Deutsche Welle: Moroccan-Israeli peace rapprochement: An (un)expected surprise?

Morocco's reconnection with Israel marks the return to their previous low-level diplomatic relations which had developed in the context of the Oslo accords in the 1990s and had ended with the Second Intifada in 2000. However, cultural ties date back to the pre-Roman Jewish colonies of Mauretania Tingitana around 2,000 years ago.

Despite major waves of migration from Morocco to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s, Morocco is still home to the largest remaining Jewish community in North Africa, while Jews with Moroccan heritage make up the largest minority group of Jewish immigrants in Israel, totaling around 900,000. [...]

In Israel, however, the destiny of the Sahrawi nation does not appear to be a priority. On Thursday, the first day of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu focused on celebrating the new ties with Morocco.

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Foreign Affairs: Trump’s Plan for Palestine Looks a Lot Like Apartheid

The apartheid government ultimately created only four ostensibly independent Bantustans (Bophuthatswana, Venda, Ciskei, and Transkei) and six supposedly self-governing territories. Foreign governments for the most part dismissed the puppet states for what they were; South Africa was the only country in the world to officially recognize the Bantustans, and the major decisions regarding their affairs were made exclusively in Pretoria. [...]

During these years, I learned, to my dismay, that no country in the world (with the exception of South Africa) contributed more to the economy of the Bantustans than Israel. Israelis built factories, neighborhoods, a hospital, and even a soccer stadium and an alligator farm in these South African puppet states. Israel went so far as to allow one of them, Bophuthatswana, to maintain a diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv, and its leader, Lucas Mangope--shunned by the entire world for advancing and legitimizing apartheid by cooperating with the South African regime--was a frequent guest in Israel. [...]

The details of the proposal, and the rhetoric used by both Trump and Netanyahu, made it clear that this was not a deal but rather the implementation of Netanyahu's long-standing plan to further entrench Israel's control of the West Bank by giving its residents disconnected enclaves of territory without granting them real freedom or basic political rights. That was precisely the goal of the old South African government's Bantustan policy, too.

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The Guardian: Abandoning Kurds could cost Trump support of evangelical Christians

Evangelical Christian voters have been among Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic and reliable supporters. Trump’s recent rejection of asylum seekers and cuts to domestic food assistance programs have not stopped followers of Christ from flocking to the president. [...]

“It is very possible that the American withdrawal from the region will lead to the extinction of Christianity from the region,” Ashty Bahro, former director of the Evangelical Alliance of Kurdistan, told the Christianity Today news outlet. [...]

White evangelicals made up 26% of voters in the last presidential election and they voted 81% for Trump, according to Robert P Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and author of The End of White Christian America. [...]

But evangelical Christians are not ready to cast Trump out entirely. Earlier this week CBN News, America’s top Christian-themed media outlet, reported that Trump would be the keynote speaker this weekend at the Value Voters Summit, a huge political convention for evangelical Christians.

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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.  

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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.

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Haaretz: Netanyahu May Have Won, but Israel's Political Landscape Has Fundamentally Changed

So now we are back to two big parties, just without Labor. With its 35 seats, Kahol Lavan has received more votes than any other centrist party in Israeli history. Even Kadima, the only centrist party to ever hold power, never won more than 29. [...]

Why did Likud succeed in coming back from the double whammy of direct elections and the Kadima “big bang” while Labor has been all but obliterated? There are several factors. In Sharon, and now Netanyahu, Likud had strong, persuasive and experienced leaders who were also brilliant campaigners. Of the seven men and one woman who led Labor in the corresponding period, most lacked these skills. There were two who rivaled Sharon and Netanyahu’s stature — Peres and Barak — but they also failed to overcome the failure of Labor’s key policy: A historic compromise with the Palestinians, which had only resulted in more bloodshed during a second intifada and clashes with Gaza. [...]

The only issue really setting Kahol Lavan apart from the right wing is its support for the legal system, in the face of the governing coalition’s campaign to curtail the power of the Supreme Court and shield Netanyahu himself from the criminal indictments he faces. [...]

Kahol Lavan ran its campaign on being the antithesis to Netanyahu but didn’t present an alternative vision. Most of those who voted for it did so in the hope of simply seeing a change in government. That hasn’t happened and Kahol Lavan has no clear idea what to do with its 35 Knesset members.

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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.

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The Guardian: I fought South African apartheid. I see the same brutal policies in Israel

As a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist I look with horror on the far-right shift in Israel ahead of this month’s elections, and the impact in the Palestinian territories and worldwide.

Israel’s repression of Palestinian citizens, African refugees and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza has become more brutal over time. Ethnic cleansing, land seizure, home demolition, military occupation, bombing of Gaza and international law violations led Archbishop Tutu to declare that the treatment of Palestinians reminded him of apartheid, only worse. [...]

The parallels with South Africa are many. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently said: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens … Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and them alone.” [...]

The anti-apartheid movement grew over three decades, in concert with the liberation struggle of South Africa’s people, to make a decisive difference in toppling the racist regime. Europeans refused to buy apartheid fruit; there were sports boycotts; dockworkers from Liverpool to Melbourne refused to handle South African cargo; an academic boycott turned universities into apartheid-free zones; and arms sanctions helped to shift the balance against South Africa’s military.

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Haaretz: Poland vs Israel: Who's Really Winning the War Over Holocaust History?

Last year’s conflagration was primarily the fault of Poland, which passed its ill-conceived memory law on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, and then compounded this with insensitive remarks from senior figures, including Morawiecki’s comments about "Jewish perpetrators" of the Holocaust.

But this time around it is the Israeli side that has set the blaze. The claim by Foreign Minister Israel Katz that Poles "imbibe anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk" was false, essentializing and offensive – not least to the many Poles who risked, and often lost, their lives helping Jews during the war, as well as the many today who devote themselves to protecting and promoting Poland’s Jewish heritage. [...]

The fallout from this could have been contained. Yet instead it was compounded by the Israeli government making no attempt to denounce or distance itself from Katz’s remarks, nor even to rein him in. The very next day he repeated the remarks in another radio interview. The situation was further exacerbated by a slew of commentary in Israeli media that was often uninformed on WWII history and presented further negative generalizations about Poles as a whole.[...]

And this is precisely the problem. These disputes over WWII history bring out the worst elements and attitudes on both sides. They trigger a vicious circle of mutually reinforcing animosity fuelled by competing, one-sided historical memories. The discourse comes to be dominated by the most extreme voices, who have a political or ideological motivation to stir things up.

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Haaretz: Polish Prime Minister to Haaretz: Tens of Thousands of Poles Aided Jews. We Won't Give in to Lies

“I have no problem with someone mentioning the fact that during the cruel, evil, dehumanizing war there were individual criminals in my nation – obviously there were, just as in every other nation,” says Morawiecki. “But when you use these stereotypes that ‘every Pole suckled anti-Semitism out of their mother’s breast’ it’s nothing short of racism.”[...]

“We also have to cope with some anti-Semitism in Poland, but fortunately it is marginal,” Morawiecki said, citing the recent report of the European Fundamental Rights Agency. “Poland is one of the few countries in the EU where the number of anti-Semitic incidents is decreasing, while in many others we are witnessing worrying developments,” he said, noting that anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise in countries like France, Germany, Sweden and Britain. [...]

Morawiecki also cited that the joint statement he signed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last June included a section denouncing anti-Semitism and anti-Polonism. This part of the declaration elicited criticism from some historians who argued that a parallel should not be drawn between the two, and that putting them together in this way diminished the gravity of centuries of anti-Semitism in Poland.[...]

Netanyahu was initially quoted on the Jerusalem Post website as having said that “the Polish nation” colluded with the Nazis. Following a request for clarification from the Polish government, his office issued a statement that “He was speaking about Poles and not about the Polish people or the country of Poland.”

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The Guardian view on Israel’s democracy: killing with impunity, lying without consequence?

In the last nine months of 2018, according to the United Nations, Palestinians – many of them children – were killed at the rate of around one a day while taking part in protests along Israel’s perimeter fence with Gaza about their right to return to ancestral homes. They included medics and journalists. Most of the dead were unarmed and posed no danger to anyone, with little more than rocks in their hands and slogans on their lips. Yet Israel continued with an immoral and unlawful policy that sees soldiers of its military, which is under democratic civilian control, shoot, gas, shell and kill protesters, including those who pose no credible threat. [...]

The tensions between judicial and public opinion will be tested in the cauldron of Israel’s general election. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, unexpectedly called for early elections in December in what seems a transparent bid to head off possible corruption charges. The decision by Mr Netanyahu to dissolve the Knesset came days after the state prosecutor’s office recommended that Israel’s attorney general indict Mr Netanyahu on charges of bribery, which he denies. Mr Netanyahu is not only running for a fifth term in office, he is also running for his political life. His lawyers, it is reported, are arguing that a possible indictment be delayed; on the campaign trail Mr Netanyahu casts himself as an embattled leader persecuted by a leftwing elite comprised of lawyers, journalists and human-rights do-gooders. Echoing his friend Donald Trump, Mr Netanyahu has told reporters that Israel can choose its leadership only at the ballot box and not through legal investigations, which are a “witch-hunt”. Like the US president, the message from Mr Netanyahu is that democratic norms, those unwritten rules of toleration and restraint, are for the weak, not for the strong. Yet without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances are less mainstays of democracy than a mirage.

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The New York Review of Books: Exporting the Technology of Occupation

This is just one of the more sinister examples of a lucrative business. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel recently sold Saudi Arabia $250 million-worth of sophisticated spying equipment, and Ha’aretz also reported that the Kingdom was offered the NSO Group’s phone-hacking software shortly before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began purging opponents in 2017. Israel and Saudi Arabia both view Iran as a unique threat that justifies their cooperation.

Besides spyware and cyber tools, Israel has developed a growing industry based around surveillance including espionage, psychological operations, and disinformation. One of these corporations, Black Cube, a private intelligence agency with links to the Israeli government (two former heads of the Mossad have sat on its international advisory board), has recently gained notoriety—most notably for spying on women who’d accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. News reports have also identified the firm’s work on behalf of Hungary’s authoritarian government, as well as an alleged “dirty ops” campaigns against Obama administration officials tied to the Iran nuclear deal, and against an anti-corruption investigator in Romania. Black Cube and other agencies like it have close ties to the Israeli state because they hire many former intelligence personnel. [...]

Despite their occasional diplomatic gestures opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, many nations have become willing customers of Israeli cyber-weapons and intelligence know-how. The Mexican government has also used NSO Group tools, in at least one case, according to The New York Times, apparently to track an investigative reporter who was subsequently murdered; human rights lawyers and anti-corruption activists have also been targeted. Amnesty International has accused the NSO Group of attempting to spy on one of its employees. A Canadian research group, the Citizen Lab, found that infected phones have shown up in Bahrain, Brazil, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, the UAE, the UK, the US, and elsewhere. [...]

Hever acknowledges that “authoritarian regimes definitely still want to learn how Israel manages and controls the Palestinians, but the more they learn, the more they realize that Israel does not actually control the Palestinians very effectively. Support for Israel from right-wing groups and politicians around the world is still strong—Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, being a particularly depressing example—but I think there is more focus on the racism, racial profiling and nationalism and less and less admiration for the ‘strongest military in the world.’” He even questions the Israeli government narrative about the success of the weapons and intelligence sector and argues that the industry is in decline because it is so dependent on short-term, ad-hoc alliances.

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Haaretz: What Hamas and Netanyahu Have in Common

To his credit, Netanyahu has come to understand what many opportunistic right-wing politicians are not willing to admit: War is not the solution to the confrontation with Hamas. [...]

However, Netanyahu refuses to negotiate with Hamas, arguing that it is as extreme as ISIS, when in fact it is innately different from ISIS, al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants.

The differences between the Hamas and ISIS are manifested in their worldview and actions. There is a profound ideological chasm between them, which leads to mutual denigration, and in some instances, to violence. [...]

Whereas Hamas grudgingly and indirectly accepted Israel’s existence in its new charter of 2017, ISIS and al-Qaeda consider such a compromise to be betrayal. [...]

In order to move beyond Netanyahu’s "no war and no negotiations" gridlock for Gaza and the Israelis living next door, we need to think critically about the underlying assumptions of Israel’s ruling right-wing parties, which reject peace negotiations, yet fail to eliminate terror.

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Haaretz: Guns, Trump and anti-Semitism: Pittsburgh Shooting Highlights Vast Divide Between Liberal U.S. Jews and Israel

A short time after his letter went public, 11 activists from the Pittsburgh branch of Bend the Arc – an organization for progressive Jews focused on social justice – published an open letter in which they urged Trump to stay away from the city unless he changes his rhetoric on racism and violence in politics.[...]

Continuing to address the president, they added that “for the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement. You yourself called the murderer evil, but [Saturday’s] violence is the direct culmination of your influence.”[...]

In conversations with Jewish residents in Pittsburgh over the past two days, it was common to hear complaints and direct accusations aimed at Trump – especially regarding the violent rhetoric at his political rallies, such as the calls to “lock up” his political rivals, or his recent praise of Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte who physically attacked a journalist last year. [...]

Yet almost none of these comments came up in remarks offered by Israeli government officials in the days after the attack. To the contrary, Israeli officials have made sure not to even hint at any form of criticism toward Trump or anyone in his political-ideological orbit. Instead, Israeli officials have thanked Trump for denouncing the incident and ordering U.S. flags in government institutions to be lowered to half-staff. [...]

For Israel, anti-Semitism is the only issue that played a significant role in the Tree of Life massacre. And in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, said that “when people attribute anti-Semitism to one side of the political debate, they make a very big mistake. To simply say that this is because of one person [and] only comes on one side, is to not understand the history of anti-Semitism or the reality of anti-Semitism.”

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Haaretz: American Jews Are Funding the Far-right Dream of Greater Israel. We Have to End This - Now

Unfortunately, funding Canary Mission to silence dissent against Israeli policies is just the tip of the iceberg. A new report released by IfNotNow - "Beyond Talk: The 5 Ways the American Jewish Establishment Supports the Occupation" - shows us how, in word and deed, the entire Jewish communal apparatus defends and deepens injustice in Israel/Palestine. We should not be shocked, but we should be angry.

Jewish establishment organizations fund the dispossession of Palestinians, lobby politicians to empower Israel’s march toward full-blown apartheid, and celebrate the Israeli politicians leading that march. Many Jewish educational institutions erase and deny Palestinian narratives to keep kids ignorant of reality - and punish critical voices.[...]

The American Jewish community’s active participation in injustice goes far further. Unquestioning support for, and defense of, the Netanyahu government has emboldened the Israeli far-right’s war to gradually dominate all of "Greater Israel." The Israeli right knows it can do whatever it wants on either side of the Green Line without so much as a word from American Jews – or, of course, from the Trump White House.

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Haaretz: Why Are Some pro-Israel Voices Speaking Out Against Jamal Khashoggi?

Even as gruesome allegations emerge that he was tortured, murdered and dismembered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, some Israel supporters have joined other figures on the right in describing Khashoggi as a terrorist sympathizer and fierce opponent of Israel. Their goal appears to be to counter a portrait of Khashoggi as a Saudi reformer and free speech activist, and perhaps derail pressure building on the White House to punish Saudi Arabia for his disappearance and presumed murder. [...]

Purveyors of the attacks on Khashoggi said they wanted to set the record straight. Other observers suggested that the public fight over Khashoggi’s reputation has to do with a number of issues central to the latest crisis in U.S.-Saudi relations: cultivating Saudi cooperation in the diplomatic fight against Iran, keeping the Saudis on board the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and maintaining the kingdom as a bulwark against violent forms of radical Islam.[...]

Donald Trump Jr. retweeted one of the earliest attacks on Khashoggi, from a correspondent for the PJ Media conservative website. The correspondent, Patrick Poole, had posted photos of interviews Khashoggi had conducted in the late 1980s with Osama bin Laden, who went on to found al-Qaeda and to plot the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has touted emerging ties with Saudi Arabia and other countries as validating his strategy of downplaying peace with the Palestinians, believing he can make Israel at home in the region without the Palestinians. Bin Salman was a key figure in this strategy.

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Haaretz: Merkel and All the Men

I felt the need to take a picture of this aberration and post it on Instagram as a legacy of the past, but last Thursday, a photo of the scene at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem was not much different from the Beraud painting in Paris, as if 129 years had not elapsed. There they were, ramrod straight, standing next to one another in similar suits: 22 men surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the most powerful woman in the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The businessmen were invited to attend an exhibition on innovation and a roundtable discussion as representatives of the ground-breaking high-tech field. The men, like the Parisian intellectuals in the painting, represent progress. They too are totally blind to the fact that in practice, they are outmoded. The photo, which was meant to glorify and promote the crown jewel of Israel’s economy, unwittingly laid bare something else entirely – the banality of erasing women from the most important arena that there is, the centers of power. [...]

The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s apology in the face of growing protests on social media over the absence of women in high tech in the picture demonstrates the magnitude of the problem: “The roundtable at which Merkel participated was part of a series of events organized in cooperation with a number of entities, including the Israel Export Institute, the Innovation Authority, the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The companies that were invited are leaders in innovation from Israel and Germany. … They selected and sent their representatives. In the course of the preparations, the shortcoming of the absence of women among the representatives was not identified.”

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Haaretz: Not Just Millennials: These Older U.S. Jews Are Disillusioned by Israel Too

Even World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder, a leader of mainstream Jewish organizations, a Republican (and longtime friend of U.S. President Donald Trump) took to the pages of The New York Times in August to voice his dismay in an Op-Ed entitled “Israel, This is Not Who We Are.” [...]

Lauder’s Op-Ed was the latest example of what political scientist Prof. Dov Waxman labels a fundamental change among U.S. Jews nowadays: Being pro-Israel no longer means pure unconditional support for the Israeli government. “I call it critical engagement,” he says, adding it is no longer the old model of what he calls “passive support.” [...]

He says that in the two years since his book was published, he has spent a lot of time on the road giving talks where, he estimates, some 90 percent of the audience is older American Jews. “And everywhere, I heard the same sentiments,” he says: “That people had long felt troubled by Israeli politics and actions regarding the Palestinians, but never felt able to speak out. They cowered around the sense they were alone, and felt like now a burden was being lifted because they were no longer alone and intimidated by speaking out,” says Waxman. [...]

Indeed, a recent American Jewish Committee poll seemed to suggest a major fissure between American and Israeli Jews when it comes to how they think Trump is handling U.S.-Israel relations. While 77 percent of Israeli Jews approve, only 34 percent of American Jews do.

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Haaretz: Putin Now Has Leverage Over Israel, and No Reason to Give It Up

The Defense Ministry, which issued a statement threatening Israel the day after the incident, is taking a hard line. Putin himself spoke softly, almost forgivingly, about a series of tragic mistakes. And Russian officers in contact with Israeli colleagues dealt mainly with professional issues – what caused the incident and what should be fixed to prevent a recurrence. [...]

New bilateral understandings apparently haven’t yet been finalized and probably won’t be publicized. But at least in the short term, Russia will presumably try to put some restrictions on Israel’s freedom of action, either by distancing Israeli planes from Russian bases in northern Syria or by demanding greater advance notice of every strike. [...]

A third country was notably absent from the Russian-Israeli tensions caused by the downed plane – the United States. Until a few years ago, Washington was involved in almost every important Mideast development. A good example is UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The United States and France were heavily involved in drafting it, but Russia, which also has a permanent Security Council seat, was almost completely uninvolved.

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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.

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