Israel and the Middle East News Update - S. Daniel Abraham Center for Peace
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Israel and the Middle East
News Update
Friday, January 18
Headlines:
• AG Won't Rule Out Decision on PM’s Charges Before Elections
• Israel's Most Powerful Lawyer is Named Main Suspect in Sex Scandal
• Arab League: Palestinian Issue has ‘Reduced’ Importance
• PA Said to Deport Palestinian-American it Jailed for Selling Land to Jews
• Ilhan Omar, BDS Supporter, Appointed to House FA Committee
• Gantz Launches Election Campaign with 'Israel Before All' Slogan
• Israel’s First Lunar Spacecraft Heading to Florida for Launch
• Australia Police Make Arrest in Israeli Student Murder Case
Commentary:
• New York Times: “There is no ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’”
- By Matti Friedman, a contributing opinion writer
• Foreign Policy: “The Golan Heights Should Stay Israeli Forever”
- By Steven A. Cook, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace
633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004
The Hon. Robert Wexler, President ● Yoni Komorov, Editor ● Aaron Zucker, Associate EditorNews Excerpts
January 18, 2019
Ynet News
AG Won't Rule Out Decision on PM’s Charges Before Elections
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit indicated Thursday that he will not rule out making a decision on
whether to bring corruption charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the April 9
elections. Netanyahu has asked that no decision be taken on his three investigations until after the
elections, comparing it taking the arm of a thief who was later exonerated. But a letter sent to the prime
minister by a senior aide to the AG said that, "the work on the investigations concerning the prime
minister, which began before the decision was taken to bring forward the elections, will continue as
scheduled." The letter does say, however, that Mandelblit is willing to meet with Netanyahu's lawyers.
See also, “A-G TO NETANYAHU: ELECTIONS DON'T IMPACT COMING DECISIONS ON CRIMINAL PROBES” (JPost)
Ha’aretz
Israel's Most Powerful Lawyer Main Suspect in Sex Scandal
The lawyer at the center of the scandal rocking Israel's judicial establishment has been named as Israel
Bar Association Chairman Efraim Nave – known to all as “Effi.” Nave was arrested Wednesday on
suspicion of promoting judges in exchange for sexual favors. He was released to house arrest for eight
days. According to the Israel Police, he appointed a female judge to a magistrate court, as well as
another judge. Nave has been a dominant and influential figure on Israel's legal scene since 2015, when
he ousted the president of the Bar Association and took leadership of the professional organization
that represents the country’s 59,000 attorneys. See also, “Bennett: Left-wing will not succeed in stopping
Shaked's 'judicial revolution' (i24 News)
Jerusalem Post
Arab League: Palestinian Issue has ‘Reduced’ Importance
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abu al-Gheith caused a stir when he stated during a recent
television interview that the priority of the Palestinian cause – resisting Israel and pushing for a
Palestinian state – has been somewhat “reduced,” before clarifying that “it is still a pressing
circumstance that we [Arab states] must strive to resist.” Al-Gheith explained to a local Egyptian
channel that times have changed and the Arab world has been dramatically transformed as well. Before
2010 there was not an Arab state that failed but “recent years have been the hardest on the region”.
See also, “Arab League to seek international recognition of Pal’ state with East Jerusalem as capital “ (The National)
Times of Israel
PA Said to Deport Pal’-American it Jailed for Selling Land to Jews
A Palestinian-American man who last month was sentenced to life in prison by a Palestinian Authority
court for attempting to sell land to Jews has been released and handed over to the Americans, the Kan
broadcaster reported Thursday. Issam Akel, a resident of East Jerusalem who holds a blue Israeli
identification card and US citizenship, had been held by the PA for several months. In recent days a
secret deal was signed between the PA and US authorities, the report said, and Akel was freed on
Tuesday. A US Embassy official declined to comment on the case, citing “privacy concerns.” One of
Akel’s children said he was unaware that his father had been released. See also, “ Palestinian-American
Sentenced to Life for Selling Land to Jews Released” (Ha’aretz)
2Ha’aretz
Ilhan Omar, BDS Supporter, Appointed to House FA Committee
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of only two members of Congress to support the boycott, divestment
and sanctions movement, was appointed on Thursday a member of the House of Representatives’
Foreign Affairs Comittee. Omar, who was first elected to Congress in November’s mid-term elections,
is also one of two first-ever Muslim women to be elected to Congress, along with Democrat Rashida
Tlaib, the second BDS supporter in Congress. Omar's appointment will bring a new level of criticism
towards Israel to one of the Congress's most important committees. Omar has been criticized for a
2012 tweet in which she wrote that Israel has “hypnotized” the world, and Jewish groups in the United
States have accused her of anti-Semitism. See also, “BDS-backer Ilhan Omar given seat on powerful House
Foreign Affairs panel” (TOI)
Ynet News
Gantz Launches Election Campaign with 'Israel Before All' Slogan
Former IDF chief of staff and the leader of the Israel Resilience Party Benny Gantz on Thursday
launched his election campaign, unveiling his "Israel Before All" slogan. Gantz is widely seen as the
biggest threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection in the parliamentary elections to be
held on April 9. "For me, Israel is before everything else. Join me as we embark on a new path, because
things must change and we will change them," Gantz said in a video published on Facebook. The video
ends Gantz's long-standing ambiguity on his political positions. "I think I've said too much," he
quipped, in reference to his much-discussed silence. See also, “Benjamin Netanyahu's top election rival Benny
Gantz launches long awaited campaign” (Independent)
Jerusalem Post
Israel’s First Lunar Spacecraft Heading to Florida for Launch
Israel began its historic journey to the moon this week after SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries
(IAI)’s first lunar spacecraft was transported via cargo plane from Ben-Gurion Airport to Orlando,
Florida. This comes ahead of launching from SpaceX Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station expected to take place in mid-February. The craft weighing-in at 180 kilograms was packed into
a special temperature-controlled, sterile shipping container, built to protect the spacecraft and ensure
it arrives safely at the launch site. Once it lands at Orlando International Airport, the spacecraft – named
Bereshit (the Hebrew word for in the beginning) – will then be driven to Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station. The spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket together with a geostationary
communications satellite built by SSL.
i24 News
Australia Police Make Arrest in Israeli Student Murder Case
Australia police on Friday arrested a man in relation to the murder of Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe,
some two days after her body was found in Melbourne. The 21-year-old was killed on the way home
from a comedy show in Melbourne just after midnight on Wednesday, with her body found in bushes
near a tram stop by passers-by several hours later. A 20-year-old man from the outer suburbs of
Melbourne was arrested at 11.20am Friday, police said. "Homicide Squad detectives have arrested a
man as part of the ongoing investigation into the death of Aiia Maasarwe," Victoria Police said in a
statement."Police would like to thank the public for their assistance with the investigation."
3New York Times – January 16, 2019
There is no ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’
By Matti Friedman, a contributing opinion writer
• If you are reading this, you’ve likely seen much about “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” in the
pages of this newspaper and of every other important newspaper in the West. That phrase
contains a few important assumptions. That the conflict is between two actors, Israelis and
Palestinians. That it could be resolved by those two actors, and particularly by the stronger side,
Israel. That it’s taking place in the corner of the Middle East under Israeli rule.
• Presented this way, the conflict has become an energizing issue on the international left and the
subject of fascination of many governments, including the Trump administration, which has
been working on a “deal of the century” to solve it. The previous administration’s secretary of
state, John Kerry, committed so much time to Israeli-Palestinian peace that for a while he
seemed to be here each weekend. If only the perfect wording and map could be found, according
to this thinking, if only both sides could be given the right dose of carrots and sticks, peace
could ensue.
• To someone here in Israel, all of this is harder and harder to understand. There isn’t an Israeli-
Palestinian conflict in the way that many outsiders seem to think, and this perception gap is
worth spelling out. It has nothing to do with being right-wing or left-wing in the American sense.
To borrow a term from the world of photography, the problem is one of zoom. Simply put,
outsiders are zoomed in, and people here in Israel are zoomed out. Understanding this will make
events here easier to grasp. In the Israeli view, no peacemaker can bring the two sides together
because there aren’t just two sides. There are many, many sides.
• Most of Israel’s wars haven’t been fought against Palestinians. Since the invasion of five Arab
armies at the declaration of the State of Israel in May 1948, the Palestinians have made up a
small number of the combatants facing the country. To someone here, zooming in to frame our
problem as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes as much sense as describing the “America-Italy
conflict” of 1944. American G.I.s were indeed dying in Italy that year, but an American
instinctively knows that this can be understood only by seeing it as one small part of World War
II. The actions of Americans in Italy can’t be explained without Japan, or without Germany,
Russia, Britain and the numerous actors and sub-conflicts making up the larger war.
• Over the decades when Arab nationalism was the region’s dominant ideology, Israeli soldiers
faced Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Iraqis. Today Israel’s most potent enemy
is the Shiite theocracy in Iran, which is more than 1,000 miles away and isn’t Palestinian (or
Arab). The gravest threat to Israel at close range is Hezbollah on our northern border, an army
of Lebanese Shiites founded and funded by the Iranians.
• The antiaircraft batteries of the Russians, Iran’s patrons, already cover much of our airspace
from their new Syrian positions. A threat of a lesser order is posed by Hamas, which is
Palestinian — but was founded as the local incarnation of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, affiliated
with the regional wave of Sunni radicalism, kept afloat with Qatari cash and backed by Iran.
• If you see only an “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict, then nothing that Israelis do makes sense.
(That’s why Israel’s enemies prefer this framing.) In this tightly cropped frame, Israelis are
stronger, more prosperous and more numerous. The fears affecting big decisions, like what to
4do about the military occupation in the West Bank, seem unwarranted if Israel is indeed the far
more powerful party.
• That’s not the way Israelis see it. Many here believe that an agreement signed by a Western-
backed Palestinian leader in the West Bank won’t end the conflict, because it will wind up
creating not a state but a power vacuum destined to be filled by intra-Muslim chaos, or Iranian
proxies, or some combination of both. That’s exactly what has happened around us in Gaza,
Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. One of Israel’s nightmares is that the fragile monarchy in Jordan could
follow its neighbors, Syria and Iraq, into dissolution and into Iran’s orbit, which would mean that
if Israel doesn’t hold the West Bank, an Iranian tank will be able to drive directly from Tehran to
the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
• When I look at the West Bank as an Israeli, I see 2.5 million Palestinian civilians living under
military rule, with all the misery that entails. I’m seeing the many grave errors our governments
have made in handling the territory and its residents, the construction of civilian settlements
chief among them.
• But because I’m zoomed out, I’m also seeing Hezbollah (not Palestinian), and the Russians and
Iranians (not Palestinian), and the Islamic State-affiliated insurgents (not Palestinian) on our
border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. I’m considering the disastrous result of the power vacuum
in Syria, which is a 90-minute drive from the West Bank.
• In the “Israeli-Palestinian” framing, with all other regional components obscured, an Israeli
withdrawal in the West Bank seems like a good idea — “like a real-estate deal,” in President
Trump’s formulation — if not a moral imperative. And if the regional context were peace, as it
was in Northern Ireland, for example, a power vacuum could indeed be filled by calm.
• But anyone using a wider lens sees that the actual context here is a complex, multifaceted war,
or a set of linked wars, devastating this part of the world. The scope of this conflict is hard to
grasp in fragmented news reports but easy to see if you pull out a map and look at Israel’s
surroundings, from Libya through Syria and Iraq to Yemen.
• The fault lines have little to do with Israel. They run between dictators and the people they’ve
been oppressing for generations; between progressives and medievalists; between Sunni and
Shiite; between majority populations and minorities. If our small sub-war were somehow
resolved, or even if Israel vanished tonight, the Middle East would remain the same volatile place
it is now.
• Misunderstanding the predicament of Israelis and Palestinians as a problem that can be solved
by an agreement between them means missing modest steps that might help people here. Could
Israel, as some centrist strategists here recently suggested, freeze and shrink most civilian
settlements while leaving the military in place for now? How can the greatest number of
Palestinians be freed from friction with Israelis without creating a power vacuum that will bring
the regional war to our doorstep? These questions can be addressed only if it’s clear what we’re
talking about.
• Abandoning the pleasures of the simple story for the confusing realities of the bigger picture is
emotionally unsatisfying. An observer is denied a clear villain or an ideal solution. But it does
make events here comprehensible, and it will encourage Western policymakers to abandon
fantastic visions in favor of a more reasonable grasp of what’s possible. And that, in turn, might
lead to some tangible improvements in a world that could use fewer illusions and wiser leaders.
5SUMMARY: If you see only an “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict, then nothing that Israelis do
makes sense. (That’s why Israel’s enemies prefer this framing.) In this tightly cropped
frame, Israelis are stronger, more prosperous and more numerous. The fears affecting big
decisions, like what to do about the military occupation in the West Bank, seem
unwarranted if Israel is indeed the far more powerful party. That’s not the way Israelis see
it. Many here believe that an agreement signed by a Western-backed Palestinian leader in
the West Bank won’t end the conflict, because it will wind up creating not a state but a
power vacuum destined to be filled by intra-Muslim chaos, or Iranian proxies, or some
combination of both. That’s exactly what has happened around us in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria
and Iraq. One of Israel’s nightmares is that the fragile monarchy in Jordan could follow its
neighbors, Syria and Iraq, into dissolution and into Iran’s orbit, which would mean that if
Israel doesn’t hold the West Bank, an Iranian tank will be able to drive directly from Tehran
to the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
6Foreign Policy – January 16, 2019
The Golan Heights Should Stay Israeli Forever
By Steven A. Cook, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
• Should the United States recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights? The question
has come up in the last few weeks, because Israel is having an election in April. Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly been lobbying the Trump administration on the idea of
formally acknowledging Israel’s 1981 annexation of Syrian territory.
• There’s plenty of reason to suspect this diplomatic gambit is motivated primarily by Netanyahu’s
hope for domestic political gain as he faces re-election under the pall of possible indictment.
But the U.S.-Israeli negotiations are a sideshow for a more fundamental strategic reason.
Whether Washington recognizes Israel’s annexation or not, the Israelis are never withdrawing
from the Golan Heights—nor should they.
• Israel conquered the area in the June 1967 war and have held it ever since. Critics argue that
U.S. recognition of Israel’s annexation would legitimate the acquisition of territory by force,
setting a precedent for the West Bank and beyond. It is a valid criticism to which there is no
good answer. (Although there are reasons the Israeli incorporation of the Golan has been
significantly less controversial than its efforts in the West Bank. Above all, the Golan does not
require the control of a large hostile population, as the approximately 27,000 Druze on the Golan
Heights have accommodated themselves peacefully to Israel’s rule, while other residents have
sought Israeli citizenship in small but increasing numbers.)
• Moreover, the Israelis haven’t always even sought U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights as part
of Israel. In the 1990s, Israel worked pretty hard along with American diplomats to fashion
agreements to return the Golan to Syria. As recently as 2010, the Israelis were negotiating
indirectly with the Syrians through the United States. Only a few years earlier, the Turkish
government was facilitating indirect talks between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Although Netanyahu’s office denied it, the 2010 proposal for
peace included a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, though perhaps not all of it.
• The Israeli interest in trading away the Golan Heights was predicated on a belief—or wishful
thinking—that a peace treaty would break the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis. It makes sense on
paper, but peeling the Syrians from Iran and Hezbollah was never going to work. Bashar al-
Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, was at best a grudging participant in the peace process of the
1990s. Syrian diplomats showed up for talks, but they never actually negotiated much. In his
book The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation, former Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan
Muasher recounts how the Syrians sought to obstruct regional peace rather than contribute to
it.
• It is true that Hafez al-Assad invoked “peace of the brave,” but getting around the table for a
three-way handshake with a U.S. president and Israeli leader was not the way he did business.
Rather, Assad was accommodating enough to keep his enemies at bay—for example, sending
Farouk al-Sharaa or some other regime figure to meet Israel’s Ehud Barak—while retaining the
means to do his enemies harm, such as, say, facilitating the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah.
Bashar’s father was as shrewd as his son is plodding, and as a result there was very little chance
that he was going to give up his strategic ally, Iran, and Hezbollah for a deal with Israel. He had
7seen what happened to his former partner in arms, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, whose separate peace
turned out to be a humiliation only partially salved with copious amounts of U.S. assistance.
Sadat also ended up dead.
• Under these circumstances, it was surprising that Israel—including its much-vaunted security
establishment—seemed so eager to give up the Golan Heights. The 1974 disengagement
agreement between Israel and Syria provides a kind of legal cover for one important fact: Quiet
along the Israeli-Syrian front for the last 45 years is a function not just of the capabilities of the
Israel Defense Forces but of the unparalleled advantage the Golan Heights gives Israel’s armed
forces. The Golan multiplies Israel’s force in the event of a war, but, more important for Israeli
security, the area is an unrivaled intelligence-gathering platform. From its posts atop the Golan
Heights, the IDF can look and listen in on the valley below that leads to Damascus, only about
45 miles away. Nothing is foolproof, of course. The Israelis occupied the Golan Heights in 1973
and ran into a lot of trouble when the Syrian attacked on Oct. 6 of that year, but all things being
equal, there is no question that holding onto the plateau is superior to withdrawing and the
uncertainty of an agreement with the Syrian regime.
• If it was hard for Hafez al-Assad to come to terms with Israel, it is even harder for Bashar. When
the elder Assad died in the summer of 2000, there was considerable speculation that his son
would be a reformer, capable of making peace with Israel. This was more wishful thinking. When
they were negotiating with the Syrians through Turkey in 2008, the Israelis believed they could
trust then-Prime Minister (now President) Recep Tayyip Erdogan to bring the young Syrian
leader along and effectively peel him away from the Iranians. For all of Erdogan’s skills and the
amount of effort he invested in Syria, the Turkish leader was unable to advance the negotiations.
No doubt, Israel’s 2008 Operation Cast Lead—the operational name of its war that year in Gaza—
short-circuited the Turkish effort, but there is little reason to believe that the Syrians would be
willing to make a deal with Israel.
• In late January 2011 after Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fell and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was
teetering, Assad declared that an uprising against his regime could not happen in Syria because
there was little “divergence” between “policy and the beliefs and interests of the people” in his
country. He was incorrect. Popular protest broke out in Syria a few months later. And when the
younger Assad proved himself to be a bloody blunderer who put the regime in jeopardy, it was
the Iranians who came to the rescue. The Syrian leader now owes his and his regime’s survival
in part to Iran, which has sought thus far unsuccessfully to establish a permanent presence on
Israel’s border. That shouldn’t matter, though. Iran and its expeditionary force, Hezbollah, are a
threat to Israelis security. The Golan Heights is critical to keeping both from achieving their
ends.
• This is the environment in which the idea that the United States should recognize Israel’s
annexation has surfaced, which makes it a more compelling case for Netanyahu to make. Still,
the status quo in which the United States simply ignores Israel’s absorption of the area is
preferable to American recognition, which would result in a messy and counterproductive
international debate that will do nothing other than highlight Israel’s original annexation,
spurring opposition when previously there was acquiescence. In reality, there is no need for the
recognition. Israel is in Golan for its own reasons, and nothing the Trump administration decides
will change that.
8SUMMARY: The Israeli interest in trading away the Golan Heights was predicated on a
belief—or wishful thinking—that a peace treaty would break the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis.
It makes sense on paper, but peeling the Syrians from Iran and Hezbollah was never going
to work. Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, was at best a grudging participant in the
peace process of the 1990s. Syrian diplomats showed up for talks, but they never actually
negotiated much. In his book The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation, former
Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher recounts how the Syrians sought to obstruct
regional peace rather than contribute to it. It is true that Hafez al-Assad invoked “peace of
the brave,” but getting around the table for a three-way handshake with a U.S. president
and Israeli leader was not the way he did business.
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