The Atlantic: The End of Netanyahu’s Unchecked Reign

Then, something odd happened: Avigdor Lieberman, who had been Netanyahu’s right-hand man in the 1990s and later served under him as foreign minister and then defense minister, refused to join the right-wing coalition with his small party unless a bill was passed aimed at military conscription of ultra-Orthodox men. This was an act of political theater—the bill would not have changed very much—but to everyone’s surprise, Lieberman held out until Netanyahu’s mandate to form a government expired. Legally, the president of Israel would then have had to task another member of Knesset with forming a government, essentially barring Netanyahu from the role. To prevent this, Netanyahu pushed the Knesset to dissolve itself and call for a second national election in less than six months.[...]

In the elections to the 11th Knesset in 1984, the Alignment (based around Labor) received 44 seats to the Likud’s 41. Neither bloc had a majority. The country was deadlocked, with no coalition in sight. The president at the time, Chaim Herzog, intervened, twisting arms and cajoling both parties to form a joint government. The two parties even agreed to a rotation in the prime minister’s post: Shimon Peres of Labor was prime minister for the first two years, and Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud led the country for another two (and then beyond). The government could agree on nothing in terms of negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors, producing a “national paralysis government” in foreign affairs, but it was one of Israel’s most successful governments in terms of domestic policy. Inflation, which hit an astounding 445 percent in 1984, was brought down to 16.4 percent by 1988. Israel also withdrew from most of Lebanon’s territory, downscaling a bloody intervention. [...]

Most Israeli policy would not change with a different prime minister. The basic attitudes of Lieberman, Likud, and Blue and White on Iran, on Hezbollah, on Hamas, on world relations, and even on the prospects of achieving peace with the Palestinians, are all more or less in consensus. A Gantz government would at least hope for a different outcome with the Palestinians and would take a slightly different approach to managing the protracted interim—a small but meaningful difference. But in terms of actionable policy, continuity would be the rule. [...]

In the days leading up to the elections, Amos Harel and Chaim Levinson of Haaretz reported that Netanyahu was actually prepared to launch a major escalation in the Gaza Strip, necessitating the postponement of the election, all without properly consulting the security chiefs. Only after their adamant objections and the intervention of the attorney general, who demanded a proper process for such a decision, was the plan set aside. The cautious Netanyahu of old, who held national security above any other considerations, is simply gone.  

read the article

Vox: Israel’s election results show Netanyahu is in serious trouble

There’s a center-left alliance, which includes down-the-middle Blue and White, center-left Labor, the left-wing Democratic Union, and the Arab minority’s Joint List (which came in a strong third in this election). Then there’s a right-wing grouping, which includes Likud, the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, and the pro-West Bank settlement Yamina. (Another right-wing party, the Jewish supremacist Otzma Yehudit, failed to get enough votes to enter the Knesset). [...]

Lieberman is extremely hawkish on security and the Palestinians; he supports annexing part of the West Bank. This aligns Yisrael Beiteinu with the right-wing bloc; indeed, Lieberman had served in Netanyahu’s cabinet in the past.

However, Lieberman’s voting base — made up significantly of voters from Russian backgrounds — is also relatively secular and resentful of the privileges the ultra-Orthodox have in Israeli society. After Israel’s last election in April, Lieberman refused to join Netanyahu’s coalition unless Netanyahu agreed to a bill undermining the exemption from mandatory military service provided to ultra-Orthodox men. Netanyahu refused to avoid losing ultra-Orthodox support, but without Lieberman’s backing, he didn’t have enough votes for a parliamentary majority. So he chose to call new elections in September with an eye toward winning a more secure majority. [...]

Netanyahu could remain prime minister in some fashion — perhaps if he agrees to step down when the criminal indictment against him is formally filed. Gantz could end up sole prime minister. Another Likud member could end up with the top job, fulfilling Gantz’s condition that Netanyahu no longer hold the premiership. The wackiest scenario is that the parties could quite literally share power — with Gantz and some Likud leader taking turns holding the top job. This has happened before in Israeli politics, weird as it sounds.

read the article

Haaretz: If Re-elected, Netanyahu's First Order of Business Will Be an Obscenity Against Democracy

The most common complaint about the past 100 days is that this campaign was devoid of substance and content. It occupied itself with the trivial and the sensational, along with displaying an addiction to mudslinging, cheap gimmicks and trashy video clips. We didn’t get to see party leaders sitting opposite one another and talking about their platforms, detailing their worldviews, presenting plans and serious content, confronting the issues.

That’s not only the fault of the politicians and certainly not of all of them. Part of the responsibility lies with the media, which was swept up in an ugly wave of false news and spins at the expense of the “issues.” [...]

But his path won’t be an easy one. Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu, has declared that he won’t support retroactive legislation. He would prefer to have Netanyahu continue in the role of defendant. Kahalon already committed to opposing the proposal. Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked will decide when the time comes. Not even all of Likud’s members will vote in favor: Gilad Erdan said he would vote against such a bill; maybe Yuli Edelstein and Avi Dichter will, too. Here and there, a few islands of sanity remain.[...]

Only Netanyahu, whose status in the global arena is extraordinary, is capable of enlisting the heads of the great powers and “third-party countries” to help him in his election campaign. So it was with U.S. President Donald Trump and the Golan, and so it was with Netanyahu’s trip Thursday to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, who instructed his army in Syria to assist in the “intelligence and operational” effort that led to the return of the remains.

read the article

The Atlantic: No Matter Who Wins the Syrian Civil War, Israel Loses

If you want to understand Israel’s ambivalence about the outcome of Syria’s war, look no further than Avigdor Lieberman. In 2016, Lieberman, Israel’s hawkish defense minister, condemned Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, as a “butcher.” He asserted Israel’s moral imperative to oppose genocide, born from the Holocaust, as a reason to oppose the Syrian government’s massacres. It is in Israel’s interest, he added, that Assad and his Iranian allies “be thrown out of Syria.” Fast forward to earlier this month. While touring Israeli air-defense units, Lieberman struck an optimistic note about Assad’s gaining strength, saying it means “there is a real address, someone responsible, and central rule” in Syria. Asked whether he believed this would decrease the possibility of clashes on Israel’s northern border, he said: “I believe so. I think this is also in Assad’s interest.”

Those two positions represent Israel’s conflicted priorities in Syria. On the one hand, Assad is Iran’s most important ally in the Arab world—the state he rules provides Tehran with access to Israel’s northern border, and facilitates the flow of weapons to Hezbollah. On the other hand, Assad—his government’s fiercely anti-Israel rhetoric notwithstanding—represents a known quantity to Israel, unlike the chaotic tangle of Sunni militias and jihadist organizations that would replace him. Until recently, Israel’s border with Syria had been its quietest frontier for four decades. [...]

Israel’s reliance on Russia is a result of President Donald Trump’s hostility to a long-term commitment to Syria. Trump told the military earlier this year to prepare to withdraw all U.S. soldiers from the country, and earlier this month announced that the United States would not spend $230 million that had been earmarked to help rebuild the country’s shattered infrastructure. “If you’re an Israeli policy maker and you’re looking at Syria, you see Russia is there and obviously staying,” Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former chief negotiator with Syria in the 1990s, told me. “And you see the United States—the president says one day that he wants to withdraw the 2,000 [American] troops, and the next day he faces some pressure and keeps them there. But is that reliable in the long term? Doubtful.” [...]

As these political and military dramas play out, there is little question about a fundamental fact—Iran and its allies are poised to challenge Israel on multiple fronts in the years ahead. In Lebanon and Syria, Hezbollah boasts more fighters and better weapons than at any point in its history. Earlier this year, in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Israel engaged in a series of tit-for-tat clashes for months before a cease-fire took hold. And in Iran, there is a growing risk that the Islamic Republic could restart its nuclear program following the Trump administration’s decision to reimpose sanctions on the country.

read the article

Haaretz: That Roaring Sound? It’s Palestine Unleashing a Legal Tsunami Against Israeli War Crimes

Palestine joined Interpol, the international police organization, in September 2017; filed an inter-state complaint against Israel for breaches of its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in April; and just last week,the UN Human Rights Council decided to send a commission of inquiry to examine Israel’s killing of Palestinians along the Gaza border, which was supported by almost all of the Council’s members, except for the U.S. and Australia. [...]

The Palestinian leadership could still take further steps at other international courts and tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice, by calling on the UN General Assembly to request an Advisory Opinion from that Court, if it sees any political advantage in doing so.

Although Israel does not recognize the State of Palestine, over 130 states do; because Israel is occupying the territory of a member state, the ICC has, in principle, jurisdiction. [...]

The U.S., on Israel’s behalf, could make this appeal to international law uncomfortable for the Palestinians. In 2015, the U.S. Congress passed the Omnibus Appropriations Act to bar the provision of economic support funds to the Palestinian Authority if it initiates "an International Criminal Court judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians." 

read the article

Haaretz: Partners in Occupation: Trump Provides the anti-Palestinian Incitement, Israel the Bullets

What began as the ethnic cleansing of at least 418 Palestinian villages and cities today takes a different shape. The inauguration of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem while a massacre was taking place in Gaza only 40 kilometers away aptly demonstrates the complete U.S. and Israeli denial of the Palestinian history of dispossession.

What became known as the "Great March of Return," an initiative to demonstrate for the internationally recognized rights of the Palestinian people, was savagely attacked by Israeli forces, under clear instructions from their political and military leadership. [...]

That is why, in the preamble to the massacres committed against unarmed Palestinians in Gaza during the embassy inauguration, people like the U.S. Ambassador David Friedman and envoy Jason Greenblatt became nothing less than spokespeople for the Israeli occupation. 

The complicity between the Israel and the U.S. became strikingly clear when, while at least 40 Palestinians had been slaughtered in Gaza during the previous hours, the only reference to the Palestinian people during the embassy inauguration came from President Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner: he blamed the victims for the massacre, in what has become a recurrent talking point used by pro-occupation officials and activists.

read the article

Haaretz: Israel Still Hasn't Learnt the Most Important Lesson of the Holocaust

Preparing for a not far-off age when we will not have living testimony of the Holocaust means also thinking about it in new ways. For those of us descended from survivors, and for Israelis and Jews who feel the Holocaust is somehow "ours," it inevitably means part of our personal and national connection to it will be lost in the universalization of the Holocaust as a historical symbol of dehumanization.  [...]

Not only against the callousness of his remark, and the implications for the policy of the IDF in the coming clashes on the border. But because Lieberman feels he can say that about the 1.8 million people living in Gaza because they are being denied any rights, not just by Israel and Egypt who maintain the blockade, but by Hamas as well. He wouldn’t have said that about Palestinians living in the West Bank, living under the Palestinian Authority, or the citizens of a neighboring country. [...]

Just as we have a duty to point out the fact that the government’s (hopefully) failed forcible deportation plan, was only aimed at refugees from war-torn Sudan and ultra-repressive Eritrea - countries which have long ago stopped treating its citizens as such. Not against more than double the number of migrants from functioning countries currently living illegally in Israel. Because it is much easier to treat people as unwanted packages and ship them off to a "third country" when they have already been denied the protection of their homelands. [...]

It is our duty, as descendants and heirs of all those generations of Jews who were denied their basic rights to live. A duty not just of Israelis, but of all Jews in whose name Israel was founded and who can and should bring their influence, experience and knowledge to bear in this project. Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which brought Zionism to its successful end 70 years ago, still needs to be fulfilled.  

read the article

The New York Review of Books: Israel’s War on Culture

The climate in Israel was tense and bellicose. As Hamas fighters fired rockets from Gaza at central Tel Aviv, right-wing Israeli nationalists assaulted antiwar protesters while chanting “Death to Arabs!” and “Death to leftists!” Veteran artists and public figures were labeled as traitors and received threats for even expressing regret at the loss of Palestinian children’s lives. One of Israel’s best-known poets, Natan Zach, now eighty-seven, told the Israeli website Walla! at the time: “The reason I no longer write in the papers is that I’m afraid someone will grab me on the street and beat me.” A month after a cease-fire was agreed, Israel’s then foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, decided it was time for his ministry to cut off all future support for the Israeli dancer and choreographer Arkadi Zaides for a work that allegedly vilified Israel’s military. 

Zaides’s Archive is a solo dance piece set against a backdrop of video footage of Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank. The footage was provided by B’Tselem, an Israeli group that documents human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories and has become anathema to the Israeli political establishment. Last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a meeting with the German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, after Gabriel met with representatives of B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation organization of former Israeli soldiers who publish testimonies about their service in the West Bank and Gaza. (Israel’s cabinet is currently promoting one bill that would ban members of Breaking the Silence from speaking in high schools, and another that would effectively outlaw them.) [...]

In her position as the country’s leading cultural watchdog, Regev has taken every opportunity to cut funds, or threaten to do so, to artists or institutions she deems harmful or offensive to the state. One of her first acts as culture minister was to levy financial penalties on theaters, dance troupes, or orchestras that do not perform in the settlements—and provide bonus payments to those that do. She has also said that she wanted to pull funding from several established national arts festivals because of performances involving nudity and from fringe theaters presenting subversive content. Although successive attorney generals have told her that her interference infringes on freedom of expression, that has not stopped her from crusading on the motto “freedom of expression, not freedom of funding.” [...]

While few in Israel have heard of Tatour, Israel’s war on culture has recently found a much more high-profile target. On March 13, Israel’s ambassador to France, Aliza Bin-Noun, boycotted the opening night of the Israeli Film Festival in Paris because the program was headlined by Foxtrot, a feature film about the trauma two parents suffer after losing their son during his military service. The film—directed by acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Samuel Maoz, an IDF veteran of the 1982 Lebanon war—has won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, swept the Ophir Awards (Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars), and was shortlisted by the Academy Awards (though it fell short of a best foreign film nomination). The story includes a scene in which Israeli soldiers cover up the murder of Palestinians. Although, by her own admission, Regev has not seen the film, she said it “harms the good name of the IDF” and that its selection for leading film festivals is “a disgrace.” And she used the occasion to repeat her threats about funding: “Whoever wants to make a movie like this can do so with their own private money.”

read the article

Haaretz: Netanyahu Has a New Scapegoat for His Corruption Scandal

Only Benjamin Netanyahu could have navigated the past three days and landed on his feet, unscathed in any significant way politically and without throwing the coalition into turmoil. He chalked up an impressive success in shaping the media discourse following the calamity of the police’s recommendations after their investigations of him. His party is united in supporting him and many of his friends took part in the vilification of the political rival who turns out to be a witness in Case 1000: MK Yair Lapid, chairman of Yesh Atid. [...]

The death throes are going to be prolonged and ugly. The handwriting of Netanyahu’s end is already written on the wall. The lightning polls conducted a day after the police publicized their findings showed that Likud has not been weakened and in fact has been strengthened, but that its leader’s situation is dire and isn’t likely to improve. The majority of the public doesn’t believe him, prefers the police account and thinks the prime minister is corrupt and needs to resign. The breaking point will come when the attorney general announces his decision to indict the prime minister – if that’s what he decides. However, that is still months down the road. [...]

Throughout all his years in politics, Netanyahu has honed to an art the practice of shifting the campaign to his rival’s field. He defines himself through the agency of his foes, both in the international arena and in domestic party politics. In the run-up to the last election, for example, he portrayed Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni as traitors and collaborators with the Islamic State, who were directing the militants toward Jerusalem on their pickups.

read the article

Bloomberg: Trump Will Be the Big Loser If Netanyahu Falls

That doesn’t make him guilty. The cops aren’t always right. Bibi says they are biased. Now the police report goes to the attorney general, Avihai Mandelblit. If he decides to indict, Netanyahu will have to step down. This will take some time, and circumstances can change, but at the moment I’d put the odds against the prime minister at about 3-to-1. [...]

In the current Israeli political constellation, there is no alternative coalition Netanyahu could form if this one collapses. He could hand the reins over to one of his fellow Likudniks, which would preserve the coalition, and wait for his day in court, but nobody who knows Bibi thinks he will do any such thing. He intends to fight on and do what it takes to stay in office. [...]

The two men also have a common goal. Trump’s key project is to reverse and wipe away every trace of the policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama, foreign as well as domestic. Netanyahu spent the eight years of the Obama administration butting heads over what he considered to be misguided American behavior. [...]

And Netanyahu is valuable to Trump in this. He is a cautious but potentially powerful warrior. And he has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is a trusted and reliable go-between for Washington and Moscow, a role of great importance to both sides given the proximity of their forces and proxies in Syria.

read the article

Haaretz: For Once, Netanyahu Is Rooting for Iranian President Rohani

Netanyahu tried hard to convince the world that Rohani was just a more user-friendly face for the same radical regime, calling him a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But the international community was eager to engage with Iran and was simply relieved to be facing Rohani and his silver-tongued foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Yet now, after trying to brand Rohani and his circle as an integral part of the regime, no different or better than the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Netanyahu – at least in private – has got to be rooting for Rohani.

Over the last few days, Israel has been running a concerted campaign against Iran’s alleged plan to manufacture and upgrade missiles on Lebanese soil. It began on Sunday with a highly irregular article, written by IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis and published on Lebanese opposition websites, claiming that “Lebanon is turning into one big missile factory. ... Iran and Hezbollah are currently trying to build a precision missile factory.” It continued on Monday with Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warning in the Knesset that “we know the sites for building and upgrading missiles in Lebanon, and we know the people who are involved in the manufacture.” [...]

Now, thanks to Lieberman, the threat level has become personal, with Israel basically saying that if it so chooses, it can assassinate Iranians involved in missile production. And Netanyahu has upped the stakes, saying that if necessary Israel will attack. Lieberman, however, admitted that the last thing he wants “is to get into a third Lebanon war.” And here at least he was telling the truth: Neither him nor Netanyahu believe it would be in Israel’s interest to embark on another all-out war to dislodge Hezbollah, which is why they are pinning their hopes on Rohani. 

read the article

Haaretz: Israel Is Arming Criminals

Despite the UN stating that Myanmar’s army is carrying out “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslim minority, Israel refuses to stop selling arms to the country’s military. Israel is doing so despite the fact that the European Union and the United States have both banned arms sales to Myanmar, making it the only Western nation supplying the country formerly known as Burma with weapons. [...]

In the part of the hearing held behind closed doors, the state’s representatives explained Israel’s relations with Myanmar to the justices. It is unclear why the state is concealing information from its citizens about the factors it uses to conduct trade. Even in the open part of the hearing, the state refused to say that Israel would stop selling weapons to Myanmar. [...]

Lieberman is lying. This is not the first time that Israel has taken such a course of action. It lied when it supported war crimes in Argentina, ignoring the American embargo, and it lied when it armed the Bosnian forces that perpetrated massacres, ignoring a UN embargo. It armed the military dictatorships in Chile and Argentina and the Contras in Nicaragua, and it is arming the forces of evil in South Sudan. 

read the article

Haaretz: As Violence Intensifies, Israel Continues to Arm Myanmar’s Military Junta

On Thursday, the bodies of 26 refugees, including 12 children, were removed from the Naf River, which runs along the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Of the refugees who managed to reach Bangladesh, many had been shot. There were also reports of rapes, shootings and fatal beatings directed at the Rohingya minority, which is denied human rights in Myanmar. The country’s army has been in the middle of a military campaign since October that intensified following the recent killing of 12 Myanmar soldiers by Muslim rebels. [...]

Militia members continue to commit crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of human rights around the country, particularly against minority groups that are not even accorded citizenship. Since Myanmar’s military launched operations in Rakhine last October, a number of sources have described scenes of slaughter of civilians, unexplained disappearances, and the rape of women and girls, as well as entire villages going up in flames. The military has continued to commit war crimes and violations of international law up to the present. [...]

Lieberman statement was incorrect. The United States and the European Union have imposed an arms embargo on Myanmar. It’s unclear whether the cause was ignorance, and Lieberman is not fully informed about Israel’s arms exports (even though he must approve them), or an attempt at whitewashing.

In terms of history, as well, Lieberman’s claim is incorrect. Israel supported war crimes in Argentina, for example, even when the country was under a U.S. embargo, and it armed the Serbian forces committing massacres in Bosnia despite a United Nations embargo.

read the article

Haaretz: Temple Mount Crisis: Fears of Political Rivals Led Netanyahu to Make a Grave Error

Given his responsible conduct in the first hours following the attack, it’s puzzling how 24 hours later he committed such a grave error in the rushed decision last Saturday to install metal detectors at all the entrances to the compound. After 24 hours in which he seemingly prevented an escalation, that decision reversed the trend and greatly exacerbated tensions, leading to the explosion which erupted over the weekend. [...]

Netanyahu’s mistake was not just in installing the detectors, but mainly in the decision-making process that preceded it. Even though he knows very well that the Temple Mount was the most volatile point in the Middle East, if not in the entire world, he elected that evening to deal with a complex, strategic topic based on tactical security considerations. All complexities were set aside, and the issue boiled down to metal detectors.

Netanyahu’s miscalculation in that discussion and in setting up those detectors put him in an impossible bind. When it turned out that this move was meeting stiff opposition, the government was left with no good solutions, stuck between a rock and a hard place. If it were to remove the detectors, this would be interpreted as weakness, showing it capitulating to threats and admitting that it does not truly have sovereignty over the Temple Mount. If it left the detectors in place, it could find itself sliding towards a violent eruption in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and a crisis with the entire Muslim world. [...]

In both cases the reason is the same – his worries about political rivals on his right. Netanyahu found himself in a government without a token leftist such as Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni or Moshe Ya’alon whom he could count on to block dangerous moves and then draw fire from the settlers’ lobby in the cabinet, the Knesset and the media.

read the article 

Haaretz: Avi Gabbay, a Business Exec With Little Political Experience, Just Won Israel's Labor Party Primary and Hopes to Replace Netanyahu

Avi Gabbay, who won Monday’s runoff for the Labor Party leadership, is not the typical candidate to lead Israel’s largest left-wing party. Not only is Gabbay a relatively new name for the voters, but the path he had chosen so far for his political and business career is at odds with the ways of traditional Labor leaders: He served as environmental protection minister under a different, right-wing party, he sat in a right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, and before entering the political arena served as CEO of the biggest telecommunications firm in Israel.

On the eve of the runoff that will determine his political future, Gabbay can be seen as a complex and multifaceted character. The same person that had no problem sitting in a government accustomed to a diplomatic freeze now swears he is continuing the path of the late Yitzhak Rabin, and that he is unafraid to touch on the sensitive issue of East Jerusalem. His printed platform even states he would hand over Arab neighborhoods in the capital to the Palestinian Authority. [...]

Even in the business sector it is hard to identify the real Gabbay: He crossed the lines from the Finance Ministry’s budget department for a job at telecommunications monopoly Bezeq, and later fired workers while pocketing tens of millions of shekels for himself. On the other hand, all his colleagues at the firm described to Haaretz a sharp and well-liked manager who made the company more efficient and helped it grow while always treating people with respect. [...]

Kulanu officials note that Gabbay wasn’t always so adamant about Lieberman and his party. Before the 2015 elections, Kulanu and Yisrael Beiteinu had a surplus-vote agreement, which earned Kulanu a 10th seat and enabled it to demand a third ministerial post – for Gabbay. So what changed between then and May 2016? Gabbay’s close associates asserted that the appointment of Lieberman as defense minister following his support for Sgt. Elor Azaria, who executed a gravely wounded Palestinian assailant in Hebron, crossed a red line. Kulanu officials deem the resignation a cynical, carefully planned move, an attempt to differentiate himself from Kahlon and to find a gimmick allowing him to strike out on his own. [...]

Gabbay left Bezeq a young man who didn’t have to worry about earning a living. His 14 years there made him a very rich man. He reportedly earned 50 million shekels ($14.1 million). Gabbay told “Uvda” that the 175,000 shekels a month he was earning by the end of his tenure did not necessarily reflect his contribution to Bezeq. His years there gave him the privilege of being able to enter politics for the sake of ideology rather than for a livelihood. Also, it cannot be ruled out that without the enormous sums he earned, he could not have funded his current electoral campaign. His money has also allowed him a larger home in North Tel Aviv, where he lives with his wife Ayelet, a teaching coordinator at a Tel Aviv high school, and their three children. His friends say his wife is a great influence in his life. Some of them say she pushed him for years toward leftist positions.

read the article 

Al Jazeera: What are Israel's goals in West Africa?

Traditionally, Israeli leaders have not been well-received in Africa. North African states have Muslim majorities, close ties with the Middle East, and are supportive of the Palestinian cause.

Sub-Saharan African states fell out with Israel in the wake of the 1973 October War, referred to by Israelis as the Yom Kippur War.

But since 2016, Netanyahu has pursued a campaign of rapprochement with African nations, in the hopes of strengthening ties and winning African support for Israel.  [...]

Israel has seized on the appearance of "jihadi groups" in West Africa over the past few years as a golden opportunity.

The threat has provided a convenient opening to brand Palestinian resistance movements as "terrorists", and to paint them in a similar light to violent West African movements.

In doing so, Tel Aviv has taken advantage of the fact that Africa's political elite, swayed by Western media advancing an Israeli agenda, may not possess a deep knowledge of the Arab-Israeli conflict. [...]

West Africa is also seen as a hub for the Lebanese community accused of financing Hezbollah, whose foreign funding has been a long-standing point of concern for Israel. Israeli intelligence and economic influencers have focused on the countries most prone to this Lebanese influence, such as Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire, establishing a number of investment institutions and encouraging Israeli businessmen to invest. [...]

Africa's level of acceptance of Israel will depend on the size of its economic investments, the money it will be able to pump into regional infrastructure projects, and whether Netanyahu will fulfill his promise to spend $1bn in the region to improve green energy projects over the next four years.

read the article 

Haaretz: Ultra-Orthodox Judaism Is Taking Over Israel. Netanyahu Just Made Sure

The two initiatives by the ultra-Orthodox are both designed as roadblocks to Supreme Court decisions which would harm their control over matters of religion and state. Both involve subjects that have been fiercely debated for decades: the ability to dictate the nature of prayer at Western Wall, and who can perform recognized conversion to Judaism in Israel. On both measures, the two ultra-Orthodox parties on which Netanyahu’s  governing coalition depends, Shas and United Torah Judaism, have indicated a willingness to cripple Netanyahu’s government by pulling out if they don’t get their way.

Netanyahu’s concession in both cases is, first and foremost, a cold calculation of political survival. But the consequences of his actions are far less acute than they would have been a year ago. The government’s acquiescence to ultra-Orthodox hardball represents a slap in the face to liberal American Jews, in what may reflect the changed political map in the United States. Under President Obama and his Democratic allies, U.S. Jews committed to Reform and Conservative movements held far greater political sway than President Donald Trump, whose Jewish ties – familial, political and professional – are with Orthodox Jewry. Netanyahu has significantly less to lose now in the White House and other U.S. corridors of power by angering non-Orthodox Diaspora Jewish leaders than he did over the past eight years.

First, the government announced Sunday it was suspending the plan to establish an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall that had taken years to negotiate and which Netanyahu has repeatedly assured Diaspora Jewish leaders would come to pass, even as he refused to take action on it for fear of angering the ultra-Orthodox. But ultimately, the fear of losing support from the ultra-Orthodox parties took precedence and political survival trumped his promises. [...]

The second blow to pluralism came in a bill – pushed by the ultra-Orthodox onto the agenda of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, and passed – that guarantees a monopoly for the Chief Rabbinate on conversions to Judaism. The legislation invalidates conversions performed in Israel outside the Orthodox-sanctioned state system, denying citizenship under the Law of Return to Jews converted in Israel by Conservative, Reform or privately-run Orthodox rabbinical courts.

read the article