Israel and the Middle East News Update Thursday, February 27 Headlines: • Gantz Says Netanyahu ‘Poisoning’ Israel with Divisions • Lapid: ‘Israel Won’t Be a Democracy if Netanyahu Passes Immunity Law’ • Lieberman: Govt’ to Be Formed Without Netanyahu: No Chance for Unity • Bennett: ‘I’d Rather Sit in the Opposition than Join a Govt’ Led by Gantz’ • Israel Issues Travel Warning to Italy, Urges Cancelling all Travel Abroad • Saudi Arabia Halts Travel to Islam’s Holiest Sites Over Coronavirus • Mike Bloomberg to Attend AIPAC Conference in Washington • Tel Aviv University Researchers Discover a Non-Breathing Living Animal Commentary: • Ha’aretz: “Last Chance to Save Israeli Democracy” - By Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel • Al Monitor: “And if Netanyahu Scores a Landslide Victory?” - 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 ● Yoni Komorov, Editor News Excerpts February 27, 2020 Times of Israel Gantz Says Netanyahu ‘Poisoning’ Israel with Divisions Dramatically stepping up his attacks on his rival days before the national election, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz furiously lashed out at Netanyahu on Wednesday, accusing him of “lying” and “inciting” against him and tearing at the fabric of Israeli society. Gantz also flatly ruled out sitting in a coalition with Netanyahu after the March 2 race. “Netanyahu, look me in the eyes. Your obsession with evading prosecution has driven you to lie, to tear us apart, to sow division… to spread malicious rumors and incitement,” Gantz accused in a dramatic speech five days before the March 2 election. Gantz’s statement follows several days of Likud ads that have turned increasingly personal and nasty against the former army chief. Likud has sought to portray Gantz as incapable of running the country — an incoherent stutterer suffering from mental health problems, as well as a failed businessman. See also, “Five Days to Israel Election: Livid Gantz Finally Lets Loose on Netanyahu and His Dirty Spin Machine” (Ha’aretz) Jerusalem Post Lapid: ‘Israel Won’t Be a Democracy if Netanyahu Passes Immunity Law’ Senior Blue and White MK Yair Lapid warned on Wednesday that Israel would cease to be a democracy if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is able to form a coalition after the election and pass a retroactive immunity from prosecution law to protect himself. Speaking at the Maariv conference in Herzliya, also addressed the Trump peace plan and criticized the Palestinian political leadership for failing to see the opportunities the proposals lay out for the Palestinians. “If Netanyahu wins [the election] by even one seat, he will claim that he doesn’t need to have a trial because the public will have already acquitted him,” argued Lapid in reference to Netanyahu’s upcoming trial on three corruption charges slated to begin March 17 in the Jerusalem District Court. See also “Lapid: Yes, anyone but Bibi” (Arutz 7) Ha’aretz Lieberman: Govt’ to Be Formed Without Netanyahu: No Chance for Unity Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman, who emerged as kingmaker in Israel's two previous elections this year, said on Wednesday that he is ruling out the possibility of forming a unity government with Benny Gantz's Netanyahu after the March 2 ballot. Speaking at the Ma'ariv Business Conference 2030 in Herzliya, Lieberman said: "Gantz and Netanyahu together reached 65 seats [in the last election], and I told them to form a government, but they preferred to argue over who would be first and who would be second," Lieberman said. See also, “Liberman signals alliance with Blue & White” (i24) Israel Hayom Bennett: ‘I’d Rather Sit in the Opposition than Join a Govt’ Led by Gantz’ I’d rather sit in the opposition than join a government led by Benny Gantz. I’d also sooner face a fourth election than sit in his cabinet,” Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett told Israel Hayom this week. Bennett, who heads the Yamina faction—an alliance of the national-religious New Right, National Union and Jewish Home parties—said that this was because “I am a rightist, and Blue and White is the left- wing party.” “At the heart of Blue and White, you have Yesh Atid,” said Bennett. “They want to evict tens of thousands of settlers from their homes, and Yair Lapid, who is anti-religious, has said in the past that the [2005] disengagement was punishment for the national-religious public.” 2 Ynet News Israel Issues Travel Warning to Italy, Urges Cancelling all Travel Abroad Israel issued a travel warning to Italy on Wednesday following the outbreak of coronavirus in the country, and in a drastic move urged Israelis to reconsider all non-essential travel abroad. In addition, the Health Ministry said that anyone returning from Italy will have to immediately enter a 14-day quarantine, making it the first European country to which Israel issued a travel advisory. Italian authorities earlier said a 12th person had died in northern Italy from the virus, while the number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 374, the biggest in Europe. The United States also earlier issued a travel advisory to Italy, urging the Americans to "exercise increased caution" over the spread of the disease. See also “ Israeli Tourism Officials Worry Coronavirus Will Cause Sector’s Collapse” (Ha’aretz) TOI Saudi Arabia Halts Travel to Islam’s Holiest Sites Over Coronavirus Saudi Arabia on Thursday halted travel to the holiest sites in Islam over fears about a new viral epidemic just months ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage, a move coming as the Mideast has over 220 confirmed cases of the illness. The extraordinary decision by Saudi Arabia stops foreigners from reaching the holy city of Mecca and the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims pray toward five times a day. It also said travel was suspended to Prophet Muhammad’s mosque in Medina. The decision showed the worry about the outbreak potentially spreading into Saudi Arabia, whose oil-rich monarchy stakes its legitimacy on protecting Islam’s holy sites Ha’aretz Mike Bloomberg to Attend AIPAC Conference in Washington Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is currently seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, will speak this weekend at the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington. AIPAC, the leading lobbying group supporting Israel in the United States, announced Bloomberg's participation on Tuesday, two days after the current frontrunner in the Democratic race, Senator Bernie Sanders, said he would not attend the conference. Bloomberg is the first Democratic candidate to announce that he will speak at the AIPAC gathering. By choosing to speak at the conference, the former New York mayor is drawing a clear distinction between himself and Sanders, offering Democratic voters two different approaches regarding Israel. See also, “Democrats Buttigieg, Klobuchar latest to skip AIPAC conference” (TOI) Jerusalem Post Tel Aviv University Researchers Discover a Non-Breathing Living Animal Life science researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) have stumbled upon a non-breathing animal, challenging current understanding of the animal world, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The research, led by Prof. Dorothee Huchon of the School of Zoology at TAU’s Faculty of Life Sciences and Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, detailed the 10-celled parasite organism called Henneguya salminicola that is found in the muscles of salmon. The research was supported by the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and conducted along with Prof. Paulyn Cartwright of the University of Kansas, and Prof. Jerri Bartholomew and Dr. Stephen Atkinson of Oregon State University. "The parasite’s anaerobic nature was an accidental discovery," TAU said in a statement. "While assembling the Henneguya genome, Huchon found that it did not include a mitochondrial genome. 3 Ha’aretz – February 26, 2020 Last Chance to Save Israeli Democracy By Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel • Israel’s democracy is at the height of a process of collapse, and Election Day is the last opportunity to halt it. The reign of Justice Minister Amir Ohana and State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman – presided over by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is constantly being driven crazy by his wife and son – is a nightmare. If we don’t stop it through our votes, we may quickly tumble down the slope and wind up like Poland or Hungary or even Turkey. • The blow Ohana dealt Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit through Acting State Prosecutor Dan Eldad’s announcement, in the middle of the evening news, of the opening of a criminal investigation into Fifth Dimension is just a prologue to what our daily fare will be in the next transitional government. There isn’t just a “whiff of politics” here, to quote opposition leader Benny Gantz, who formerly served as Fifth Dimension’s chairman of the board. This is a fundamentally corrupt political decision, whose timing was deliberate and unscrupulous. • It is meant, first of all, to create an image of symmetry between Gantz, an honest man, and Netanyahu, whose trial on the most serious of charges will open in another three weeks. It is also meant to signal the attorney general which way the wind is blowing starting today. If we allow this to continue, every one of us could be a target of similar “quasi-judicial” harassment tomorrow • Netanyahu, who is collapsing as the start of his trial nears, has nothing to lose. Moreover, he knows there are still some investigations that may await him – involving his stocks, his cousin and his false reports to the state comptroller, and immediately after that, perhaps others looking into Israel’s submarine purchases, its natural gas deal and who knows what else.