Israel and the Middle East News Update Wednesday, March 4 Headlines: • With 93% of Votes Counted, Right-wing Bloc Loses Strength • Rivlin Likely to Task Netanyahu with Forming Govt’ on First Day of Trial • Awaiting Final Results, Netanyahu Eyes a Government with Only 60 • Joint List Head Claims 'Huge Success' with Historic 15-Seat Win • IDF General Met with Netanyahu After Visit to Coronavirus-Stricken Italy • Health Ministry Denies Israel to Quarantine American Tourists • UN's Nuclear Chief to Iran: Cooperate or Face New Crisis • Pro-Palestinian LGBT+ Artists Boycott Tel Aviv Film Festival Commentary: • Ha’aretz: “‘An Earthquake’: How Israel’s Arabs Achieved Their Historic Election Win” - By Judy Maltz, commentator at Ha’aretz • Israel Hayom: “The Losers’ Virtual Reality” - By Amnon Lord, political commentator at Israel Hayom 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 March 4, 2020 Ha’arezt With 93% of Votes Counted, Right-wing Bloc Loses Strength With over 93 percent of the votes counted in Israel's third and unprecedented election in one year, Netanyahu's Likud is currently the country's largest party. However, neither the premier nor his chief rival Benny Gantz are projected to get a clear Knesset majority behind them. Netanyahu is currently three seats shy of a 61-seat majority in the Knesset. The Joint List, an Arab-majority alliance of factions, maintained its position as the Israeli parliament’s third-largest party, according to the latest count, whereas Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu and left-wing alliance Labor-Gesher-Meretz lost ground. (TOI) ״See also, “With almost 95% of votes counted, Likud gains a seat to 36, Shas drops to 9 Times of Israel Rivlin Likely to Task Netanyahu with Forming Govt’ on First Day of Trial President Reuven Rivlin is set to task a candidate with forming a government on or before March 17, the same day Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial begins. Rivlin is seen as most likely to task Netanyahu with forming a government, as preliminary results show the longtime leader with the clearest path toward building a coalition government. Likud is expected to garner 36 or 37 seats, while main rival Blue and White is predicted to finish with around 32 seats and only a path toward a minority government. The Central Elections Committee will present Rivlin with final election results on March 10, following an eight-day period after the vote stipulated by law, the president’s office said Tuesday. See also “Rivlin, Netanyahu set to clash over mandate to form government” (JPost) Ha’aretz Awaiting Final Results, Netanyahu Eyes a Government with Only 60 The counting of the ballots, including those cast in double-sealed envelopes, is expected to be over by Tuesday night. Politicians and pundits widely believe that when the final results are in, the right- wing bloc will grow to 60 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, because the Joint List of Arab parties, which is currently at 15 seats, doesn’t stand to benefit from soldiers’ votes – most of the ballots cast in double- sealed envelopes. If a defector from Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan goes over and brings the right-wing bloc up to 61 seats, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t have problems forming a new government. But if the center-left bloc and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu stand firm, Netanyahu might be asking the Knesset for a vote of confidence with only 60 lawmakers in his camp. Ynet News Joint List Head Claims 'Huge Success' with Historic 15-Seat Win Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh declared a “huge achievement” in Monday’s elections after nearly final results showed the party had won 15 seats in Knesset, their largest win in any national ballot. “Brothers and sisters, you have created a historic day,” Odeh said in a recorded statement in Arabic. “From the first elections in 1949 until today, we have not received this degree of support and this number of seats.” The near-final results of the elections - the country's third in less than a year - showed that more than 530,000 Israelis voted for the Joint List. In a separate statement to reporters in Hebrew, Odeh said that Joint List received votes from many Jewish voters and contended that it needed to become “the principled alternative for the entire Israeli political map.” 2 Times of Israel IDF General Met with Netanyahu After Visit to Coronavirus-Stricken Italy An Israeli general who was later instructed to enter self-quarantine following a visit to Italy met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials last week. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that the officer, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, the head of the IDF Operations Directorate, returned to Israel some 12 days ago from a personal trip to Italy, which has seen a high incidence of the COVID-19 disease. On February 23, he took part in a high-level security consultation with Netanyahu, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, IDF chief Aviv Kohavi and other senior security officials during Israel’s two-day battle with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, as seen in a video of the meeting, distributed by the Defense Ministry. Jerusalem Post Health Ministry Denies Israel to Quarantine American Tourists The Health Ministry denied claims by one of its consultants that Israel is considering quarantining visitors from the United States. “It is not currently on the agenda,” a spokesperson for the ministry told The Jerusalem Post. His statements came after a consultant with the ministry told Kan radio Tuesday that the country is considering putting all American citizens who travel to Israel under 14-day quarantine. In the interview, Dr. Tal Brosh, head of the infectious disease unit at Assuta Ashdod and member of a Health Ministry committee that evaluates the coronavirus threat, said that such a quarantine is “under discussion, of course”,“I would recommend it, but let’s complete the discussions first.” See also, “U.S. Will Drop Limits on Virus Testing, Pence Says” (New York Times) Reuters UN's Nuclear Chief to Iran: Cooperate or Face New Crisis Iran risks triggering a new crisis if it does not cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog after failing to answer its questions about past nuclear activities at three sites and denying it access to two of them, its chief said on Tuesday. Rafael Grossi, who took up his post in December, spoke to Reuters in an interview hours after he and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) he heads released a report admonishing Iran. "We have been requesting some information and access from Iran but we haven't been getting the information we require," he said. "We have insisted and despite all our efforts we have not been able to get that, so the situation requires on my part such a step because what this means is that Iran is curtailing the ability of the agency to do its work." See also, “UN Nuclear Watchdog Plans Alert on Iranian Stonewalling, Diplomatic Sources Say” (Ha’aretz) Ynet News Pro-Palestinian LGBT+ Artists Boycott Tel Aviv Film Festival More than 130 gay and trans filmmakers have pledged to boycott an LGBT+ film festival in Tel Aviv, the latest move in a bitter row between Israel and international pro-Palestinian activists. Turner Prize- winning British artist Charlotte Prodger and French film director Alain Guiraudie are among those boycotting the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival, which is funded by the Culture Ministry and was to open on Wednesday. "Our liberation is intimately connected to the liberation of all oppressed peoples and communities," Queer Cinema for Palestine, a group of pro-Palestinian filmmakers behind the boycott campaign, said on its website. "We stand in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, justice, and dignity."Itai Pinkas, a Tel Aviv city council member responsible for LGBT+ issues, said the boycott was misplaced. 3 Ha’aretz – March 4, 2020 ‘An Earthquake’: How Israel’s Arabs Achieved Their Historic Election Win By Judy Maltz, commentator at Ha’aretz • With more than 90 percent of the vote counted after Monday’s election, the country’s Arab citizens have good reason to celebrate. As it stands, the Joint List (an alliance of four Arab-led parties) will have 15 seats in the next Knesset, two more than it had in the last government. • As a result, 17 Arabs – an all-time record – are set to serve in the 23rd Knesset: 14 Joint List lawmakers (the Hadash faction has one Jewish member, Ofer Cassif), along with three lawmakers representing Jewish parties. Likud, Kahol Lavan and Yisrael Beiteinu each have one member of the Arabic-speaking Druze minority on their tickets. • The number of Arab women serving in the Knesset also looks set to break records. The Joint List has four women in its top 15 spots, more than most Jewish parties, and Kahol Lavan has one female Druze lawmaker (Gadeer Mreeh). Occupying 15th spot on the Joint List slate is Iman Khatib, a representative of the Islamist United Arab List, who will be the first hijab-wearing woman ever to serve in the Knesset. • Two key factors explain the big gains posted by the Joint List on Monday: a dramatic increase in voter turnout within the Arab community; and plummeting support for Jewish parties among Arab voters. • According to preliminary estimates, nearly 65 percent of the electorate in Arab towns and cities (this figure does not include mixed Arab-Jewish towns, where it is harder to break down the vote) voted in Monday’s election – the third in less than a year.