Israel and the Middle East News Update Friday, October 21 Headlines: US, Egypt to Palestinians: Don’t Push UN Resolution Before Elections US imposes Sanctions on Hezbollah Operatives, Financiers Abbas Wants Fatah, PLO Leadership Elections Next Month Poll: '46% of Palestinians Support a Jordan –Palestinian Confederation Protestors in Amona: They’ll Need to Drag us From our Homes Democrats Recruit Joe Lieberman to Target Florida Jews Email Show Clinton keen to Patch Things Up with Netanyahu Commentary: Yedioth Ahronoth: “ It’s Not Netanyahu, It’s You” By Haim Ramon, former Minister in the Israeli Government Al Monitor: “Why Human Rights NGOs are Losing Support of Israeli Public” By Shlomi Eldar, columnist 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 ● David Abreu, Associate Editor News Excerpts October 21, 2016 Ha’aretz US, Egypt to Pal’: Don’t Push UN Res. Before Elections Both Egypt and the United States have warned the Palestinian leadership not to advance any moves at the UN Security Council until after the U.S. presidential election next month, a senior Palestinian official told Ha’aretz on Thursday. Egypt currently holds a rotating seat on the Security Council and the U.S. is a permanent member. The messages were sent both directly and indirectly to the PA, through Western and Arab intermediaries. The messages stressed that until the U.S. election is over, Washington will veto any resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, including a denunciation of the settlements. See also “PALESTINIANS URGE UN TO ADOPT RESOLUTION AGAINST SETTLEMENTS (AP) Ynet News US imposes Sanctions on Hezbollah Operatives, Financiers The US government on Thursday sanctioned a Hezbollah commander and a number of other operatives and financiers linked to the militant group who it said were working to destabilize the Middle East. The US State Department, added Hezbollah commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai to its Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, which "imposes sanctions on foreign persons determined to have committed, or pose a serious risk of committing acts of terrorism." Tabatabai has commanded Hezbollah special forces, operated in Syria and is now believed to be in Yemen. His actions in Syria and Yemen "are part of a larger Hezbollah effort in destabilizing regional activities." See also, “US, Saudi Arabia blacklist Hezbollah members, financiers” (Times of Israel) Times of Israel Abbas Wants Fatah, PLO Leadership Elections Next Month Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is pushing for leadership elections in his Fatah movement and the PLO before the end of the year, as part of what senior officials say is largely an elaborate attempt to block the return of an exiled rival backed by several Arab states. Abbas’s decision to hold such elections is a response to growing Arab pressure to take back Mohammad Dahlan, a former top aide and millionaire businessman who in exile forged close ties with leaders of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the region. See also, “SEEKING TO BLOCK RIVAL, ABBAS CALLS FOR FATAH, PLO ELECTIONS” (AP) Jerusalem Post Poll: '46% of Pal. Support a Jordan –Pal. Confederation More Palestinians prefer the establishment of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation than a traditional two-state or one-state solution, a new public opinion poll has found. An-Najah National University in Nablus surveyed 1362 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 46% of Palestinians surveyed said they would support the establishment of a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation on the basis of two states with strong institutional relations. In contrast, 36% of Palestinians said they would support the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. Only 22% of Palestinians support the creation of a state on 1967 borders with some land swaps. 2 Ynet News Protestors in Amona: They’ll Need to Drag us From Here Thousands of people attended a protest in the outpost of Amona on Thursday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resist the High Court’s decision to evacuate the settlement in two months’ time; the protest was attended by MKs from the Likud and Bayit Yehudi. A similar protest will also take place in the outpost of Ofra. “We’re going to fight for our home here, and they’re going to have to drag us from our homes,” said Avihai boaron, headquarters chairperson of the Fight for Amona. “If we find ourselves dealing with an evacuation, it won’t go over quietly. The protest rally took place as politicians from the right attempt to have the High Court postpone the evacuation. See also, “Far-right Minister Threatens to Topple Netanyahu Over Contested Settler Outpost” (Ha’aretz) The Jewish Insider Democrats Recruit Joe Lieberman to Target Florida Jews The former senator spoke to Jewish seniors at Palm Beach Century Village and held a roundtable with rabbis and Jewish community leaders in Palm Beach, according to the Clinton campaign. He also spoke at a shul in Broward County. Jewish voters represent 3 to 6 percent of the electorate in Florida. Clinton is ahead by 3.8 percentage points in Florida. Jewish Insider has learned that Lieberman will be featured in a new highly targeted campaign kicking off this weekend by the “Jews for Progress” super PAC, aimed at Jewish voters who are still undecided or persuadable. According to a source with close knowledge of the upcoming activities, in the coming days, JFP will call more than 100,000 unique Jewish households in Florida and launch an online, email and social media campaign in an effort to replicate a successful campaign in 2012 in putting Florida in the Democratic column with the help of Jewish voters. See also “Clinton more reliable for Israel than Trump – and Obama, Lieberman says” (Jerusalem Post) Times of Israel Email Show Clinton keen to Patch Things with Netanyahu Hillary Clinton’s plan to meet Israel’s prime minister in her first month as president is listed high in an internal campaign memo outlining the priorities of her first 100 days — a sign of how important it is to repair bilateral tensions. he campaign’s determination to distance itself from President Barack Obama’s difficult relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu is seeded throughout emails stolen from her campaign chairman John Podesta’s private account and dumped in recent weeks by WikiLeaks. (Podesta is one of the officials CC’d on the first 100 days memo.) The leaked emails offer a glimpse of the sausage-making of a presidential candidate’s policies when it comes to Israel, the Iran deal and the boycott Israel movement — sometimes spicy, sometimes bland and sometimes hard to swallow. 3 Yedioth Ahronoth– October 21, 2016 It’s Not Netanyahu, It’s You By Haim Ramon After Binyamin Netanyahu became prime minister for the second time, in March 2009, he and the late Shimon Peres, who was president at the time, had a political love affair. After urging Netanyahu to resume peace negotiations, Peres became convinced that there was a good chance that the prime minister would lead Israel to an arrangement. Following the Bar Ilan speech that Netanyahu gave in June 2009, in which he declared his ostensible commitment to the two-state solution, and following [Peres’s] conversations with Netanyahu and his wife Sara, Peres believed that Netanyahu had changed his spots and would act differently from his first term as prime minister. At that time, I met with Peres regularly. “Bibi realizes that the reality compels him to make history. What happened to Begin and Sharon is happening to him,” he told me over and over. He insisted that Netanyahu had undergone a turnabout: From a person who was not willing to make any territorial concessions, he had become a pragmatic leader who sought to end the conflict with the Palestinians and was willing to take the main step necessary for this, meaning—to give up the 1967 territories, subject to a land swap that would leave the settlement blocs in Israel’s hands. Knowing Netanyahu’s firm ideological commitment to the vision of the greater Israel, I was convinced that Peres’s forecast would be disproved. I knew that Netanyahu was not changing his ideology in order to survive, but was rather making an effort to survive in order to implement his ideology. I said repeatedly to Peres: “Bibi won’t sign any arrangement with the Palestinians. He is fooling you. He is fundamentally opposed to the two-state solution and will not give up a single inch of the 1967 territories.” […] The arguments between us reached very high tones at times, but to no avail. Peres became Netanyahu’s advocate in Israel and throughout the world. Peres explained on every possible platform that Netanyahu was working sincerely to reach a peace arrangement with the Palestinians. In one meeting, Peres revealed that Netanyahu had permitted him to conduct secret negotiations with Abu Mazen. I stuck to my guns: “That won’t happen, there won’t be an agreement,” but Peres believed that it was not him but me who was clinging to a mistaken preconception of Netanyahu. One hot summer day, Peres’s hopes were crushed. On July 28, 2011 he was supposed to sign a diplomatic declaration of principles with Abu Mazen in Amman. Peres’s driver had already started the car in order to leave for the Jordanian capital, but then, at the 11 th hour, Peres received a phone call from Netanyahu instructing him to remain in the President’s Residence, on the pretext that the time was not yet ripe to sign an agreement. Once again the same old Netanyahu was revealed, who shuns any chance of reaching an arrangement.