election, a Battered and Bruised Netanyahu Is Nonetheless Growing Stronger” (Ha’aretz) Ma’ariv Ma’ariv’s Last Poll: Right-Wing Bloc—57, Center-Left Bloc—54 Ma’ariv’s final pre-election poll found that if the election were held today, the Likud would emerge the largest party, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu still would not be able to form a coalition without Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu. Q: If the election were held today, for which party would you vote? Likud: 33 Blue and White: 32 Joint List: 12 Yamina: 9 Yisrael Beiteinu: 9 Shas: 8 United Torah Judaism: 7 Democratic Union: 6 Labor Party-Gesher: 4 Times of Israel Right-wing Jews Behind Billboards Calling on Arabs Not to Vote In a campaign ahead of the last elections in April, billboards went up throughout Arab communities and towns in the Galilee urging voters to boycott the polls. Many residents assumed the ads, which did not identify their funders, were an initiative of political forces in the Arab community opposed to the Jewish state and its institutions, such as the Islamic Movement’s Northern Branch. But a Channel 12 news inquiry broadcast on Thursday found that the campaign was likely commissioned and financed by right-wing Jews who hoped to suppress Arab turnout. Ayman Odeh, chairman of the predominantly Arab Joint List party, demanded a criminal probe following the Channel 12 report. “This evening it became clear that suppressing our vote is their victory,” he said in a Twitter post. “We won’t let them settle in our ballot stations. We demand a criminal investigation. Those responsible should be in prison.” He added: “The right is afraid of Arabs, but we are not afraid of the right.” 2 Israel Hayom Netanyahu to Putin: We won't allow Iranian aggression from Syria Israel will not put up with Iran's growing influence in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Netanyahu met Putin at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to discuss the growing threat from Tehran, amidst growing tension in the region stemming from the presence of Shiites militias in Syria. During the meeting on Thursday, Putin praised military and security cooperation between Russia and Israel. Netanyahu further said Israel must be allowed to act freely against Iran. The two leaders have met more than a dozen times in recent years and the countries' militaries have been working to avoid accidental clashes in Syria, where Israel says it has carried out many strikes against Iranian targets to stop Tehran establishing a permanent military presence there. Jerusalem Post Security Experts Stopped PM from Annexing West Bank A screaming match" occurred on Tuesday before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to annex the Jordan Valley after the elections between Netanyahu and senior security leaders. The conversation involved a difficult exchange between the prime minister and the security officials over his upcoming announcement. Netanyahu's announcement was delayed by over an hour due to the conversation. According to some sources, Netanyahu told them of his intention to announce the immediate annexation of the West Bank but changed his position due to harsh criticism from several heads of security branches, as well as legal opinions which addressed potential difficulties attendant to such an annexation as this. Netanyahu had called the security officials a short time before he was to make his speech. The security officials speaking to him, it was said, spared no words and used particularly sharp language. Ha’aretz Netanyahu Determined Not to Stand Trial Immediately after the last election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined to members of his inner circle a plan to extract him from facing trial. The plan was based on obtaining immunity from the Knesset and passing legislation to prevent the High Court of Justice from removing that immunity. If his bloc wins 61 Knesset seats next week, Netanyahu will presumably resort to this rescue plan. For him it will be the Day of Judgment. “Stop being frightened. It’s time for them to be frightened,” Netanyahu told his confidants, referring to justice officials, headed by Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, who have decided to indict him in three cases, subject to a hearing. Netanyahu told his confidants why he insisted on his destructive plan, telling them he had lost all confidence in the legal system on all levels – the attorney general’s office, the state prosecutor and the court system. “They want me in prison,” he told one of his cronies, noting that if he were indicted that would indeed be the result – not because he had crossed a red line, but merely due to the jurists’ collective hostility toward him and his ideology. 3 Ha’aretz – September 13, 2019 The Nasty, Racist Campaign That Will Go Down in Israel's History If there's no breakthrough in the coming days, we will find ourselves, the morning after the election, mired deep in a political and constitutional nightmare. Will it be left to the president to save the day? By Yossi Verter • Israel will go to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in less than five months. What was once considered inconceivable is happening to us. Theoretically, a third election is also possible, in early 2020. As long as Benjamin Netanyahu is the bone stuck deep in the throat of the body politic, holding its internal organs in a vice-like grip while fighting the battle of his life, the impasse that brought us to this pass is not going to go away. • It is because of the prime ministerial suspect, who sought to preempt the attorney general’s decision in his cases, that the public was dragged into the first election, in April. Because of the weightiness of the charges against him, he failed in his effort to form a government in May. His tremendous Ben-Gurion-like power, which works like a spell on his coalition allies, induced them to agree to commit group suicide for his sake. A collective coalition Stockholm syndrome led a captive public into yet another election campaign. When historians come to study this period, they will find it difficult to explain to their students what in the blazes happened to this intelligent nation – to this “special race,” in the words of Likud MK Makhlouf “Miki” Zohar. • It’s been a bizarre election season and a cruel summer. Until a week ago, the campaign was barely discernible. There were flashes of political flare-ups here and there, but the general feeling among the public was: Leave us alone already, for heaven’s sake. • There were no stars in this campaign. There was no particularly fascinating personality, like Moshe Feiglin in April, or Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2013, or even Moshe Kahlon in 2015. All the players were familiar from the last round, and looked faded and burned out. • The campaigns themselves were also pretty feeble and lacking in innovation. The whole business had the feel of a second and disappointing season of a TV series whose departure no one lamented. Those who did stand out were Avigdor Lieberman, who ran an effective campaign until a week or two ago, and Arye Dery, who again outdid himself in playing on the feelings of voters consumed with longings for the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef of blessed and sainted memory. As for Netanyahu and Likud – we’ll get to them a little later. • The latest polls paint a despairing picture. Like a bad dream that recurs nightly, they do not forecast a clear-cut decision on September 17. If no electoral breakthrough occurs in the next few days (though it usually does at this stage), we will find ourselves, the morning after, mired deep in a political and constitutional nightmare. • The task of extricating Israel from this entanglement – on the assumption that the right-wing- Haredi bloc does not win the sought-after 61 Knesset seats, which is certainly a possibility, and the center-left bloc does not make a late surge forward so that it’s in a position to assemble an obstructive bloc, which is less likely – will fall on the shoulders of one person: 4 President Reuven Rivlin.