Jordan is preparing for an ultra-right-wing Netanyahu government

By Tomer Barak

If an outsider were to analyze Israel-Jordan ties in the weeks following returning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory, he would be led to the mistaken assumption that the peace between the two countries is stable, if not good.

Following the Israeli elections on Nov. 1, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Israel's President Isaac Herzog held warm meetings (at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh), and a follow-up pact was agreed upon to promote the implementation of the electricity-water project (in which Israel sends the parched Hashemite Kingdom desalinated water, and Jordan sends Israel electricity from its solar panels).

Later, the two parties signed a letter of intent as part of a collaborative endeavor to restore and improve the Jordan River's ecology.

In addition, a public phone call was held between Netanyahu and King Abdullah. Both sides described the call as favorable.

But the above does not reflect the animosity and deep distrust between Abdullah and Netanyahu. Neither does it reflect Jordan's concerns over regional security and thus the stability of the kingdom itself. These concerns have grown significantly in light of Netanyahu's election win and the coalition he is forming with far-right parties.

The fears over Netanyahu's return are crystal clear to anyone reading the Jordanian newspapers which depict him as the leader of an extremist cabinet that will include several figures seen as regional pyromaniacs, foremost among them, the designated minister of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir.

To put it simply, this Jordanian interpretation of Israel's election results draws a direct link between the radicalization of Israeli policy in Judea and Samaria, as well as in Jerusalem, with Jordan's stability, and King Abdullah's status in particular.

Jordan's elites are concerned about three main issues.

First and foremost, there is the domestic front.

For years, the king has been more or less successful in balancing the Jordanian public's deep anti-Israeli sentiment with the need to rely on Israel when it comes to stability, and the kingdom's water and energy needs. The issue of security is also important, but since most security cooperation between the two countries is conducted away from the public spotlight, it usually continues without significant challenge. Coordination between the two countries has even reached new heights in recent years, in the face of a series of shared regional threats.

Abdullah has chosen to continue purchasing gas from Israel (at a reduced price) and receives crucial water supplies for his parched state. He has also signed further deals with Israel despite strong opposition from the public and parliament, including mass demonstrations.

The Jordanians, however, are concerned that provocations on the Palestinian issue could result in widespread, fierce public protests calling for the cancellation of the peace agreement with Israel.

Such developments could well force the authorities to take steps that would undoubtedly damage ties in order to placate the Jordanian street. This might even affect the profound Israeli strategic understanding that the peace with Jordan is a strategic asset for Israel and needs to be preserved at all costs.

Another front is Jordan's status in Jerusalem.

Jordan sees its unique position in regard to the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) as one of the keys to maintaining both King Abdullah's stature as the custodian of the holy places, and the stability of the Hashemite system as a whole.

It is worth mentioning that Jordan has often been able to use its unique position as the responsible adult to 'switch off' escalating tensions on the Temple Mount before they got out of hand. The kingdom has been the subject of praise for this role.

At the same time, Jordan lives under a continuous sense that its special role in Jerusalem is under threat from Israel and from other Arab and regional powers who seek to take a leading role at its expense.

On that matter, even if Netanyahu is perceived by Jordan as being committed to the status quo, Amman sees the emerging Israeli government as a real threat to its place in the Holy City.

The ultra-right-wing government could not only accelerate a dramatic increase in the number of Jews who visit the Temple Mount and pray there but could also abolish the status quo by allowing Jewish prayer on the Mount itself, or by establishing within the compound areas for Jews only. Currently, Jews are not allowed to pray at the compound that sits on top the mount.

It is clear to many in Jordan that any change to the status quo will trigger a deadly landslide, igniting internal Jordanian instability and heightening competition in the Arab world for control of the Temple Mount and dealing a blow to Abdullah's standing.

The third front concerns Israel's actions in Judea and Samaria.

Jordan's concerns have been stoked by the possibility that the new Israeli government could take unilateral measures such as annexation of the Jordan Valley or stepping up the settlement project.

Moreover, friction and violence in the West Bank could easily escalate, particularly during the Ramadan period in March and April next year.

Jordan appears to be less concerned about a scenario involving broad Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria, due to the severe international ramifications that this move would induce. Such a move would also constitute a breach of the Abraham Accords, the pinnacle of Netanyahu's regional-diplomatic legacy.

Moreover, the new Israeli government's approach to Gaza and belligerent comments from designated cabinet members regarding possible confrontation in the Gaza Strip are setting off alarm bells in Amman.

On the bright side, it appears that Jordan's leadership still views the peace accord with Israel as a strategic asset that provides the kingdom with significant political, economic, and security advantages, and it does not want the treaty to be weakened. In light of the above, it appears that the near future holds the potential to drastically strain—and damage—Israeli-Jordanian relations. In the best-case scenario, the two sides, under U.S. and regional encouragement, preserve the old equation: Enhanced yet low-profile security cooperation, selected areas of additional cooperation, and mutual mistrust and political tensions.

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Lieutenant Colonel Tomer Barak concluded his military career in 2021 after 21 years of service in the Israeli Military Intelligence and in the Strategic Planning Division. Read full bio here.

For new Israeli government, urgent security decisions await

By Eitan Dangot

The next Israeli government will not have a grace period. Before its ministers settle into their new offices, the government must deal with urgent security matters.

The Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan, is quickly approaching and will commence in late March 2023. The Ramadan period is notorious for a surge in religious extremism, clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians, Israeli-Arab domestic terrorism, and other incidents.

On day one, the clock will start ticking for the new government to make quick policy decisions to deal with such scenarios.

A key priority for the new government will be to formulate a policy on how to deal with the ongoing wave of terrorism in the West Bank, which has been carried out both by organized cells and lone-wolf assailants. It will also need to chart its course on Hamas in Gaza.

Within Israel itself, the government will need to deal with the out-of-control availability of firearms in the Arab-Israeli community.

It will also have to decide immediately how to handle the fractured Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, which has seen a systematic loss of sovereignty and control.

The power vacuum has been filled by local terror groups that have banded together based on their geographical location, rather than organizational affiliation. This has occurred in Jenin and Nablus, and Hebron could be next.

This is occurring against the backdrop of a developing economic crisis within the PA stemming from an inability to cover a growing deficit, sustain its administrative machinery, or initiate future development projects.

At the same time, the United States, which heads the international system, is signaling to the incoming Israeli government that it intends to be more involved in the Palestinian arena, especially in the West Bank. This in turn has led to growing European involvement, as neighboring Arab states, primarily Jordan and Egypt, are closely observing what will be done in response to the PA’s situation.

Countries that are part of the Abraham Accords and are internally affected by events in the West Bank are closely watching too.

Likud Chairman and incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu views establishing ties with Saudi Arabia as a major goal for expanding the Abraham Accords and seeks to achieve swift diplomatic success with Riyadh in his first year in power.

Yet this goal is overshadowed by the objectives of Netanyahu’s right-wing political partners, who want to transform the status of the West Bank, known in Israel as Judea and Samaria. They wish to see these territories become a de facto part of Israel and their strategy includes removing the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) Civil Administration from the Defense Ministry, legalizing illegal outposts, and changing laws governing the Jewish population of Area C of the West Bank.

It is also worth asking what kind of policy Netanyahu and his government could adopt regarding Gaza and Hamas, the terror entity that rules the Strip. For its part, Hamas is attempting to ignite the West Bank, undermine the PA, weaken President Mahmoud Abbas, encourage terrorism within Israel, and pursue its strategic goal of taking over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and increasing its power in the West Bank.

Israel, under both outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid and during previous Netanyahu governments, sought to create a truce in Gaza and reinforce it by offering humanitarian-economic steps for the Strip. Currently, that means enabling some 17,000 Gazans to enter Israel for work daily even as Hamas builds up its military-terrorist capabilities and calls for Israel’s destruction while enhancing cooperation with Hezbollah, Iran, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Syria. Meanwhile, there has been no breakthrough in efforts to secure the release of two Israeli civilians and the remains of two IDF personnel held by Hamas.

Judging from his past record as prime minister, Netanyahu supports the current Israeli policies in place in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no reason to believe that Netanyahu would have chosen a different course of action than the one recommended and implemented by the defense establishment (the IDF, Shin Bet, and Israel Police) over the past two years.

Had he presided over a balanced centrist government, Netanyahu could well have chosen to maintain the status quo in the coming six months: Fighting terrorism in the West Bank, working to avoid the economic collapse of the PA—but not considerably strengthening it politically—and sustaining the status quo in Gaza, which has seen Israel grant de facto recognition of Hamas’s rule there. Yet Netanyahu will face challenges from some of his new coalition members if he does this.

In an era in which the world is experiencing an energy crisis and heightened superpower tensions, the challenges of preserving Israel’s global standing and freedom of maneuver will be another issue knocking on Netanyahu’s door. It is a challenge that will be exacerbated by the fact that Israel’s policies toward Palestine will be the first significant discussion between Netanyahu and the Biden administration.

The divisions and historical baggage between the Democrats and Netanyahu are well documented and go back to the Obama administration. While Netanyahu and Joe Biden appear to have a good personal relationship, the Democratic Party’s internal dynamics oblige Biden, a supporter of Israel, to strike a certain balance on the Palestinian issue.

Israel, for its part, has a vested interest in safeguarding the critical strategic military and political alliance with the United States and working with Washington to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as well as its military-terrorist activities throughout the Middle East. It is not possible to truly disconnect Israel’s ability to work with the United States against Iran from the Palestinian issue.

These factors can help Netanyahu explain the need to prevent maneuvers by his new government that would isolate Israel and harm its supreme strategic interests.

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Major-General Eitan Dangot concluded his extensive career as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (C.O.G.A.T.) in 2014. Prior to that post he served as the Military Secretary to three Ministers of Defense; Shaul Mofaz, Amir Peretz and Ehud Barak. Read full bio here.

A Blood Libel on Netflix

By Mark Goldfeder

On Thursday, December 1, Netflix will start streaming a blood libel.

The Jordanian film Farha focuses on the experiences of a young girl during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The protagonist, Farha, spends much of the movie watching as fictionalized, heartless Israeli soldiers brutalize Palestinian families, viciously killing men, women and children in cold blood. There is of course no documentation (Israeli, British, or Arab,) of any of the events in the film because they never actually happened; at the very least the film admits that it is ‘dramatized’ and does not pretend to be factual. But that does not mean it will not have an outsized impact on anti-Jewish hate and violence. Many people will watch the movie; few will stop to wonder if perhaps the whole thing was made up.  

And it is not just the demonizing, dehumanizing, and deceitful depictions of the ‘Jewish soldiers’ that are problematic. The movie is meant to depict the events of the ‘nakba’- a fanciful retelling of the 1948 war in which the would-be genocidal Arab armies failed to destroy a newborn Jewish state (and kill all its inhabitants in the process), along with those who tried to help them do it are romantically recast as the helpless victims of a horrible catastrophe. The foundational myth of forced displacement is at the root of much of modern anti-Zionism, and it is demonstrably false. There are primary sources- from the Arab side- attesting to the fact that the vast majority of Arabs who left their homes did so voluntarily, or under orders from the invading, not the Israeli, armed forces. Facts do matter, even when the people you are lying about are Jewish, and the entire story at the heart of this film is a lie.

Here are some things that the movie will not tell you: From the moment the two-state solution was announced, the Jewish community consistently called for peace and cooperation with its Arab neighbors. Instead, five Arab armies immediately launched a war of extermination against them- and urged the Palestinian Arabs to help their cause by getting out of their way. Many of them did just that, confident that the combined power of the Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Egyptian armies would make quick work of the Jews and then they would come home.

The contemporary accounts of these orders to leave come from a variety of Arab sources. For example, the Jordanian newspaper Filastin reported that “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.”  A refugee quoted in another Jordanian newspaper, Ad Difaa, explained: “The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.” In the words of Haled al Azm, the Prime Minister of Syria during the war, “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.”

The nakba myth removes all these facts- along with the Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan; the additional wars designed to push the Jews into the sea; and the uncomfortable truth that an approximately equal number of Jews in Arab nations were forcefully expelled from their homes and absorbed into Israel. In its place, it presents a fabricated fairy tale that continues to serve as an open justification for killing Jews. The statements over time of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, are a case study in the development of nakba mythology and the dangers it presents. 

In 1976, when he was the PLO spokesman, Abbas told Falastin a-Thaura (the PLO’s official weekly publication) that “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.” (emphasis added). By 2011, however, his historical memory had faded in direct proportion to the rising popularity of the nakba story, so he now believed “Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened.” This year, he used the commemoration of the ‘nakbah’ as an excuse to reaffirm and justify his government’s ongoing commitment to ‘pay for slay’- the Palestinian Authority policy under which terrorists who kill Israeli or American citizens are rewarded monetarily.

This is not a matter of perspective or worldview. A movie that malevolently depicts Israeli forces murdering defenseless Arab children at the founding of the State in order to feed the nakba mythology is nothing short of a modern blood libel. The nakba itself is a prime example of how dangerous lies, spun over time, eventually give license for rhetoric to turn into deadly violence.

In a world of rising antisemitism, demonstrably tied to anti-Zionism, it is dangerous and disgusting for Netflix to feed false and anti-Jewish information to the masses by giving a film like this a platform.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Antisemitism on the March

By Micah Jones

Over the past few weeks, Jews around the world have been subjected to a significant amount of antisemitism in the form of violence and vitriol. On November 23, in Jerusalem, innocent Jews were attacked, and 16 year old Aryeh Schupak, was murdered, when terrorists detonated bombs during peak commuting hours. At the time of this writing, no terrorist group had claimed responsibility and the murderers were still at large.

Two days earlier, across the world in Brooklyn, New York, members of Israel United in Christ, one of the largest factions of the virulently anti-Semitic Black Hebrew Israelites, held a rally outside of Barclays Center before the National Basketball Association game in which Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving was returning after an approximately month-long suspension. The Black Hebrew Israelites chanted “we are the real Jews” and “time to wake up” as they marched through Brooklyn in support of Kyrie Irving’s reinstatement following his suspension after sharing an antisemitic documentary.

And in my adopted state of Massachusetts, fall out continues from the “Mapping Project”, a Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (“BDS”) affiliated group, that has provided the names, addresses, and contact information for all Jewish, and pro-Israel organizations within Massachusetts and specifically the greater Boston area. In particular, the Mapping Project declares that Zionism—the belief that Jews have a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland—is a “harm.” The goal of the Mapping Project is to “dismantle” and “disrupt” these Jewish and pro-Israel organizations. The Mapping Project is silent, however, on how those goals can be achieved.

These three recent examples of Jew hatred should serve as a reminder to Jews the world over that antisemitism, although always present, is very much undergoing a resurgence. And as much as it would be nice to ignore these events and believe that they are anomalies, Jews must understand how each are connected and how we can combat each one. As such, I believe Jews need to focus on three areas to effectively understand and counter the current rise in antisemitism: (1) influence; (2) intersectionality; and (3) anti-Israel and anti-Zionist ideology.

The sheer scope of Kanye West’s and Kyrie Irving’s influence is what makes their antisemitism so dangerous. West and Irving have a combined total of approximately 37 million followers on Twitter. By contrast, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC has approximately 350,000 Twitter followers. Simply put, at any moment West and Irving can connect with over 100 times more people than the DC Holocaust Memorial can.

Each man wields significant influence and can use his respective stardom as a bully pulpit for hate. Furthermore, many of Irving’s and West’s followers are younger individuals who may not have any connection to the World War II generation that lived through the Holocaust and who may not have any historical context regarding the unspeakable tragedies that Jews endured during that time.

Intersectionality is the idea that the world can be divided along lines of “oppressors” and “oppressed” and that there is a “hierarchy of victimhood.” In this twisted world-view, the color of one’s skin is a predominate factor in determining where a person falls on the hierarchy. Generally speaking, individuals who are darker skinned are deemed to be “victims” and “oppressed” by those individuals with lighter skin. Intersectionality, however, lacks depth and historical context as Jews are deemed to be “oppressors” because of the fact that many Ashkenazi Jews historically hail from Europe. Intersectionality, however, ignores the fact that many Jews are from North Africa and the Middle East and have no connection to Europe. Furthermore, intersectionality does not believe that Jews have historically been victims because, especially in certain parts of the United States, Jews have been disproportionately successful despite their small population. This combination of professional success and perceived “whiteness” makes Jews an easy target for groups that are deemed to be “victims.”

Intersectionality connects with the above-mentioned influence factor because, for example, both Irving and West can claim to their followers that they, as “black victims,” are being financially injured by “white, Jewish, oppressors”. As heard during their demonstration, the Black Hebrew Israelites, who have engaged in violence against Jews on multiple occasions, including a violent attack in December 2019 against a kosher market in Jersey City, NJ, genuinely believe that Irving and West have been harmed by Jews. Irving’s and West’s millions of followers may also have reason to believe this slander as well, which only further entrenches this ruthless antisemitism.

Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist ideology, both home and abroad, is the third factor that Jews must be cognizant of and work to counter. The Mapping Project shares a similar mindset to the terrorists who murdered Aryeh Schupak—that Jews have no right to live in their ancestral homeland, Eretz Israel. Although the Mapping Project has not yet called for actual violence against Jews, per say, the fact that it is a BDS affiliate demonstrates that it is sympathetic to those terrorists who do commit violence against Jews. 

Jews, and friends of Jews, can counter the influence of figures like West and Irving by donating to organizations like the MirYam Institute that engage with young leaders in substantive conversations about Israel and countering anti-Semitism. In addition, Jews and allies must pressure legacy and social media outlets and business organizations to reconsider their partnerships with these individuals. Although West and Irving are entitled to say whatever they want via free speech protections, they should not be rewarded for doing so. Their sponsorships should be cut, their Tweets downvoted, and their ideas consistently called out and debunked in the public square.

Regarding intersectionality, Jews must realize that this left-wing ideology is fundamentally dangerous to the Jewish people. Jews must reject this world view in academic and social circles. School board members that embrace such beliefs should be voted out during elections and Jews should not financially support organizations that agree that intersectionality should be taught in schools.

Jews must also realize that anti-Israel and anti-Zionist ideology is inherently antisemitic and can lead to actual violence against Jews both home and abroad. Jews can counter this ideology by treating anti-Israel and anti-Zionist rhetoric the same as they would when they hear antisemitic bile. In addition, Jews must take these threats and ideologies seriously. This means hiring security for temple services and day-school classes. It means being vigilant for active threats and internalizing a mindset of action to actively counter and subdue any physical attack.

In understanding that antisemitism is once again on the march, Jews will be better prepared to meet it in the breach and ensure that it does not metastasize into a larger threat.

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Micah Quinney Jones is an attorney, a US Army veteran, and a pro-Israel advocate. He is a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service. Before attending law school, Micah served for over five years as a Military Intelligence branch detail Infantry officer in the United States Army. He was honorably discharged as a Captain in 2016. The majority of his military service was spent in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Read full bio here.

A new, grim reality sets in

By Sharon Roffe Ofir

A month has passed since Israel’s last round of elections and judging by the demands placed on the negotiating table by Benjamin Netanyahu’s future coalition partners, it appears that Israel’s incoming government will change the face of the country.

The emerging coalition agreements will damage the standing of the legal system, erode women’s and LGBT rights, undermine the war against the delegitimization of Israel, harm the country’s relations with the Diaspora, among other things by changing the Law of Return, while the agreements also include a plethora of dangerous, misogynist demands that will set us back light years from the path envisioned by the visionary seer of the State of Israel, Theodor Herzl.

The religious priests that Herzl sought to leave in their temple are the ones who are running the coalition negotiations, and when a coalition is formed it will be they who chart Israel’s new path. The reality being dictated is one where a Zionist democratic state will be replaced by a Halakhic state. In order to grasp the depth of events, we must look at what has happened over the past month.

The dust has yet to fully settle from the fifth round of general elections in four years, but the opening shots tracing the reality that lies ahead have already been fired.

The first to appear on the political field was Religious Zionist Party Chairman Bezalel Smotrich, who protested in a letter to the chairman of the Israel Football Association the fact that games are held on the Sabbath.

“Soccer on Shabbat is not sportsmanlike and not Jewish,” wrote Smotrich, sparking a firestorm of controversy, and with it, the new political era.

Of course, the story is not about soccer, but rather, the character of the State of Israel and the future of its residents – all of us. To understand matters comprehensively, we must get back to basics regarding Herzl’s vision for the State of the Jews.

In his book, “The Jewish State,” Herzl laid out how he saw the power structure, society, economy, defense, and the religion- state axis in the future Jewish entity.

“Will we allow the priests of our religion to govern us? No! While faith is something that unites us, we must seek out with force wisdom and sciences. And therefore, we will surpass all tricks by our priests who will say they should govern us, because we will know to imprison them in the godly temple,” he wrote.

In prophetic text, Herzl noted, “But in regards to the affairs of state, whose honor they will seek, they have no business, to ensure that they do not bring disgrace from home and abroad on it.”

The contribution of Herzl’s vision to the state that was eventually established is undeniable, but Israel’s contemporary reality is one in which ultra-Orthodox religious institutions receive state budgets but leave Herzl and the heads of the Zionist movement out of the classroom curriculum.

In an era in which it is permissible to rewrite history and to forget where we came from and where we are headed it is also possible to change course and to change the existing political structure

Examples of how this is so are piling up rapidly: Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yossef has demanded that coalition negotiations include a clause that overrides the rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court and an increase in budgets for yeshiva students; meetings have been held in the home of Rabbi Haim Drukman in order to strengthen the political power of his disciple Smotrich, and the rabbis have supported his demand to be made defense minister and have intervened in Israel’s defense policies. When the demand to make Smotrich minister of defense failed, they evolved into a new demand that he be appointed finance minister. 

Add to this the dangerous vision of Rabbi Zvi Thau, one of the spiritual leaders of the Noam faction of the Religious Zionist list who has already closed a deal with Netanyahu that will make him a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s office from where he will be able to exercise his master’s vision.  And then there is the Hasidic Admor of Gur who instructs United Torah Judaism party chief Yitzhak Goldknopf to appoint one of the rabbi’s disciples to be director-general of the Construction and Housing Ministry, which Goldknopf is set to lead.

Religious priests are those who manage our lives, and the above is just a partial list of recent examples.

United Torah Judaism Chairman Moshe Gafni declared at an election event that “without a clause to override the Supreme Court, a government will not rise,” receiving thunderous cheers from those present, and who understand well the significance of the rally.

A day after that event was held, media reports carried news of a series of demands made by Shas, including the enshrining of a draft exemption law, demands that Jewish conversion be left in the hand of the chief rabbinate, and allocations for yeshiva students in the state budget , as well as bringing ultra-orthodox education budgets in line with those of secular education programs, doubling stipends for married yeshiva students, and granting yeshiva students discount fares on public transport similar to those received by university students. 

But if we are really fighting for equality, perhaps it is time to distribute stipends to university students too. They after all serve in the military, and after completing their degree will return the money to the state through the taxes they pay when they head out to work and help carry the economic burden?

Meanwhile, the Religious Zionist party and the ultra-Orthodox parties are demanding a cancellation of the grandchild clause in the Law of Return, a reform branded by rabbis as a special opportunity to “fix a miserable law,” according to a letter sent by Chabad Rabbi Yitzhok Yehuda Yaroslavsky. He apparently forgot that the law is the essence of Zionism. Add to this the   Yitzhak demand for gender separation in public events paid for by the taxpayer (let’s not forget who is paying most of these taxes?) and the misogynistic remarks made by  Maoz and his friends, as well as comments on the LGBT community, female IDF service, changes in the content taught at schools, and the call to cancel the gender advisor position to the IDF chief of staff (with the justification that the role injects foreign values to the IDF). A full right-wing government? Far from it. And darkness came over the land.

The incoming government could change the face of the State of Israel. There will be no more checks and balances, and the vision of a Zionist state will slip away into the distance. Claims about this being the ‘will of the people’ are unconvincing. In Iran in the 1970s, most of the people supported the revolution – but no one told them that sometimes it’s better to be careful what you wish for.

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Sharon Roffe-Ofir served as Knesset Member in the 24th Knesset. She has served as a deputy local council head at Kiryat Tivon, and has worked as a journalist and as a senior lecturer in academic institutions for 24 years. Read full bio here.

Antisemitism Then and Now: Distinction with An Amazing Difference

By Michael B. Snyder

Invoking the pre-Shoah climate as a comparison with today’s antisemitism is a distinction with a difference requiring that the appropriate gravitas be given to Israel’s existence and stature, both as a target and a Jewish state. In contrast to the 1930s and early ‘40s when Jews faced closed borders in America after first losing their citizenship, possessions and finally their lives without country or hope, Israel was created to provide a safe-haven for Jews as a direct response to the Shoah; such a resolution would have zero probability of being actualized today.

Despite published and verified reports of the murderous Nazi rule, the meager and illusory 1,500 annual quota of Jewish refugees into the United States was not allowed to be met during those years. Nazi actions in Germany and its conquered countries were legal under Nuremberg laws and their progeny, just as American border policies were enforceable US policy, and together contributed mightily to the six million.  Inexplicably, the highest percentage of Jews in Presidential election history voted for President Roosevelt -- 85% in 1936 and 90% in 1940 and ’44— despite his inaction. Reliance on laws not made by Jews about Jews were murderous, even as American Jews effectively voted in record force against their European families.

Current data reflects the burgeoning threats to the future of Judaism. For example, more than 60% of students in poll results released in September said that at some point they felt unsafe as Jews on campus or in virtual campus settings; about half of respondents felt the need to hide their Jewish identity at college. In Nazi Germany it was illegal for Jews to attend college; if Jewish students’ rights are not protected in America, protective laws and college policies not enforced will eventually have the same impact as Nazi law.

Today with American Jews at their strongest ever financially and most accepted and ingrained (for now) in its society, and Israel willing and able to defend its borders, people and existence, outrage is expressed at her hard line and declaring the 1967 8-mile-wide border an existential threat. All the while, Israel’s destruction is directly and loudly threated by a regime that America chases to bring to the negotiating table on the heels of a prior agreement verifiably violated. But it’s complicated.  America is the guarantor of every agreement with regional neighbors, including the gas deal struck with Lebanon in October; the US also provided $1 billion in military aid over the past year. Despite historical cooperation, antisemitism is empowered by the American administration’s day-to-day actions. We have yet to hear a plausible explanation.

With much respect and kudos to Dara Horn’s People Love Dead Jews, a logical conclusion is that America Hates A Powerful Israel. The message to Jews is clear: we mourned you at your weakest, but powerful, self-governing Israeli Jews determining their own fate are objectionable, as are American Jews who understand the need for the Jewish state. Perhaps because of historic cooperation, America expects compliance with its overreaching wishes, but it is well-settled that America’s leadership and popular press allow and sometimes leads the burgeoning public antisemitic, anti-Zionist position that Israel needs a political attitude adjustment.  American Jews are seemingly left with no appealing political choices: 1. an unfamiliar Democratic party where its youth is anti-Israel and its elders will soon age out of stopping that wave; 2. a Republican party considered untrustworthy due to racism and antisemitism as well as being too conservative for the non-religious; or 3. being unrepresented.  

Thomas Friedman in a post-Israeli election column in The New York Times may best illustrate America’s position on Israel, albeit he has less influence than the problematic Kayne West (entertainer, 31.8 million followers) or Kyrie Irving (professional athlete, 4.7 million Twitter followers). It should be noted that their combined number of followers is 250% greater than the number of Jews in the world, and 300% more than the total number of Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf purchased from 1925 through 1945. 

When Israel meets with Friedman’s sensibilities, he writes with a nostalgic fondness of Israel fighting for its existence, winning unwinnable wars, taking in Shoah survivors and even holding an unmet hand out in an attempt to negotiate with those who refuse to reach back. When she is against his politics, he blames Israel for America’s right wing and being a harbinger of wider trends in Western democracies!  Friedman believes that Netanyahu’s comeback will “roil synagogues” in America with: “Do I support this Israel or not support it?” as if decisions have not previously been made and broadly declared. At least he recognizes it will haunt pro-Israel students on college campuses... yet not because of antisemitism (see above data), but because it’s a difficult choice for students. In the same column, he calls Mansour Abbas of the United Arab List, part of the outgoing government, a “rather amazing Israeli Arab religious party leader who recognizes the State of Israel and the searing importance of the Holocaust.”  “Amazing” is thus defined by recognizing well-established, undisputable facts... something that parties to the Abraham Accords and many other Arab and Muslim-majority countries currently do.

At least there is consistency. The American press labeled three innocent murdered Israelis leaving 11 children fatherless as “occupiers,” their terrorist murderer as an “assailant” not a murderer or terrorist, and included the democratically-elected prime minister designate and the words “right-wing” and “far-right” in the fourth sentence of the article suggesting that made the killer’s actions defensible; the fifth describes that the “attack” (not the murder) occurred on the anniversary of the PLO’s proclamation of in independent Palestinian state that has never materialized.  Examples abound.

Israel and American Zionist baiting is well beyond politics and deeply ensconced in antisemitism and hatred despite or perhaps due to the deep political ties and support. Israel is not perfect, yet America challenges and attempts to bully her into a political position that agrees with the current administration by treating her as a despot nation despite its intact democratic principles, including a directive announced the day after mid-term elections that the FBI will investigate the death of a Palestinian journalist during an armed conflict. With each individual mis-step, Israel is called to task both politically and in popular American opinion with unforgiving, hateful and intentional overreaching descriptors of something it is not: not an apartheid state, not controlling America’s future, and not a crippling human rights violator like China, Russia, Iran and others.

In many ways, Israel surpasses America’s perceived personal freedoms, e.g., abortion, religious freedom, and LGBTQ rights, including being the only country to ever save Blacks in a foreign land when she sent troops and planes to rescue Ethiopian Jews moments before their would-be slaughter. The fact she faces a currently unnegotiable problem that began when it was repeatedly attacked from all sides is not going away with tired, impotent venom heard for thousands of years.America’s garbled rhetoric improves nothing except Israel’s resolve, unless one considers that it keeps the memory alive of its inaction around the Shoah... something American Jews should find amazing.

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Michael B. Snyder is a publishing contributor at The MirYam Institute, he is an attorney with over 35 years of experience in the areas of children’s rights, human rights and Non-Government Organizations in the United States, Israel and Africa. Read full bio here.

MirYam's Analyst: Monthly Israel Brief

By Yaakov Lappin

After Israel’s right-wing parties came down from the euphoria of breaking a three-and-a-half-year political deadlock and decisively defeating a largely center and left bloc in the November 1 national elections, political hangover quickly set in.

The Likud party, the largest in the new Israeli Knesset, has been working to get agreements in place with its ultra-Orthodox political allies, but it has publicly struggled to reach compromise with members of the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionist list.  

On Monday, November 21, Israel Hayom reported that the ongoing impasse between Likud, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Religious Zionist list, headed by Bezalel Smotrich, had reached crisis point. One major issue of contention is Smotrich’s desire to gain influence and power over Israel’s policies in the West Bank (known in Israel as Judea and Samaria), and the Likud’s unwillingness for that to happen.

Smotrich has demanded the post of defense minister, a demand reportedly rebuffed by Netanyahu, who is facing significant pressure from the Biden administration in the United States not to appoint a far-right figure to the position. Israeli – American defense cooperation is extensive. Israel receives 3.8 billion dollars in American military assistance funds per year, much of which is spent on essential military equipment. The U.S. will send Israel 1 billion dollars for critical Iron Dome interceptors, and American banks loaned Israel some 2.6 billion dollars last year to fast-track the purchase of F-35 fighter jets, F-15 fighters, refueling aircraft, and transport helicopters under a government-to-government agreement.

The United States uses its veto at the United Nations Security Council to provide essential diplomatic cover for Israel against hostile motions that threaten to become binding motions if passed, thereby helping Israel avoid becoming an isolated state as it defends itself against a myriad of threats.

It is for these reasons – and more – that Netanyahu has so far been unwilling to allow Smotrich to become defense minister. Washington would almost certainly boycott Smotrich, and possibly take additional action, leading to severe damage to Israel’s security and political interests.

According to Hebrew media reports, Netanyahu has instead offered Smotrich the position of finance minister, but the Religious Zionist leader has demanded that any such compromise include provisions that would enable him to boost Israeli settlement building in the territories.

According to Israel Hayom, Netanyahu “rebuffed the Religious Zionist Party's request and said that Israel would have to show restraint on settlement issues for the next two years because of the changes in the U.S. political landscape.” Smotrich for his part has called on Netanyahu not to allocate such a high degree of importance to the Biden administration’s stance on settlements.

Reported agreement on police powers has senior officers up in arms

Fellow ultra-nationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) party, which ran with the Religious Zionists in a technical bloc in the elections, looks likely to have his demands met to be appointed public security minister in charge of the police. But his call to receive powers currently reserved for the police commissioner, such as choosing how to deploy forces on the ground has been met with severe criticism by senior police brass, according to a report by Ynet.

“The significance of Ben Gvir’s demands would be that the commissioner would become a ministerial assistant. The commissioner’s authority must be safeguarded alongside that of the public security minister, to preserve democracy, which is today expressed through absolute separation [of powers],” said a senior police source. 

Miryam Institute research fellow and former Israel Police Deputy Commissioner Alon Levavi has outlined some of the police’s sensitive powers in a recent paper.

Israel’s campaign against Iran continues without cessation

Away from politics, Israel’s defense establishment continues to disrupt Iranian entrenchment in Syria.

According to Syrian state media, an Israeli missile strike on the Shayrat Airbase in Syria's Homs Province killed two members of the Syrian armed forces and injured three others on November 13.

Reuters said the strikes targeted "a runway in the sprawling air base," noting that the base was recently used by the Iranian air force.

Additionally, the Alma Center, an Israeli research organization specializing in security challenges on Israel's northern borders, said a truck convoy carrying Hezbollah weapons may have also been targeted.

This report is a reminder of the routine Israeli activity designed to stop Iran from building a war machine in Syria to target Israel in a future conflict, as Iran has been able to do in neighboring Lebanon with Hezbollah.

Earlier in November, a convoy believed to be smuggling Iranian weapons from Iraq into Syria was hit by airstrikes in eastern Syria near the town of Abu Kamal, a Syrian border town often used as a transit point by the Iranians for weapons deliveries.

The strikes reportedly destroyed several vehicles and killed at least ten people, including an unknown number of Iranians.

The objective of preventing Iran’s entrenchment efforts in Syria is being pursued by the defense establishment without connection to the turbulent political situation.

A first in the West: National drone supply network for medical logistics

This month, Israeli aero-logistics company Gadfin signed a historic contract with the SAREL medical group, a purchasing organization and logistics company. Under the terms of the contract, Israeli hospitals requiring urgent medical supplies, including blood units, will receive them via Gadfin’s autonomous, folding-wing, vertical take-off and landing drone.

The logistics grid will gradually connect all of Israel’s major hospitals within a radius of 200 kilometers, according to the plan, making it the first network of its kind in the West.

“This will make Israel the first western country in the world to have an automatic, on demand, medical delivery aerial grid. This contract will allow SAREL to have constant supply of medical equipment, medicines, vaccines, blood, serum, lab samples, and more… at less than one hour from call,” Gadfin and SAREL said in a joint statement.

Gadfin’s Spirit One air vehicle runs on hydrogen fuel cells, and, within three years, 18 of these systems will be used to fly up to 60 deliveries per day, or 21,000 a year.

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Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

Is Left-Wing or Right-Wing Antisemitism Worse?

By Justin Pozmanter

There has been a sharp rise in antisemitism in the United States. It’s not yet Europe, but the trendline is very disturbing for the American Jewish community. As antisemitism has increased, there has been an ongoing debate about whether antisemitism described as “right-wing” or “left-wing” is worse. This debate itself is extremely dangerous.

What exactly are we debating? Does it matter if an antisemite is white, black, Christian, Muslim, a Trump voter or a ‘squad’ supporter? If anyone attacks Jews, verbally or physically, they should be condemned. The only reason to debate which is worse is to try and minimize or justify the antisemitism coming from your side of the spectrum.

An anti-Israel group on campus pushed to exclude “Zionists” from the public square? “But what about what Donald Trump said about Jews and Israel? The right is the real problem, not my side.”

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made an egregious comment about Jews? “But what about what Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said? See, it’s really the left to worry about.”

If you care about the Jewish community, if you care about bigotry and hatred, there should be no ambiguity, there should be no debate and it shouldn’t matter if the bigot in question votes for the same party as you.

In fact, you should be more offended by antisemitism coming from your side. You should be more disgusted that someone otherwise aligned with you is a racist than someone otherwise opposed to you. And you should make that clear, publicly, without reservation or qualification.

It is much more powerful when a progressive denounces a progressive’s hate than when they condemn a conservative. Rather than minimize the antisemitism in your camp, call it out and eviscerate it.

Both right and left should make clear that antisemitism has no place in the conversative or progressive movements. Condemn the other side every chance you get, but if you don’t also deny the hatred in your backyard even a drop of oxygen, you are doing nothing to fight antisemitism. You are encouraging it.

Israel is often used as an excuse for antisemitism, and it is just that, an excuse. Even if every wild lie told about Israel were true, why would that justify antisemitism? A Lubavitcher Hasid in Brooklyn and a Reform Jew in San Francisco have at least two things in common: 1. They are Jews; and 2. They have no control over the policy decisions of the Israeli government.

Antisemites will use whatever excuse they can to justify targeting Jews. If they can point to an Israeli policy, they might. If not, they’ll make something up.

After the latest Israeli elections there has been concern that the rise of far-right candidates such as Itamar Ben Gvir will lead to a rise in antisemitism. There is no reason to believe this is true. I have no interest in defending Ben Gvir’s statements, many of which are indefensible, but the notion that he and Bezelal Smotrich leading a party that won around 10% of the vote somehow causes hatred of Jews in the United States is ridiculous.

Antisemitism is an evil that goes back over 2,000 years – it is not rooted in current Israeli voting patterns.

Over the last 18 months, Israel had a government that included six ministers from the farthest left parties on the spectrum (Meretz and Labor) and included the Arab-Islamist party Ra’am. Did antisemitism suddenly plummet? No, antisemitism rose. This had nothing to do with Israel having a broad government either, it simply had no effect. Even attitudes towards Israel itself saw no real change.

Those who hated Israel under a center-right government, hated Israel under a center-left government and will continue to hate Israel under a right-wing government. They hate Israel because it is the Jewish state, it does not matter if Israeli Jews are moderates, socialists or fascists, only that they are Jews.

Additionally, if political trends in someone’s ancestral homeland somehow cause a spike in racist attacks, why haven’t we heard about attacks on French Americans as Marine Le Pen rose in popularity, or people avoiding pizzerias because Georgia Meloni is Prime Minister of Italy? Not only have no attacks occurred, but there hasn’t been even the slightest concern they might.

If you believe antisemitic stereotypes or that Jews are any less worthy of safety, respect and self-determination, you are a bigot, no matter what else you can claim.

You can be supportive of the state of Israel for any number of reasons and still be an antisemite.

You can agree with the majority of American Jews on 90% of issues and claim thousands of Jewish supporters and still be an antisemite.

If you don’t believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, you are an antisemite even if you have Jewish friends, family or otherwise appreciate Jewish culture.

If you’re committed to combating hatred and bigotry only when it’s politically convenient, leave fighting antisemitism to others – criticizing the other side while ignoring or rationalizing antisemitism on your side does more harm than good.

If you are a true friend of the Jewish people, and find bigotry and racism vile no matter the source, speak up and make clear that the only tolerable level of hatred amongst your friends and allies is zero.

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Justin Pozmanter is a former foreign policy advisor to Minister Tzachi Hanegbi. Before making Aliyah, he worked at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and practiced law. Read full bio here.

Israel Police key to Jerusalem security, regional security

By Alon Levavi

In the wake of a deadly wave of terrorism that hit Israeli cities beginning in March 2022, the IDF launched Operation Break the Wave to reduce the threat and it has been ongoing since then.

Operations focused at first on the northern West Bank city of Jenin and later Nablus, where the core hubs of Palestinian terror activities are presently located.

Throughout the security escalation, it seemed reasonable to believe that mixed Jewish – Arab cities including Ramle, Lod, Jerusalem and Acre could, from one moment to the next, erupt in violence just as they did so dramatically and disturbingly in May 2021, as Israel fought Hamas in Gaza in Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The spark for that conflict was lit in Jerusalem, where clashes between Palestinians and the Israel Police on the Temple Mount, together with subsequent incidents of violence, provided Hamas with the pretense to fire rockets from Gaza. Islamist agitators used the violence to incite unrest among Arab-Israelis.

In mid-October, violence once again tore through eastern Jerusalem, only this time it was rapidly quelled by police without spreading to new arenas. While it has resurfaced on occasion as the month progressed, police have so far kept the flames low, preventing them from spreading out of control.

That development is a reminder of a core principle that underlines regional stability: the key lies in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has always been the issue that could blow up the region. It’s the volcano that’s always smoldering and the Israel Police is the lid on that volcano. If the volcano blows, it takes the West Bank with it and as recent events have shown, Gaza and Arab areas inside Israel, as well.

Jerusalem is under the exclusive territorial jurisdiction of the Israel Police, meaning that it and no other agency has the main say on how to respond to the daily challenges that arise there.

Policing Jerusalem is a constant balancing act between the need to be forceful in the face of Palestinian aggression and attacks on Israeli police and Jewish residents of eastern Jerusalem, and the need to pull back and push for calm. Much is at stake and depends on the good judgment of police commanders on the ground who are always walking a tightrope.

The Israel Police achieves this balance by deploying top-level commanders to the front lines to take direct charge of policing operations. These commanders do not leave the Border Police and other units on their own to deal with the difficult issues that land at their doorstep.

This means directly overseeing orders on when to open fire in cases where lives are at risk and when to deploy non-lethal crowd control means, including smoke bombs and stun grenades to deal with disturbances in a controlled manner.

During October’s rioting, Palestinian youths hurled firebombs and rocks and launched fireworks directly at security forces, as well as at buildings in which Jews reside. Such attacks are potentially lethal but police nevertheless employ careful consideration when responding.

Equipping riot police with the most advanced protective gear makes personnel feel safer and prevents them from choosing the fiercest responses in such situations, police have learned.

Dealing with such intense rioting and dispersing the rioters is a full profession, and the Border Police and the special patrol units excel in it.

The fact that there are members of Knesset who knowingly come to the area to take part in provocations only makes life more complicated for the police, which must deploy larger numbers of forces to the scene to prevent such situations from spinning out of control or being further inflamed.

Intelligence plays a critical role in both containing and thwarting such incidents. In 2021, the police, the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and the IDF discovered that intelligence coordination between them was lacking. Since then, they have taken steps to optimize intelligence-sharing and have significantly improved their capabilities not just in Jerusalem but throughout Israel.

Police made dozens of arrests in mid-October and were able to significantly calm the situation down, reflecting a satisfactory performance and one that has improved from past years.

The eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, where a terrorist gunman exited a vehicle and shot dead an Israeli Border Policewoman on October 8, represents a unique operational challenge.

The terrorist (who was later killed after opening fire outside another Israeli community in the West Bank) fled the scene, compelling police to place the area under a local, temporary closure to facilitate the search for the gunman.

Despite these incidents, prayers at the Western Wall went on as normal and visitors continued to ascend the Temple Mount. Tens of thousands of Jews prayed at the Western Wall and tens of thousands of Muslims worshiped at al-Aqsa Mosque. The police’s ability to enable such mass religious activities, while proactively tackling rioting in neighborhoods a stone’s throw away from the religious sites is an exceptional achievement that cannot be taken for granted.

During this month of unrest, the Border Police flexed a new muscle that it received as part of the lessons learned from the events of 2021. Known as the Israeli National Guard, the Border Police called up reserve companies as means to help deal with personnel requirements. These forces are heavily focused on counter-rioting and counter-terrorism missions, and this is their specialty.

Throughout the month, police followed up on intelligence to thwart attacks, swarmed hot spots in large numbers, made arrests based on accurate information, and were able to home in on inciters and rioters. This included fishing out the main agitators on social media and arresting those using online platforms to instigate violence. All of these actions helped create deterrence.

Frequent situational assessments are carried out by the Jerusalem District of the Israel Police to keep its organizational finger on the pulse of events, together with the Shin Bet and the IDF. These assessments resulted in decisions such as placing police officers along the streets of the Old City just tens of meters apart, creating a high degree of security.

The Israel Police finds itself facing the most sensitive decisions regarding Jerusalem, including those that touch on the Temple Mount. The area’s sensitivity, especially around the Mount, is so great that many of these decisions are brought to the attention of the government and the prime minister.

The past two years have demonstrated beyond any doubt how internal security is critical. While external threats are major, Israel has invested far more in dealing with them than it has in domestic security. Yet the threat within is clear to all.

Adding a few hundred extra police officers to the force won’t solve the problem. Police must receive additional support from the government, such as increasing the size of the force substantially, equipping it with better technology and boosting its presence in the Arab sector, where police can provide a better service, and enforce sovereignty and law enforcement. Failure to implement these steps will have dire future consequences for the entire country.

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Major General Alon Levavi served as a combat helicopter pilot in the Israel Air Force and later served for 34 years in the Israeli National police (INP). Read full bio here.

How Israel and Lebanon Settled Their Maritime Borders

By Arthur Koll

Last week, Israel and Lebanon, two countries that officially designate each other as enemy states, signed an agreement settling a long-standing maritime border dispute. While definitely not as important as Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt or Jordan or the Abraham Accords, which normalized Israeli’s ties with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, this latest agreement reduces tensions in the region and provides an opportunity for Lebanon to break out of its economic collapse and political mayhem. 

In order to make sense of the agreement, it is important to differentiate between two types of maritime zones as far as international law is concerned.

The first category covers territorial-sovereign waters, which stretch from the coast to the 12-mile mark. States have the same level of sovereignty over these types of waters as they do on land.

The second category is exclusive economic zones (EEZ), which begin 12 nautical miles from a country’s coastline and extend up to 200 miles away from the coast (unless an EEZ encounters that of another country).

The concept of economic waters developed in international maritime law as a group of principles for states to divide exploration rights and benefit from resources found in or under the waters, such as fishing zones, energy resources, and minerals.

Until the first decade of this century, no urgency was felt by the eastern Mediterranean states to mark out their EEZs. However, discoveries of large natural gas fields under the waters of Israel, Egypt, and Cyprus, and most likely in Lebanon, made matters more pressing.

In 2007, Israel unilaterally marked out, with floats, its territorial maritime border with Lebanon, based on its understanding of international maritime law. Lebanon, for its part, declared its own wish list on maritime borders, which consisted of its maximalist positions.

Later, in 2010, Israel and Cyprus, which also discovered a very large natural gas field in its waters, reached an agreement to demarcate their EEZs. Similarly, Cyprus and Lebanon reached their own agreement earlier in 2007 (though Lebanon has yet to ratify it).

These hasty diplomatic developments were a direct result of the understanding that hiding under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean are significant hydrocarbon resources, and that to fully benefit from them it is necessary to settle border issues.

After Cyprus and Israel, on the one hand, and Cyprus and Lebanon, on the other, settled their maritime borders, the one unresolved dispute left open in this Mediterranean triangle was the border between Israel and Lebanon. Over the last twelve years, the two countries engaged in indirect negotiations led by the United States.

For over a decade, Israel and Lebanon were unable to reach an agreement on this boundary. What made it possible now? The answer to this question seems to involve three critical elements falling in place at the right time.

The first involves the preliminary testing that has occurred in recent years north of the now-established boundary, revealing a significant gas field, mostly on the Lebanese side. While Lebanon made no headway in developing its gas resources, Israel made dramatic progress, building offshore platforms and benefiting from multiple fields within its EEZ.

Secondly, Lebanon’s economy is in complete shambles and the country’s political paralysis prevents the formation of a government capable of providing for the basic needs of its citizens. Blackouts are the norm rather than the exception, there is a chronic shortage of basic products such as food and oil, and the banking system is dysfunctional. These ills are joined by the destructive role played by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror organization.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Lebanon is eager to begin exploiting the natural resources it hopes lie waiting for it under the sea. This would be a game changer for both Lebanon’s economy and its volatile internal and regional political situation.

Thirdly, the Biden administration appointed a new energy envoy to the region, Amos Hochstein, who invested significant efforts into kickstarting talks. He earned the trust of both the Lebanese and Israeli sides and was able to break a ten-year freeze, conducting shuttle diplomacy between Beirut, Jerusalem, and Washington.

Hochstein created an American compromise formula, which on the one hand followed the Israeli position regarding sovereign waters and answered its security needs, but on the other hand relies on the Lebanese position regarding EEZs, thus making it possible for Beirut to make progress and hopefully produce and profit from its field, dubbed Qanna.

From a security perspective, Israel gained what it desired: The demarcation of a border with Lebanon that recognizes Israel’s territorial-sovereign waters.

From an economic perspective, the deal is consistent with Lebanon’s desire to gain possession of the waters up to a boundary known as Line 23.

Additionally, Israel will be compensated, if and when natural gas is produced from the mostly Lebanese field, a field where the existence of commercial-scale gas reserves has yet to be verified. The scope and terms of this compensation have yet to be negotiated between Israel and Total, the French company that has the exploration rights for the Lebanese gas field.

Within Israel, challenges to the deal from the political Right were rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court and the signing took place as planned.

The current agreement is not a peace treaty—far from it. Hezbollah will continue to threaten regional stability. However, not wanting to be perceived as being the force that quashed hope for a better economic future for the Lebanese people, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that he would honor any agreement reached by Lebanon. 

Ultimately, settling the maritime boundaries is a win-win for both Jerusalem and Beirut. Israel reduced the threat to a major economic asset (the Karish natural gas field) and signed a bilateral agreement with an enemy state—a diplomatic achievement in its own right. Lebanon can act on the hope of dramatically improving the fate of its people. A stable Lebanon is in the best interest of Israel too.  

The increased role of the United States and France in the Lebanese arena is also a positive development and is preferable to leaving Lebanon under the sole grip of Hezbollah and Iran, which led that country to misery. And who knows, now that the precedent of a maritime border agreement has been set and the ice has been broken, perhaps there is increased potential for a future agreement on the land border between Israel and Lebanon. That, however, still seems far away.

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Ambassador Arthur Koll is the former Deputy Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he concluded his service as the head of the Media and Public Affairs Division. He is a former Ambassador of Israel to the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro and served as instructor of the National Defense College. Mr. Koll also served as Consul of the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta, USA and as Director of Projects for the Central Europe & Eurasia Division.

Iran in Ukraine: Lessons for Israel

By Jeremiah Rozman

Israel’s security establishment sees a nuclear-armed Iran as its greatest “intolerable” threat. Iran crossing the nuclear threshold changes Israel’s security position from one where it faces the threat of violence from many enemies but total destruction from none, to one where Iran holds the capability to destroy Israel in a nuclear holocaust, with Israel left guessing under what circumstances it would resolve to do so. This dynamic leaves Israel not only vulnerable to a perhaps unlikely nuclear attack but also to very likely nuclear blackmail, severely constraining Israel’s ability to act against its enemies including Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel considers a nuclear Iran an unacceptable strategic outcome. What this means is that if negotiations on a return to the nuclear deal between Iran and the powers fail, as they very likely might, Israel may be faced with two options, launch a risky and potentially unsuccessful kinetic strike against Iran’s nuclear program or accept a nuclear Iran. Since Israel has maintained that the latter is not an option, the former–a kinetic strike–is a very real possibility. In that event, Israel will almost certainly find itself in a kinetic war with Iran and its proxies, including the formidably armed and strategically positioned Hezbollah. To face this possibility Israel needs to understand how Iran will fight. Iran’s involvement in Russia’s war on Ukraine provides a glimpse into what very well might be Iran’s strategic calculus if it faces Israel.

Since Ukraine launched a rather successful counteroffensive, Russia has shifted strategies in Ukraine. Russia’s shift to targeting Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure through mass precision strikes marks its third strategy in this conflict. Each phase of the conflict can be understood as Russia targeting a different Center of Gravity (CoG). This term originating with Carl von Clausewitz has been slippery to define. In essence, it denotes a defeat mechanism. Knock out a CoG and you defeat the opponent’s “freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight.” 

First Russia went for a swift knockout blow against what it thought was a reachable CoG with the best cost-benefit payoff -- Ukraine’s government. President Vladimir Putin sought to achieve this by killing or capturing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and installing a pro-Russian puppet. When this failed, Putin attacked another CoG, Ukraine’s military. It reckoned that with Zelensky out of reach, Russia needed to defeat Ukraine's military to achieve his desired policy outcome without appearing to blatantly target Ukraine’s civilians. Prior to air power, if an attacker could not pull off a governmental coup, defeating a nation's armed forces was a necessary step to forcing capitulation. In the age of air power, especially precision air power, this is no longer the case. Herein we find Putin's latest strategic shift.

The Ukrainian military proved a tougher CoG than anticipated, too tough for Putin to defeat. At best Putin has secured a military stalemate, capturing some territory at enormous cost. While Ukraine may or may not be able to completely drive Putin out of Ukrainian territory, it is clear now that Putin cannot rapidly defeat Ukraine’s military.

Over the past few weeks Putin has shifted towards attacking what he must consider to be Ukraine’s last tenable CoG. While some have dubbed Putin’s new actions ‘vengeful’ there is a strategic calculus to them. Putin believes that Ukraine's critical civilian infrastructure is also a CoG, meaning that by knocking it out, it can force Ukraine to capitulate even if it cannot defeat its armed forces. Using precision air power with Iranian drones playing a central role, Russia has been able to deal enormous damage to Ukraine's water and power grid in advance of the upcoming harsh Ukrainian winter, this despite Ukraine being able to intercept a majority of these munitions. Iran must be drawing important lessons from this battlefield testing. Its advisors are on the ground helping Russia integrate these drones into its arsenal. It is likely that Iran is taking notes for a future conflict with Israel.

Combined with Hezbollah, Iran has enough precision munitions to truly threaten Israel by a similar targeting of critical infrastructure tested by Russia in Ukraine. Iron Dome and Israel’s other air defenses have never been tested against precision munitions or against the type of precision combined drone and cruise missile attack that Iran conducted against Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil refineries. While Israel is certainly better able to strike targets in enemy territory than Ukraine has been thus far, it also has far less strategic depth than Ukraine, meaning it has fewer targets that Iran and its proxies must hit and they are less dispersed.

Because it is highly unlikely that Iran and its proxies can defeat Israel’s armed forces or capture its seat of government, Iran might determine that Israel’s only vulnerable CoG is its civilian critical infrastructure as well as its population. If Iran believes that it can defeat Israel by inflicting enough damage on these targets, any future kinetic conflict with Iran would likely see the targeting of Israel’s power and water facilities. Iran has already targeted these with cyber attacks. Iran has successfully tested complex precision targeting against Saudi Arabia, defeating U.S. provided Patriot air and missile defenses. It is currently honing this form of warfare in Ukraine.

Israel must learn from Ukraine as Iran surely is. In order to deter Iran by threatening a military response to it crossing the nuclear threshold, Israel must demonstrate that it can defend itself to the point where Iran no longer sees Israel’s critical infrastructure as a defeatable CoG. This would make the threat of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program far more credible, potentially preventing war. Israel’s next best option if deterrence fails is to win in conflict. Israel must harden its critical infrastructure and improve its ability to rapidly target Iran and its proxies’ precision fires if it is either to deter Iran or defeat it if deterrence fails. Therefore, Israel should rapidly integrate lessons learned from Russia’s new Iran-backed strategy in Ukraine and pay close attention to how Ukraine contends with this new strategy.

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The views expressed do not reflect the position of the U.S. government or military and are the author's own.

Jeremiah Rozman currently works as the National Security Analyst at a DC-based think tank. From 2006-2009 he served as an infantryman in the IDF. His regional expertise is in the Middle East and Russia. He designed and taught an undergraduate course on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Read full bio here.

No More Excuses—Time for Berkeley to Act

By Mark Goldfeder

Ever since some student groups at Berkeley Law School signed a pledge to exclude anyone that supports the existence of a Jewish state, there has been a very public debate about the legality of these so-called “Jew-Free” zones. In response to widespread criticism, the groups, led by Students for Justice in Palestine, issued a statement claiming that the bylaw was not antisemitic because it “does not attack Jewish people or faith.” 

The dean of the law school chose to ignore what the statement actually said, accepting this fairly thin excuse and writing that: “[A]t this stage, all some student groups have done is express their strong disagreement with Israel’s policies.” 

From a legal perspective, the dean (and the school) gave undo credence to the mischaracterization of the decision to exclude all Zionists as based on political viewpoint discrimination as opposed to anti-Jewish sentiment. Too bad the antisemites’ own attorney couldn’t help herself from saying more, thereby blowing that flimsy excuse completely out of the water.

Liz Jackson, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, which represents SJP, recently clarified the position of the groups she represents, explaining that she knows “Some students say that their Jewish identity is so deeply identified with Zionism that this effectively discriminates against them, but that’s their subjective view and choice about how they understand their own Jewish identity.”

Here is the problem with that statement: Jewish people, and only Jewish people, get to define what is and is not part of their Jewish identity—not antisemitic groups like Palestine Legal or SJP. And for the vast majority of Jewish people across time and space, Zionism is and always has been an integral part of their Jewish, often their religious, identities. That does, in fact, transform that particular kind of Zionism into a category protected by state and federal civil rights law, whether SJP likes it or not. 

Discriminating against a Jewish person or group just because they are Zionist is illegal because Zionism is demonstrably not just a political movement. For thousands of years, Jews across the world have prayed to God at least three times a day (and often more) for a safe return to Zion. The Pentateuch itself references this ancient Jewish hope while the Prophets and Writings repeatedly record this ambition. More than half of the biblical commandments are specifically tied to the land of Israel, and doctrinally, belief in and hope for the return to Zion is part of the 13 Principles of Jewish Faith. 

Jews were Zionists before there were Muslims, and even before there were Christians. In multiple places throughout the New Testament, the yearning for redemption is expressed in terms of the by-then-already-classic formulation of Jewish Zionism (see e.g., Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15), while the Quran itself is quite clear about the long history of Jews in the Holy Land—and especially in Jerusalem. (See, for example, Surah Bani Isra’il, verses 1-7). While it is true that the Jews were twice expelled from their ancient kingdom of Israel, it is also true that they never fully left: Despite the fairly recent antisemitic lie casting Jews as colonialist outsiders, since biblical times there has always been an indigenous Jewish community living in the eternal Jewish homeland. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Jews from around the world came to buy and cultivate land to further expand those existing Jewish communities that had remained in Israel as a continuous presence throughout all of the exiles.

Today, support for Zionism can take multiple forms, and mere political Zionism may not be protected, like any other political belief. Not all Zionists are Jews, and not all Jews are Zionists. But for those Jews for whom Zionism is a part of their Jewish ethnic heritage and identity, it absolutely is protected and they cannot be excluded on the basis of holding that belief. Anti-Zionism that allows for discrimination against Jewish people because of their affiliation with, affinity for, or support of the biblical/prophetic/historical/ethnic/cultural/Jewish ideal of Zionism is antisemitism. So is telling Jews what they can and can’t believe.

To be clear, it is the openly stated, on the record view of Palestine Legal and of SJP that they get to define what “Jewish identity” can include for Jewish people. And, if they feel that one or another Jewish belief should not be part of a Jewish person’s identity, they may freely discriminate against people for holding that belief, and that cannot be considered antisemitism. Should Palestine Legal, for example, decide tomorrow that keeping Shabbat or kosher observance is not really part of Jewish belief, just some Jews’ “subjective view and choice about how they understand their own Jewish identity,” then they can and should be free to discriminate against Jewish people who do observe Shabbat or keep kosher. Likewise, should they decide that taking mass is just something that some Catholics subjectively like to do but is not really part of their religion, they can freely discriminate against those Catholics who do practice the ritual.   

Nor was this a one-time accidental admission. When Jewish student leaders, the people who are ostensibly being excluded for their views, clarified that “When we say ‘Zionism,’ we mean the Jewish right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, which is Israel … This does not say anything about the self-determination of Palestinians,” Jackson doubled-down and “expressed disagreement with that definition of Zionism.” 

Here is the bottom line: Anti-Zionists do not get to define a Jewish person’s Zionism for them, cast it as merely political, and then discriminate against them for it. 

Berkeley made clear that if this was about Jewish identity, then they would step in. Palestine Legal just said the quiet part out loud: It was always about Jewish identity, and they were always aware of it. They just don’t like that part of Judaism. Consequently, they feel they should have the right to tell the vast majority of Jews that they are wrong about their own Jewish identity, and that they better purge themselves of those beliefs or they will be discriminated against.  

There goes that “political viewpoint” excuse. Your move Berkeley.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Not The Start-Up Nation

By Benjamin Anthony

In 2009, Saul Singer and Dan Senor co-authored a fabulous best-seller brilliantly entitled Start-Up Nation. Lamentably, from then on many of Israel’s lovers and leaders adopted and adapted that title to promote Israel to the world to the exclusion of the foundational reason for Israel’s establishment and existence. That order of prioritization must be righted.

Israel is variously marketed as the innovation nation, the guarantor of never again, the sole democracy in the Middle East and a bastion of Western values.

While Israel can wear such labels with pride, those descriptions do not encapsulate what the state is at its core, explain the essence of why Israel exists or assure its future standing internationally.

Israel’s technological status is laudable. Apple, Microsoft and more have robust Israeli presence. But if an existential threat were to befall Israel tomorrow, those same companies would withdraw quicker than one can say “silicon wadi.”

Israel did not fight its many wars out of allegiance to the microchip.

Pre-state, the forebears of Israel’s citizenry yearned to return to the land that is now the modern state. They did so not when that land was at the forefront of technological advancement but when it was a series of swamps and deserts riddled with disease.

Thus, Israel’s reconstitution must have been powered by something beyond its technological prowess.

What is the basis of Israel?

Contrary to the beliefs of many, Israel was not founded in response to the Holocaust. Its existence surely serves as a bulwark against another Holocaust but the Holocaust is not the reason for Israel’s existence. Opening the door to such a narrative is an error.

The forebears of today’s Israeli soldiers yearned for Zion centuries before the names Auschwitz, Goebbels, Goring or Adolf Hitler were etched into infamy.

Tragically, with the passage of time and the passing of survivors, there will soon rise a generation of society with a vastly reduced memory of the Holocaust. Predicating Israel’s existence upon a phenomenon so fleeting within the memory of mankind would be misguided, therefore. Neither Israel’s past nor future can be reduced down to the horrific actions of another people.

Promoting Israel’s status as the sole democracy in the Middle East overlooks the deeply socialist roots that Israel had at the time of its founding.

Our Jewish antecedents yearned for Israel when it was most likely to be born a socialist state. Still, they yearned for this land and discounted all others. It was not democracy that they sought. Their yearning for statehood was in no way misguided.

Joseph Stalin voted to recognize the state, confident that a socialist Israel would broaden the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. That man was not powered by a deep love for the Jewish people.

THAT ISRAEL is a democracy is wonderful. May it forever remain so. But curiously, a commitment to democracy doesn’t typically move the Jewish people to fight and die in the defense of the countries in which they reside. If it did, diaspora Jewry would surely be storming the military recruiting offices of Britain, France and America. Some do so but most do not.

Safeguarding the democratic character of a country rarely animates Jewish communities to the point where they stand ready to sacrifice their lives for the cause. Not in Britain, France, America or Israel. It is not for the sake of democracy that the Jewish people repeatedly stare down death to protect the state.

And with regard to Israel being a bastion of Western values, in this era of increasing societal wimpishness, outrage culture, cancel culture and ever-growing self-loathing in the West, Western values are about as dependably formed and fashioned as a piece of masticated chewing gum. They should be relied upon about as much as one would a chocolate fire-guard. With antisemitism back in vogue in much of the West and Western values weakening daily, Israel cannot afford to follow suit.

Into and beyond all of these narratives, Israel must reinject the only quintessential reason for its founding and existence.

In the final analysis, the reason for the state’s founding and daily renewal is that with all of the challenges and opportunities that stand before it, this tiny strip of land just happens to be the Homeland of the Jewish people.

Jewish peoplehood and Jewish liturgy believe this land to have been sworn unto our forefathers by God, stated to have been so at the genesis of the Jewish origin story. That connection is undeniable and must not be downplayed. Israel’s story was forged in the twin furnaces of history and faith. From there, this singular, fundamental narrative was drawn out. It must be told above all others. Absent that truth, all narratives are fleeting.

Those who claim that the world won’t accept such a narrative must be challenged to furnish the narrative in a way in which the world will accept Israel’s presence. But take heed, no matter the branding Israel chooses, to its foes and friends alike, this land is the Jewish state, a reality that begets sinister and celebratory reactions, respectively. How Israel responds to that reality is its own choice. It should do so with a stiffened spine and iron-clad conviction.

It is from this land that the Jewish people stem and around this land that the Jewish people are inextricably tied. If Israel the country thrives, Israel the people will thrive, wherever they may reside.

The United States Marines chant a credo when presented with their weapons during basic training: “This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine.”

Israel’s lovers and leaders should adopt and adapt that narrative: “This is my land. There are many like it but this land is mine.”

Judaism is the basis for the past, present and future Jewish state. All else is a mere outgrowth of what occurs when a land is reconciled with its people and a people is finally reconciled with its land. Centrally stating that truth will ensure that it remains a force for good and strength universally.

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Benjamin Anthony is Co-Founder & CEO of the MirYam Institute, Benjamin brings considerable experience and expertise to his position in the areas of substantive, policy driven dialogue and debate about the State of Israel throughout the international community. Read full bio here.

Hezbollah’s role in the Israeli-Lebanese maritime agreement

By Yochai Guiski

Israel and Lebanon have reached an agreement that will alter how the world views their maritime borders. The agreement is designed to demarcate each country’s exclusive economic zones (EEZ), as well as the majority of their territorial waters.

The U.S.-mediated agreement has sparked a firestorm of controversy in the final weeks before Israel’s November 1 elections.

While viewed favorably by the coalition parties and the majority of Israel’s security establishment, opposition parties see it as a shameful capitulation to pressure from Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the United States and have even said they may not honor it if they come to power.

Defining maritime boundaries is more of an art than a science. There are some common methods, but they vary depending on the contours of the shoreline, near-shore islands and rocks, continental shelves, and other factors. As a result, many countries that are geographically close have unresolved maritime disputes (39 percent of all sea borders are contested).

Israel’s original claim regarding its EEZ, made in 2011, was an overreach that could not be justified under international law. The Lebanese position, claiming ownership of the gas field known as Karish, which is located in Israel’s EEZ, went even further and was far more irrational. Both positions could be described as starting points for future discussions. Since 2011, Israel and Lebanon have been negotiating a solution with the assistance of a U.S. mediator.

Lebanon’s original offer stemming from those discussions has now been accepted by Israel, with a few changes concerning security in territorial waters. As a result, Israel has relinquished its original claim to maritime boundaries.

It is important to clarify that EEZs are not sovereign areas. Instead, they are managed by states for economic and environmental reasons. They are part of the global commons, and any vessel can move through them.

Hezbollah has occasionally threatened to attack Israel’s rigs in recent years, but it has increased its threats significantly in past months, prior to and following the arrival of the Karish floating gas rig off the northern Israeli coastline. Hezbollah even sent unmanned aerial vehicles in the direction of the rig before they were shot down by the IDF.

After the agreement was made public, Hezbollah stated that Israel had agreed to Lebanon’s position and chalked this up to its tough stance. The group vowed to “keep an eye” on Israel to see if it followed through with the agreement.   

As the debate over the agreement played out in Israel, two leading schools of thought emerged.

One camp sees it as a reasonable compromise that reduces the likelihood of a security escalation in the short and long term. The threat of losing the benefit of gas exploration and production would, according to this line of reasoning, constrain Hezbollah while allowing the Lebanese state to stabilize its economy, and potentially, its political situation, without the need for assistance from Iran and Russia. This, in turn, would strengthen its internal position vis-à-vis Hezbollah. It would also strengthen the American and Western positions in Lebanon and the Middle East, as well as boost Israel’s image, while sacrificing nothing of real value.

The other side sees the agreement as a dishonorable capitulation that would set a dangerous precedent—a full Israeli territorial concession under threat of violence in exchange for almost nothing concrete.

This view holds that the current agreement boosts Hezbollah and humiliates Israel, with the gas rigs becoming the focal point of future extortion attempts by Hezbollah or other radical actors. Critics of the deal regard the idea of the agreement restraining Hezbollah as unrealistic, and they see Israel’s weakness as a potential trigger for escalation. They also see a potential economic windfall for Iran and Hezbollah because they can influence Lebanon’s decision-making.

According to the Israeli business daily Globes, the dispute between the parties took place within the Israeli security establishment and resulted in the resignation of the head of the Israeli negotiation team.

It is too soon to tell which side is correct. Yet it is clear that Israel can make some early gains from the agreement, while Lebanon’s gains will take several years to materialize.

In the short term, a real threat of escalation has been removed, and Israel can begin producing gas from the Karish gas field—while exporting some of it to an energy-starved Europe.

In addition, while Hezbollah will likely receive credit for the agreement in the short term, Lebanon will need to avoid escalation with Israel in order to reap economic benefits in the long run.

Lebanon could build its Kana-Sidon undersea gas field in a few years, improving its ability to generate electricity and its finances, which could also benefit Hezbollah.

The agreement’s success may put pressure on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to reach a similar agreement to develop the gas reservoir off the Gaza coast.

These developments can be considered stabilizing factors in a vacuum, but things change if one brings Iran into the picture.

If a nuclear deal is reached between Tehran and the world powers, Iran will seize the opportunity to explore and develop gas and oil fields in the Lebanese EEZ in the Mediterranean Sea. This would strengthen Iran’s and Hezbollah’s overall influence over the country, while weakening the Lebanese state.

If the current standoff with Iran persists or worsens, the prospects for stability in Lebanon are also likely to be dashed. The risk of Hezbollah targeting Israeli rigs would, in this scenario, increase, making a symmetrical response by Israel impossible because it would need to attack the Lebanese rig—an asset of a European company.

Meanwhile, Israel’s concessions to Lebanon would remain binding.

It is therefore critical that Israel, the United States, and their European partners devise a strategy to prevent Iran from abusing the agreement, and that they maintain regional stability. If the escalation scenario ends up playing out, Israel would likely be much less willing to make peace and opt for diplomatic means in the future.

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LT. Col. Yochai Guiski is a 23 year veteran of the IDF. He retired in 2020 as a Lieutenant Colonel after serving in the Israeli Military Intelligence. Yochai served in various roles including: Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (C.O.G.A.T.), Strategic Planning Division and the Ministry of Defense (politico-military directorate). Read full bio here.

For Israel’s political players, election day is only the halfway point

By Danielle Roth-Avneri

As far as Israeli voters are concerned, national elections are what shapes Israel’s political system, but for Israel’s politicians, they only mark the halfway point.

The reason for this is deeply tied to the structure and nature of Israel’s political system. To form a government, a party chairperson must be able to take to Israel’s President the recommendation of at least 61 Members of Knesset. But with multiple parties in the arena, that is no simple matter.

All experienced political players in Israel know that only when the exit polls come through, usually at 10 p.m. on election day, can the real calculations begin.

In the upcoming November 1 elections, the fifth in three-and-a-half years, the two main blocs are, once again, divided into the “Bibi” and “Just not Bibi” camps. This is essentially the only political game in town.

It is remarkable to take stock of how long Israel’s political system has been gridlocked. Teenagers who were aged 15-and-a-half when the first of those five elections marking the beginning of the current cycle of political paralysis was held are now eligible to vote. Many things have changed, but one constant remains: The presence of Opposition Chairman and Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu.

In one corner is an entire political camp determined to boycott him. It refuses to accept him in any manner, claiming it would be impossible to do so since he is on trial on corruption charges. This camp repeatedly calls for Netanyahu’s resignation. Netanyahu however refuses to succumb to these calls and has continued to dominate the political scene while at the same time mounting a legal defense in court. The current threshold for enabling a party to enter the Knesset is four seats. Parties that fail to reach the threshold remain outside of parliament and votes cast for them are wasted.

This is especially a concern for the anti-Netanyahu camp, which features a number of parties on the verge of the threshold. Among them are Labor and Meretz, which, based on the final polls, are likely to gain four to five seats each.

The Arab Joint List split up in this election season, and its three component parties are each fighting to get over the line. The elections may, in the end, be decided by the Arab-Israeli sector, where wasted votes could end up boosting the Netanyahu camp if one of the parties currently polling four seats fail to get past the threshold.  

The Arab Israeli street is well known for punishing its leaders when they split up into smaller parties. Voting percentages are consistently higher when the Arab parties join forces to run under a separate list.

As a result, Prime Minister Yair Lapid has made an effort to encourage Arab-Israelis to go out and vote.  

Lapid cannot become the next prime minister if one of the Arab parties fails to get into the Knesset. However, if Netanyahu also fails to gain the 61 votes he needs to form a government, Lapid will stay on as prime minister of a transitional government. Another spell as premier would boost his image, which is already strengthened by the fact that he has been in charge of military campaigns, international affairs, and the maritime border agreement with Lebanon – an agreement that many Israelis, including Netanyahu, regard as scandalous, but which is well regarded by others.

The Netanyahu camp has been strengthened, meanwhile, by the ability of right-wing religious nationalist politicians Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to unite into a joint Religious Zionist list.

 Within this bloc, the Likud’s power has been eroded by the rise of Ben Gvir, who, according to polls, has convinced many young voters, including from Likud, to give him their ballot. If the polling proves to be correct, the Religious Zionist list will demand many ministries when it enters the government.

Meanwhile, Ayelet Shaked, the former number two in Yamina, a highly capable political player who now leads her own party, the Jewish Home, is running despite polls showing that she will not get past the threshold.

Netanyahu has attempted to remove her from the race to ensure that the two seats she is worth will go to him – so far with no success.

In the unlikely event that Shaked does get past the threshold, Netanyahu will find himself completely dependent on her to form a government, due to the expected tight results between the two political blocs.

If neither camp is able to form a government, a third option exists – namely that Benny Gantz, chairman of the National Unity party, does so. Gantz, a former partner of Lapid turned competitor-rival, believes he could get the needed 61 votes, though it is difficult to see how with the current math.

One option is that Gantz becomes prime minister with Likud entering a rotation government under his lead with Gantz receiving the first rotation and Netanyahu the second.

Another is that Gantz is able to somehow reel in the ultra-Orthodox parties to his government, though this looks improbable.

In the past several days, the television political campaigns have begun, and the election season has awoken from its slumber after the High Holidays.

The mudslinging is in full throttle, as it has been in past elections. Those who deliver the most devastating knockouts have the best chance of winning. Netanyahu, Lapid, Gantz, Shaked, and others will all be in the ring, slugging it out. 

At the end of the day, however, voting patterns are not likely to change much from the past round of elections. It is not possible to change the people. With every election costing over a billion shekels and wasting so much time, Israel’s politicians are beginning to appear ridiculous.

Israeli voters are asking how they can entrust them to lead, when they cannot get along with one another.

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Danielle Roth-Avneri is a political commentator & panelist on Morning World and various current affairs news programs on television. She is a former Knesset reporter, news editor and columnist for the newspaper Israel Hayom. Read full bio here.

Israel’s character is on the line in the upcoming elections

By Sharon Roffe Ofir

At the start of September, a delegation of American senators landed in Israel. During one of the delegation’s meetings with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Senator Robert Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed resentment over the possible integration of Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party in any future government, should Netanyahu win Israel’s November 1 election.

According to sources present at the meeting, Menendez warned that if extremist right-wing elements, such as MK Ben-Gvir, become part of the next Israeli government, this would have a detrimental impact on American-Israeli ties.

Naturally, Menendez sees the danger from his perspective but the warning he sounded is much broader: If Ben-Gvir is included in government, 74 years after the establishment of Israel, its future as a democratic, liberal state will be cast in doubt.

Netanyahu expressed annoyance to Menendez over his comment but this was quickly forgotten when the opposition leader encountered Ben-Gvir during a Sukkot event at the Chabad Village in central Israel. In order to avoid being photographed on the same stage, Netanyahu refused to go up until Ben-Gvir had descended from the stage.

While a photo op was missed, the scenario of a Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir government is realistic.

What won’t Netanyahu do to flee the wheels of justice? He’s prepared to do anything and everything.

The law and justice plan presented by Ben-Gvir’s running partner in the joint Religious Zionist list, Bezalel Smotrich, has been tailored to Netanyahu’s size and needs. They call it reform and say it is needed to return public faith in the legal system, when in fact, the purpose is to destroy the legal system and remove its independence.

Ben-Gvir has also presented his own security call to action, which Netanyahu knows is hot air and would not restore public security but, on the contrary, would set the country on fire. For Netanyahu, everything is fair game. The laws of the game are clear: he either is on top or, as his wife once said, the country burns.

Rabbi Yitzhak Goldknopf, the new chairman of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) ultra-Orthodox bloc, is another senior partner of Netanyahu. Goldknopf has produced several notable quotes, such as “the State of Israel belongs to two nations: to the ultra-Orthodox and to all the others,” and, “I haven’t seen that mathematics or English advanced the Israeli economy.”

He also claimed that he was sure that studying Torah intensively is more difficult than being a soldier serving on the frontlines – a statement made during a week in which two IDF soldiers, Sgt. Noa Lazar and Staff. Sgt. Ido Baruch, were killed by terrorists while defending the country.

Goldknopf is Netanyahu’s natural partner and the former and perhaps future prime minister has already promised him that he would match the budgets of ultra-Orthodox educational institutions that do not teach core curriculum subjects to those allocated to schools in the state system.

HOWEVER, IT’S not only Netanyahu that is chasing after Goldknopf, Benny Gantz, chairman of the National Unity Party, and Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party are also courting UTJ.

This comes at a time when, according to Bank of Israel figures, if the ultra-Orthodox public continues to leave core studies out of its curriculum and does not integrate more deeply into the job market, Israel will eventually experience economic collapse.

The public that serves the state, works and pays taxes will not be able to deal with the tax burden. Taxes will rise by 16% if this nightmare scenario materializes. Instead of core curriculum subjects, Israel will receive ignorance and poverty. One can forget about a free country and economy.

Netanyahu, who is fond of quoting the doctrine of Likud’s ideological forefather Ze’ev Jabotinsky, which includes the tenets of economic liberalism, has long forgotten the way.

Recently, The Washington Post published an article praising the Israeli economy. It said, among other things, that Israel is an economic powerhouse with the highest growth rate among developed economies and one of the lowest rates of unemployment and inflation but judging by his campaign promises, Netanyahu, it seems, has no use for a free economy. Deficits, unemployment and inflation are terms that will apparently vanish from the world.

Instead, Israel would receive a freeze on mortgage repayments and somehow this will be used to fund a Free Education Act for ages zero to three. One does not need to be an economics maven to understand that these ideas are dangerous for the future of Israel.

After surrendering to lobbyists for the past 12 years, strengthening the committees and councils that raised the cost of living, and distributing funds to ultra-Orthodox parties, Netanyahu will march ahead in the same fashion.” After all, making promises doesn’t cost Netanyahu any money. Mr. Economy will reverse the achievements of Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, the only minister to stand up and say he would not be part of a government that did not insist that all state-funded educational institutions teach core studies.

On November 1, the nation will once again head to the ballot box. Five election campaigns in three-and-a-half years have created confusion and chaos. To know which vote to cast, we must return to basics and recall the values with which we established Israel.

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Sharon Roffe Ofir is a former Knesset Member on behalf of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and served as the deputy head of the Kiryat Tivon Regional Council. She is a former journalist . Read full bio here.

Israel isn’t just counting on Lebanon deal to secure gas rigs

By Yaakov Lappin

In the coming days, Israel and Lebanon are expected to sign a U.S.-mediated agreement that regulates their maritime border, and respective rights to extract natural gas reserves from under the Mediterranean Sea.

The agreement has attracted intense debate in Israel over its advantages or disadvantages – of which it has both. It carries strategic value, in enabling Israel to immediately begin accessing profitable gas resources and de-escalating tensions with Hezbollah, which has threatened to attack the Israeli Karish offshore gas rig off the northern Israeli coast if Jerusalem begins gas extraction before a deal is reached.

But it also strengthens Hezbollah’s ability to market itself inside Lebanon, and particularly to its Shi’ite Lebanese base, as ‘protector’ of Lebanon’s interests, and as a violent entity that is able to use the threat of its missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles to force Israel into an agreement, under terms and at a pace that would not have otherwise happened.

Whichever way one may view the deal, it is important to note that over the past several years, the Israeli defense establishment has invested heavily in cutting edge military technology in order to defend Israel’s offshore rigs. And that Israel is far from relying only an agreement with a state like Lebanon, whose actual sovereignty is very much in doubt due to the dominance of Hezbollah and Iran in it, in order to protect its strategic maritime energy assets that are a major source of national income and have become all the more important in view of recent export deals to the European Union, which is looking for alternatives to Russian gas sources.

The most significant step that Israel took to protect its strategic new energy assets took shape in December 2020, when INS Magen (Defender), the first of Israel’s new Sa’ar 6 corvettes, arrived at Haifa Naval Base.  The second ship in the Sa’ar 6 series, the INS Oz (Strength), arrived in June 2021, while the INS Nitzhahon (Victory) and Atzmaut (Independence) arrived in July of that year.

Built by German shipyard builders  ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems in close cooperation with Israel Navy engineers and planners, the ships are fitted with Israeli-made weapons that include the Rafael-made C-Dome air defense system – the sea version of Iron Dome, and the Israel Aerospace Industries-made Barak 8 air and missile defense system.

The C-Dome will be designed to intercept a range of threats, including rockets, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles – of the type that that Hezbollah is in possession of, while the Barak system can take on longer-range threats such as  supersonic anti-ship missiles –another weapons system reportedly in Hezbollah’s arsenal.

The ships have on-board electronic warfare systems, which could be used to jam the guidance systems of incoming threats. They also come with advanced multi-mission radars made by IAI-Elta, and command-and-control systems; they can detect, track, and intercept threats from over 200 kilometers away.

Also taking part in the defensive effort are the Israel Navy’s older Sa’ar 5 missile vessels, like the INS Eilat, which shot down Hezbollah unmanned aerial vehicles that the Iranian-backed terror organization launched toward Israel’s Karish platform on July 2, as a warning message.

But it is the Sa’ar 6s that are the designated offshore gas defenders, protecting rigs that can be targeted by both Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

According to media reports, Hezbollah is in possession of the Russian-made Yakhont supersonic cruise missile, which has a range of up to 300 kilometers, which it is believed to have obtained from the Syrian military.

Hezbollah is consistently trying to obtain and develop other land-to-sea missiles and rockets. In 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, it fired a C-802 Chinese designed anti-ship missile, striking the INS Hanit and killing four sailors. It was the first time that an Israeli ship was hit by a shore-to-sea missile, and represented a painful wake up call for Israel’s Navy.

Today, Hezbollah is likely in possession of more advanced threats, meaning that powerful radars are vital in detecting them.

As a navy source stated in 2020, "The issue with gas rigs is that it only takes one hit to achieve the potential damage that you want. As a navy, we cannot allow any missiles, ballistic threats, cruise missiles, or UAVs to get through us and strike any gas rig. It's like building an iron wall."

The Sa’ar 6s will patrol Israel’s economic exclusive zones. They can stay out at sea longer than their predecessors, and cover longer distances.

It seems fair to assume that the rigs also have underwater sonar systems installed on them, to sound alerts against Hezbollah divers. Naval threats are also developing to the south, where Hamas is trying to build ‘sea tunnels’ that enable its commando diver forces to head out to sea, or to launch mini unmanned submerged explosive vehicles without being noticed. There too, Israel is building a network of sensors and obstacles to prevent this from happening.

Unmanned sea vessels such as the Elbit-made Seagull which can patrol autonomously and detect threats using sensors and fire weapons will also play a key role in protecting rigs.

In any future conflict, the Israel Navy will also take on offensive duties, striking enemy targets on land with its firepower.

The navy’s new role in protecting Israeli national assets at sea, both during routine times and in times of  war, is a new strategic responsibility  and compels it to cover distances that are larger than any it has defended in the past.

Taken together, these developments collectively create a new Israeli naval doctrine, based on recognition that Israel’s economy flows through the sea.

It’s not only the gas – Israel is often compared to an island, despite not technically being one. Its longest border is with the sea. Half of Israel’s fresh water comes from the sea via desalination plants, the communication cables that run under the sea connect it to the world, 70% of Israel’s electrical consumption comes from gas rigs out at sea, and 90% of Israel’s wheat is imported via the sea, as are vehicles and most raw materials.

Israel must be able to protect its waters if it is to protect its basic ability to function. As Israel’s enemies conduct an arms race to attack the country’s sea assets, the Israeli Navy has fashioned an entire new strategy to counteract the threat and stay a step ahead.

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Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

Antisemitism Finds a Home With the A.B.I.L.A

By Mark Goldfeder

The prominent American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) has apparently been hijacked by the advocates of modern antisemitism. Sadly, illustrious New York law firms, the New York Bar Association, and Fordham Law School are among their unwitting enablers.

From October 20 to October 22, 2022 the ILA’s American Branch will hold its annual meeting in New York City. This year, the program includes a panel dedicated to the demonstrable lie that the Jewish state is racist, guilty of the crime against humanity of apartheid, and therefore deserving of criminal prosecution and economic ruin.

For the past month, the online program described the annual meeting on “Racism and the Crime of Apartheid in International Law” this way: “Today, in contexts across the world, from Myanmar’s abuses of Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State, to the Israeli authorities’ systematic oppression of Palestinians, to the Chinese government’s actions in Xinxiang against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, human rights organizations, UN bodies, experts, and scholars have concluded that the crime of apartheid is being committed with impunity.” In just one paragraph, the authors did their very best to casually lump Israel in with some of the worst human rights abusers in the world.

According to the official program, the Opening Plenary and Reception is taking place at the New York City Bar Association. The Centennial Gala is hosted by the law firm of White & Case LLP, the Opening Reception by Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, and the panel itself by Fordham Law School. The panel’s list of participants is a who’s who of Israel-bashing advocates and nobody from the other side. This stands in marked contrast to the promise of the ILA to exemplify a “diverse and inclusive community of individuals working or interested in international law,” the promise of legal practitioners to hear and evaluate all sides fairly, and the promise of the legal academy to ensure students and faculty are educated, not brainwashed.

Brainwashed they will be, however. The panel includes a UN official, E. Tendayi Achiume who charges Israel with vaguely defined international crimes at every chance she gets—sometimes working with an Israeli-designated terrorist organization to do so. Her UN anti-racism mission has a well-documented blind spot when it comes to advocating for racial and ethnic justice for Jews, and in 2021 Achiume herself signed a wildly antisemitic letter expressing outrage that UCLA dared to condemn antisemitic attacks in the United States (during a massive uptick of such incidents) without also condemning “Jewish supremacists” in Israel.

The panel also includes an academic, Victor Kattan, who claims that only the non-existent State of Palestine has sovereign title over Jerusalem, and has encouraged the Palestinians to file claims against the United States at the International Criminal Court for daring to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel’s capital city. But the highlight is probably Omar Shakir, an NGO activist and extremistwho has publicly supported and defended murderous terrorists and antisemites. For years he advocated and worked for the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and then, when Israel revoked his work visa for engaging in boycott activities, lied and claimed that he had not done so. Since then, he has worked hard to mainstream the thoroughly debunked Human Rights Watch report that denied Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, dismissed its security concerns, and accused Israel of apartheid.

Lest you be concerned that a neutral moderator might ask these folks some hard-hitting questions for the benefit of those watching who may not know better, rest assured that the rabid anti-Israel spell will not be broken. The moderator is Mai el Sadany, a human rights attorney who, among other things, has demanded that the NY Bar Association rescind an invitation to Dani Dayan, the former Consul General of Israel in New York, falsely accusing him of racism, apartheid and other criminal activity. She has also accused the United States of collaborating with Israel to cover up human rights violations.

Lest you be concerned that a neutral moderator might ask these folks some hard-hitting questions for the benefit of those watching who may not know better, rest assured that the rabid anti-Israel spell will not be broken.

For the record, because facts matter, apartheid involves an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. Israeli Arabs enjoy full equal rights, and hold positions in the highest levels of every branch of government. Israel does distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, as does every country, but that has nothing to do with race, which is why when Amnesty International made the same claim of apartheid a few months back, they had to literally invent a new definition that was not based on race in order to play a game of antisemitic double standard “gotcha” with the Jewish state.

It is dangerous when antisemites use the imprimatur and gravitas of once-respectable institutions to mainstream hate and lies. This is particularly so in a dangerous environment of rising antisemitic hated and the inextricable bond between accusing Israel of apartheid and antisemitism. We let these claims go unchallenged at our peril because study after study has shown that this kind of inflammatory, discriminatory, antisemitic, anti-Zionist rhetoric is actually dangerous, and leads directly to the kinds of antisemitic attacks against innocent Jewish people and institutions that we are seeing around the world.

Late last week, the law firms in question and Fordham Law School began to receive inquiries about why they would host and celebrate such a gathering. In response, the ABILA did two things: First, the program description in the online brochure was reworded so it did not explicitly accuse Israel of international crimes. Second, they added an additional speaker, ostensibly to bring balance to the panel. The speaker they added, however, Mia Swart, is an Al Jazeera reporter who has done fawning interviews with Omar Shakir “calling out Israeli apartheid,” and just last week tweeted in support of another event in which the leader of an Israeli-designated terror organization gave a talk on “Apartheid and Israel’s Assault on Palestinian Civil Society.” So much for offering a different perspective.

These changes were clearly made so that the hosts could have plausible deniability. They don’t have it. They know exactly what is going on—at their expense, and at the expense of all the attendees who deserve better.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Israel must prepare for a nuclear Iran

By Danny Ayalon

Israel is pursuing a delicate balancing act as it seeks to preserve and strengthen its alliance with its number one ally, the US, while at the same time objecting to the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal. To understand the intricacies of this diplomatic maneuver, it is worth first examining the origins of the US-Israeli special relationship.

While no formal defense treaty exists between the two countries, there are numerous strategic formal and informal agreements on energy, technology, defense, intelligence cooperation, economy and trade. The bilateral bonds are strong, wide-ranging, and deep. Additionally, Israel is more than simply another ally or a recipient of generous American assistance; it actively assists the US.

American financial military funds for Israel, amounting to $3.9 billion a year, are invested in American defense industries. Israeli battlefield experience and technology directly assist American ballistic missile defense development, cyber defense and more. At the community level, in the US, Jewish and evangelical communities both treasure Israel’s welfare and security.

This is the foundation for some extremely significant principles that characterize bilateral relations. The first principle is complete transparency, meaning no concealment, and mutual respect.

The second principle is that of no surprises. This applies less to the tactical-military level and more to the grand strategic and political level. Neither side wants to catch the other off guard when making a significant move. This also suggests that both parties would know in advance about any US failure to veto a UN Security Council resolution against Israel.

The third principle is bipartisan American support for Israel. This is one of the three golden rules, and according to it, Israel is above any political debate in the US. Today, with extreme polarization underway in the US – something that has been in place throughout both the Obama and Trump administrations – this principle has been eroded.

Today, Israel deals with a new US president, one who is not necessarily a trailblazer, but who maintains fair ties with Israel. This is an administration that is well versed – as is the current Israeli government – in knowing how to agree to disagree. This means that relations are not undermined by a lack of agreement.

Can Washington revive the Iran deal?

INTO THIS framework enters the effort by Washington to revive the Iranian nuclear deal, which was scrapped in 2015. Back when the nuclear deal was first passed seven years ago, Israel bet on going to Congress to torpedo it, but this was a total failure, and as a result, the US excluded Israel from the talks. Back then, Jerusalem found itself without any control or up-to-date knowledge regarding the specifics of the agreement.

Based on the bitter experience of 2015, Israel should avoid public fights with the US, or any move that can be regarded as meddling in internal American politics. It should avoid crossing the known boundaries – but without giving up on any of its principled objections to the would-be deal, and the dangers that it could bring.

It is not necessary for Israel to align itself with all American policies; rather, it must communicate discreetly with members of Congress. This isn’t about self-censorship, but rather, about how the message is delivered.

Israel is still obligated to exert every effort that it can, without harming ties, to object to the proposed nuclear agreement. If the US still decides to sign the deal in the end, Israel will have the ability to reserve its right to announce that it is not a party to the agreement and that it retains its freedom of action.

In such a scenario, Israel’s government should switch to a “Plan B” – a compensation package for Israel that would better position it to strike Iran’s nuclear program in the future. American officials, including the Ambassador to Israel Thomas R. Nides, have openly stated that they would not restrict Israel from acting if it felt compelled to do so.

This means that if Israel felt it needed to strike the nuclear program in the future, Jerusalem would have to alert Washington (in a way that would not jeopardize the information’s security). This has precedent.

I was a political adviser to ex-Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, when the Americans first arrived in Afghanistan in 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11. We received a call from then-president George W. Bush to warn us that the attack was coming and that there could be regional repercussions from Islamists. In 2003, a similar scenario played out prior to the American attack on the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.   

In assessing the Israeli government’s performance in its dealings with the US administration over the current Iran nuclear negotiations, the government receives a good grade. Both prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have been able to strike the balance described above.

It must also be noted that Israel’s influence on this issue is limited. The US is driven by global economic and military interests, such as bringing down energy prices – something Iranian oil and gas can certainly help to do if sanctions are lifted – and prioritizing great power competition with China and Russia.

These are factors Israel must comprehend, even if it does not like them.

Israel will now have to make preparations for “Plan C” – defending itself against the threat posed by a nuclear Iran. It must fully utilize the delivery of military platforms that it can secure from the US to do so. 

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Ambassador Danny Ayalon served as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States from July 2002 to November 2006. Read full bio here.

How Intelligence Diplomacy Strengthened Israel-Egypt Ties

By Yaakov Peri

At the end of August, reports emerged in Hebrew media that Ronen Bar, the director of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency had traveled to Egypt for a meeting with his counterpart, Abbas Kamel, the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate.

The purpose of the meeting was reportedly to overcome a crisis in bilateral relations following the end of the three-day Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Operation Breaking Dawn against Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza.

The diplomatic tensions stemmed from the IDF’s continued actions against PIJ operatives in the West Bank, contrary to the Egyptian belief that under the ceasefire they had brokered between Israel and PIJ to end Operation Breaking Dawn, the IDF would ease military pressure on the terror organization in the territories. The Egyptians also demanded the release of PIJ prisoners to consolidate the truce.

But Israel did not release the prisoners, and increased pressure on PIJ, acting contrary to Egyptian expectations. Immediately after the operation, Israel conducted a series of arrests of PIJ members in the West Bank, during which several Palestinians were killed in clashes with the IDF in Nablus.

Egypt acted as the key intermediary to bring about the truce after three days of conflict, and Cairo perceived these developments as an affront.

Signs of tension were visible when Kamel canceled a planned trip to Israel after the Gaza operation. Political and security sources assessed that this was a mid-level crisis that would not be difficult to resolve.

During talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that “Egypt has a most significant role to play in preserving the stability of regional security.” This statement reflects an important fact: recently, Egypt has been practically the only political element that can act as an intermediary and is able to secure ceasefires between Hamas, as well as other armed organizations in the Gaza Strip, and Israel.

It is clear that the reason Egypt took offense was Israel’s lack of cooperation with its understanding of the ceasefire agreement. Cairo saw this as a blow to Egypt’s honor and status, in line with Egypt’s self-perception in the region and its important role in Gaza.

For many years, Egypt has invested greatly in preserving its status as the leading power in the Arab world—a role Turkey has attempted to infringe upon in recent years with varying degrees of success. After some erosion, Egypt has begun to recover its predominance. This recovery is mainly attributable to Sisi’s calm and moderate leadership.

Egypt also perceives itself as a state able to resolve regional issues, including the never-ending confrontation between Israel and Gazan terror factions, primarily Hamas and PIJ.

Cairo is keen on preserving this role, and to that end, it regularly dispatches intelligence delegations to Gaza, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.

Israeli and Egyptian intelligence communities enjoy excellent relations, both at the personal and professional levels.

Egypt also regards good ties with Israel as critical for ensuring proper relations with the United States and the West, particularly after being greatly disappointed in its history of dealings with the Soviet Union.

All of these factors have helped propel Egypt to the forefront of the region, a position it wishes to maintain. 

It seeks to do this despite its conflict with Hamas’s Egyptian sister movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has harmed state security. In order to avoid inflaming clear tensions with Hamas, Egypt busies itself with dealing with political and diplomatic issues and stays clear of theological disputes with Gaza’s rulers.

Egypt is wary of Islamist forces, and combats extreme Islamic terrorists in Sinai on a non-stop basis, including losing many members of its security forces in the fight against ISIS in recent years.

A History of Intelligence Diplomacy

The dispatch of Israeli intelligence chiefs to defuse diplomatic tensions has a good precedent.

In the past, heads of the Shin Bet also set out for political missions to resolve crises with states and organizations. But this was usually done covertly and did not attract headlines. Conditions have changed, however, and the journey of a Shin Bet chief today attracts both media coverage and analysis.

Meetings between intelligence chiefs are routine and acceptable worldwide. Often, government cabinets feel that the head of an intelligence agency is optimally positioned to carry out diplomatic missions, and, as such, entrust them with confidence and credibility.

Intelligence cooperation brings states together, and requires a high degree of trust and intimacy. Hence, both sides often trust the “messengers” more than the average politician. Intelligence chiefs are apolitical figures, despite being appointed by the highest political echelons. They enable unique and very close relations between intelligence services.

When a government sends the head of an intelligence agency to handle what appears to be a diplomatic-political issue, it is sending a figure that is often free of political baggage. This approach has proven itself over time. For example, when Israel was able to patch up relations with Jordan following the botched assassination attempt of senior Hamas member Khaled Mashaal on Jordanian territory, and ongoing contacts between Israeli intelligence chiefs and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Similarly, intelligence diplomacy played a central role in growing relationships between Israel and Gulf Arab governments prior to the signing of the 2020 Abraham Accords. Whole foundations for relations were founded on contacts between the states’ intelligence agencies. Each agency received instructions and guidance from the highest levels of government during such contacts.

Ultimately, the Egyptian-Israeli diplomatic affair appears to be of mediocre severity, neither very serious nor trivial. It is not difficult to overcome such an issue, and it seems likely that bilateral relations between the two state systems will continue without harm.

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Mr. Yaakov Peri concluded his distinguished career as Director of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service). He served in that position from 1988-1995. Prior to that role he held the position of Head of the Shin Bet Northern Command and the Judea & Samaria Command. In 2013 he joined the Yesh Atid party, was elected to the Knesset and was appointed Minister of Science, Technology and Space.