Israel and the Middle East News Update Thursday, February 9 Headlines: Iron Dome Intercepts Three Rockets Fired at Eilat Likud Effort to Disavow Two-State Solution FM Attempting to Mitigate Damage from Legalization Law Abbas Calls on World Nations to Recognize Palestine, Save 2SS Trump's Israel Amb. Linked to Expansion of New WB Settlement Turfed Out Amona Residents Choose New Outpost to Call Home Russia Promises to Keep Weapons Out of Hezbollah’s Hands Ignoring White House Warnings, Iran Test-Fires Another Missile Commentary: TOI: “The True Significance of Israel’s Settlement Legalization Law” By Haviv Rettig Gur, Senior Analyst, Times of Israel Al-Monitor: “Who Profits from Gaza Unrest?” By Ben Caspit, Israel Pulse Columnist, 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 ● David Abreu, Associate Editor News Excerpts February 9, 2017 BICOM Iron Dome Intercepts Three Rockets Fired at Eilat Rockets fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at the Israeli city of Eilat were intercepted last night by the Iron Dome anti-missile system. Early rocket warning sirens were sounded in Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city, just before 11pm local time. Three rockets were successfully intercepted by the Iron Dome, while a fourth landed in an open area, causing no damage. Nobody was injured in the attack, but several Eilat residents were taken to hospital suffering from shock or anxiety. Rocket fragments were later found scattered in the city. See also, “ISIS Claims Responsibility for Eilat Rockets” (Ynet News) Ma’ariv Likud Effort to Disavow Two-State Solution Encouraged by their success in getting the legalization bill passed into law, some in the Likud have no intention of resting on their laurels. Likud members now want to “shackle” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from the right in advance of his scheduled meeting with US President Donald Trump and to demand that he refrain from voicing support for the two-state solution, in a departure from his past statements. A group of Likud members—heads of local authorities, branches and party activists—have scheduled an emergency meeting in the Knesset in which they will call on him to “disavow” the two-state solution. The conference was organized by two Likud Central Committee members from Judea and Samaria, Shevah Stern and Natan Engelsman. See also, “EU Envoy Complains: Israel Merely Paying Lip Service to Two-State Solution” (Times of Israel) Ma’ariv FM Attempting to Mitigate Damage from Legalization Law An official document from the Foreign Ministry, authorized by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, attempts to rebuff global criticism of the legalization law by emphasizing that it is possible the law may be disqualified by the Supreme Court. The document was disseminated by the Foreign Ministry’s Media and Public Affairs Division to Israeli missions around the world to enable them to explain the law and its background. The document covers eight points. The last section states that every law passed by the Knesset can be re-examined by the Supreme Court. Ha’aretz Abbas Calls on World Nations to Recognize Palestine, Save 2SS PA Mahmoud Abbas called on world nations to officially recognize the state of Palestinian as soon as possible to help save the two-state solution. Abbas, speaking from Paris, told members of the French parliament the two-state solution requires countries who recognize Israel to also recognize Palestine. Dozens of countries recognized Palestinian statehood years ago and recently Palestine was recognized by the Vatican. Most West European and North American countries never did do, albeit most of their lawmakers had supported recognizing Palestine within the 1967 borders. See also, “Israeli Ambassador Warns: Ireland Soon to Recognize Palestine” (Ha'aretz) 2 Ha’aretz Trump's Israel Amb. Linked to Expansion of New WB Settlement An organization headed by David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador-designate to Israel, is behind a new construction project in the West Bank settlement of Beit El recently approved by the government. The project includes a five-story building – part of which has already been constructed illegally on private Palestinian land and will be retroactively legalized – and 20 housing units, according to the Peace Now Settlement Watch project. It is being funding by American Friends of Beit El Institutions, which raises several million dollars a year for this particular settlement. See also, “Newly Approved Settler Homes Financed by Trump's Envoy Israel Pick” (Times of Israel) Times of Israel Turfed Out Amona Residents Choose New Outpost to Call Home The residents of the Amona settlement outpost in the West Bank, who were recently evacuated from their homes in compliance with a court-ordered demolition of the site, have chosen another similarly unauthorized outpost as the location where they want to reestablish their new community. During a Wednesday night meeting, the residents decided by a majority vote that they will move to the Geulat Tzion unauthorized outpost, located in the Shiloh settlement bloc. While Amona was built on privately owned Palestinian land, Geulat Tzion lies on a state-owned tract. Ynet News Russia Promises to Keep Weapons Out of Hezbollah’s Hands Russian Ambassador to Israel, Alexander Shane, said that his country is working to prevent the transfer of Russian weapons to Hezbollah. During an interview with the Interfax news agency, Shane noted that Israel presented Moscow with its "red lines" and shared concerns about Russia's cooperation with Iran and Syria. According to Shane, Israel presented red lines to the Russians about events in Syria, the most important of which were the transfer of modern, advanced weapons to Hezbollah and the establishment of an anti-Israel base with Iran in the Syrian Golan. Shane added that Israel understands was his country is doing in Syria, "but for them, the best thing that can happen is cooperation between Russia and the United States—and not Russia and Iran—to solve the crisis in Syria and the fight against terrorism in the Middle East." Jerusalem Post Ignoring White House Warnings, Iran Test-Fires Another Missile Iran test-fired another surface to air missile Wednesday. The test, just as the last, occurred outside Semnan, about 140 miles east of Tehran. The test comes the same day the White House announced it is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, according to US officials familiar with the matter. The officials said that several US government agencies have been consulted about such a proposal, which if implemented would add to measures the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC. The Trump administration sent a stark message to Tehran last week over their continued missile tests and support for proxy militia groups battling Saudi Arabian forces. See also, “Iran Defies Trump’s Warnings, Conducts Missile Test” (Arutz Sheva) 3 Times of Israel – February 7, 2017 The True Significance of Israel’s Settlement Legalization Law The flurry of hand-wringing over the Regulation Law has largely missed what may be its most dramatic consequence — that it makes it harder for Israel to stick to its longstanding policy of permanent indecision in the West Bank. By Haviv Rettig Gur, Senior Analyst for the Times of Israel Criticism of the Regulation Law that passed Monday in the Knesset has been visceral and widespread. It comes from Israeli politicians on the right, as well as on the deepest left; from pro-Israel advocates, and from Palestinian officials; from Israel’s own attorney general, as well as European and Muslim-world governments; and even from some Knesset members who actually voted for it. All seem to believe the law, which authorizes retroactively Israeli settlement homes built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land, is a watershed moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with so many voices vying to explain precisely why it is so bad, it can be easy to miss, or to misunderstand, the indigenous Israeli political impulses that forged it, and thus to misrepresent what it means for Israel’s presence in the West Bank. In an important sense, the Regulation Law changes very little. Under Jordanian land law that still applies in the West Bank – Israel never applied its own civil law, and so the territory is run under a combination of various legal systems imposed by past rulers and IDF orders issued since 1967 – the governing authority in the territory is already permitted to seize privately owned land for public benefit. The Jordanian law is far more expansive and permissive as to what constitutes “public benefit” than is Israeli civil law within Israel’s borders, and more even than what Israel’s military administration has actually done in the West Bank. And so the new Regulation Law does not, as often claimed, suddenly allow the Civil Administration, the Israeli agency administering the West Bank under the army’s auspices, to seize private property for Israeli settlements. The Civil Administration is already allowed to do so, at least on paper (and leaving out for the moment the rather significant question of international law and its obligations). Rather, the Regulation Law requires that it do so. In places where Israelis built settlements on privately held Palestinian property in good faith – i.e., without knowing it was privately owned – or received the government’s de facto consent for squatting there, the Civil Administration is now forced to carry out the seizure in the squatters’ name in exchange for state compensation to the owners equal to 20 years’ rent or 125 percent of the assessed value of the land.