On November 1, Yair Lapid will cast his vote at the ballot box in the posh north Tel Aviv neighborhood of Ramat Aviv, hoping for the stars to align just right to allow him to carry on with the job of prime minister (a position he currently holds in a caretaker government). Lapid has waited for this moment for ten years, since entering Israeli politics in 2012, shortly after the massive social protests over the cost of housing in Israel.

Back in 2012 one could hardly imagine that Lapid would one day achieve his proclaimed goal of becoming prime minister. The gap between his media persona—television talk show host, newspaper columnist, author, and songwriter—and the public image of a serious politician seemed too wide. It would have been easier for many Israelis at the time to imagine Lapid taking Hollywood by storm rather than moving into the prime minister’s residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem. Lapid, however, was determined to make the switch from celebrity to prime minister. He aimed high.

In 2013 Lapid and his party gained 19 mandates, a major surprise, but the government in which he served as minister of finance under Prime Minister Netanyahu was short-lived, and soon he found himself in the barren fields of the opposition for four long years. His support shrunk to 11 seats. The media ridiculed him as an ambitious neophyte “flavor of the season.” Yet Lapid used wisely his time in the opposition, building bases of support on the ground and forming ties with leaders abroad, acting as a shadow minister of foreign affairs at a time when Israel under Netanyahu was growing distant from the Democrats in the US and from major center-left European politicians as well.

During the 20th Knesset, between 2015–2019, when Lapid was a fellow member of the opposition with me (I was a member of the Zionist Union, which led the opposition at the time), partisan divisions in Israel became sharper. It often seemed that the Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister at the time, was unstoppable. Lapid focused his efforts on reinforcing the center of the Israeli political map in every sense of this word. Once in an interview he admitted to be “an extreme centrist” and was dubbed by some as the “Israeli Emanuel Macron.”

Then in May 2021, after four excruciating rounds of elections in three years, Lapid allied with right-wing Naftali Bennett and—with the help of unlikely and improbable partners like right-wing Avigdor Lieberman, Islamist Mansour Abbas, and left-wing Merav Michaeli and Nitzan Horowitz—managed to broker a coalition government, after Netanyahu failed time after time. Lapid had regained former levels of support with 17 mandates. He gave up the premiership to coalition partner Bennett, who held just seven seats. For many Israelis, this was a sign of political maturity, patience, and even altruism—qualities seldom found in politicians across the globe. It was now clear to all that Lapid was not just another momentary blip on the Israeli political scene.

“What Is Israeli to You?”

Before he entered politics in 2012, when he was juggling several gigs—acting in tv commercials, writing columns at Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, and hosting the most popular talk show of the time—Lapid used to pose the same question to each guest who appeared on his show: “What is Israeli to you?” Media critics and commentators used to mock him for this corny survey of the Israeli psyche. Lapid knew better, being the son of journalist-turned-politician and Holocaust survivor Tommy Lapid, who, during the late 1990s, had also created a secular, centrist party, “Shinui” or Change. Years later Lapid the son would integrate what he had learned about Israelis from his father and from his career as a journalist and synthesize it into a political ideology of the “extreme center.” Seeing Israel being torn apart by rival ideologies and political battles, becoming a divided society of warring tribes, he was looking for a centrist promised land that would include secular Israelis across the political spectrum from left to right, promising to take care of the middle class and fight corruption.

Many Israelis, including the writer of these lines, were skeptical that there was such a thing as a political center, a consensus approach to the big problems facing the society from the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to housing prices and climate change. Lapid is often criticized for offering superficial, simplistic solutions to complicated issues and problems. He seems to support a two-state solution while insisting on the indivisibility of Jerusalem. He is ready to create a coalition with Israeli Arab parties, including anti-Zionist members of the Joint Arab List, while speaking passionately about the dangers of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. On one issue, Lapid began his political career as an outspoken extremist—reducing the state subsidies for ultra-Orthodox Jews and including them in the army draft. He was depicted in ultra-Orthodox circles as an outcast and their leaders still argue that joining a Lapid coalition would be impossible. Since his clashes with the ultra-Orthodox in 2013–2014, he has softened his approach to them.

Despite his constant search for the center and avoidance of sharp edges, Lapid is no fan of the status quo. The self-styled “reform government” that he brokered in 2021 made changes in diverse areas from kosher food regulations to foreign relations with Europe. Whether any of these policies will survive the next elections remains to be seen.

The Right Man for the Job?

After ten years in politics, Yair Lapid has matured as a politician and gained respect and appreciation for his persistence, negotiating skills, and humility. For many Israelis, the achievements of his short-lived “reform government” remain controversial. For instance, the right-wing accuses him of bringing in an Islamist Arab party to the ruling coalition and “succumbing to its interests.” Looking toward the November 1 elections, one can be certain of just two things: there will be another election after it (perhaps sooner than later); and Yair Lapid, who made a promise ten years ago not to return to his previous life as a celebrity but to dedicate himself entirely to politics in order to change Israel, will be there, solid as a rock, waiting for his time to come.

This article is from “JSTribune“, from September 2022

הפוסט Yair Lapid- Will He Take Down Netanyahu? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Considering the fact that Israeli voters will go to the polls on November 1 for the fifth time in four years,  one would assume it is inevitable the Iran nuclear deal will play a major role in the public debate between the various candidates in the coming months. While attentive to myriad social and economic issues, Israelis tend to decide whom to vote for based on the national security situation they face.

A public opinion poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in March 2019 found that although 45% of respondents believed the parties’ positions on social and economic will determine how they vote compared to 28% who argued foreign and security matters will affect which party they will support, 30% said it is the national security situation that would determine the outcomes of the elections.

Similarly, a more recent public opinion poll conducted by the IDI in early August 2022 found that a party’s position on the economic situation and the rising cost of living is currently the most important issue determining voters’ party preferences (44% of the respondents). Only 11% said the party’s platform on foreign policy and security will influence their vote but the survey concluded nonetheless that “if security threats increase, then this issue will return to the top of voters’ agendas.”

Beyond the impact the negotiations between Iran and the major world powers will have on Israeli voting patterns, we should also pay close attention to the policy implications of the current debate in Israel. In the past few days, Prime Minister Yair Lapid was engaged in a public brawl with the leader of the opposition and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the current government’s response to the negotiations in general, and the American position in particular.

Under such circumstances, Prime Minister Lapid is finding it extremely difficult to deflect Netanyahu’s efforts to politicize this critical issue and present his government’s practical and coherent policy position. Unwilling to be portrayed by Netanyahu as weak, submissive, and complacent, something that can damage his party’s chances in the forthcoming elections, Lapid is politically forced to display a more aggressive and rigid stance that tragically and paradoxically undermines Israel’s long-term national security.

When Netanyahu attempted to block the signing of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by publically bashing the European and American negotiators at the time, Israel was purposefully left isolated without any direct access to the content of the talks. Moreover, Netanyahu’s speech against the Iran deal and Barack Obama’s policies in the US Congress resulted in a major rift between the two leaders as well as between the Israeli government and the Democratic Party. To his credit, Lapid is fully aware of that precedent and genuinely seeks to address any disagreements with the Biden Administration discreetly.

However, Lapid is still unable to acknowledge publicly that the American return to the Iran nuclear deal is inescapable given the Biden Administration’s desire to focus on a resurgent Russia in Ukraine and a rising China in East Asia. Calls by the head of the Israeli Mossad David Barnea to impose more sanctions or intensify clandestine efforts to undermine Iran’s nuclear program are anachronistic since Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal and his “maximum pressure” campaign proved to be exceptionally counterproductive given Tehran was, in fact, able to install advanced centrifuges and enlarge its enriched uranium stockpile. Lapid is also reluctant to admit that having an imperfect agreement that addresses the military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program but not Tehran’s destabilizing policies across the Middle East nor its conventional long-range missile program is far better than having no agreement whatsoever.

This article is from “Times of Israel“, from August 30, 2022

הפוסט On Iran, Yair Lapid is practicing domestic politics הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Naqrachi, a Moroccan woman who is president of the Amal Arab Group for the Elimination of Child Marriage (AAGEEM) and of the Nour Foundation for Solidarity with Rural Women (ANSFR), sounded deeply while speaking with The Media Line from Auschwitz.

She arrived in Poland on Wednesday to take part in the annual International March of the Living along with Arab participants from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and other countries, as part of a delegation that was organized by Sharaka (“Partnership”), an Israeli-Emirati NGO established in 2020 to promote dialogue between Israel and the Arab world.

Almost a hundred Arab youth from Israel also took part in the March of the Living this year.

Until very recently talking about the Holocaust was practically taboo in the Arab-speaking world, where Shoah denial is still common. Sitcoms about the “fake Holocaust” have been hits in Egypt and Gulf countries, hundreds of books that denied the Nazi genocide were and still are sold in bookshops across the Arab world. In 2009, a quarter of Israeli Arab citizens denied the Holocaust, according to a survey carried out by the University of Haifa.

A quick search on Twitter and Facebook yields many thousands of results that link to Holocaust denial articles and many angry posts claiming that the extermination of six million Jews is not more than “another Jewish hoax, meant to extort the world.” Activists who tried to teach the Holocaust and organize visits of Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens to Nazi death camps were condemned.

In March 2014, Professor Muhammad Dajani of Al-Quds University took a group of 27 students to Auschwitz. Upon their return Dajani was labeled a “collaborator” by Palestinian media and activists.

The situation appears to have changed in recent years, especially following the signing of the Abraham Accords normalization agreements.

Exploring the Holocaust in the Gulf

A year ago, a permanent Holocaust memorial exhibition, the first of its kind in the Arab world, opened in Dubai. The “We Remember” exhibition at the Crossroads of Civilizations Museum includes testimonies of survivors and photos and objects from that time.

This year Ahmed Obeid AlMansoori, the man who founded the exhibit and the museum, led a historic delegation from the United Arab Emirates in the March of the Living, along with Eitan Neishlos, the newly appointed ambassador of the International March of the Living in the Gulf states.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day this year was marked in many cities across the Arab world – from Manama to Abu Dhabi to Rabat. The US embassy in Cairo cosponsored the city’s first-ever official Holocaust commemoration.

In 2020, Muhammad al-Issa, the secretary-general of the World Muslim League, led a delegation to Auschwitz composed of Muslim religious leaders who repeated the words “Never again” and performed a prayer for the six million Jewish victims.

“I believe that there is a gradual change, the rhetoric of the Abraham Accords. To many in the region the whole story today looks different, no more sharp dichotomy between Jews and Arabs, Shia and Sunni, but rather a win-win situation,” Dr. Nir Boms, a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, and the coordinator of the TAU

Workshop on Israel and the Middle East and the Hiwar Forum for Intra-Regional Dialogue, told The Media Line.

“We are here in Poland, surrounded by three million Ukrainian refugees who can be seen everywhere. It is another powerful reminder of why we are here,” Boms continued.

“We are all acute observers of our own history. Our region has seen much hate and lives were taken and are being taken easily still. It is up to us to bring some understanding and tolerance as an alternative. This message is our lesson from the March of the Living. It is the most important legacy we can carry from here,” he said.

The Arab sector in Israel: Holocaust education and empathy are key

Despite the impressive representation of Arab youth from Israel at the March of the Living, Colette Avital, chairperson of the Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel umbrella organization, a Holocaust survivor and a former Israel Knesset member, believes that for now there is no significant change in studying and understanding the Holocaust in the Arab sector in Israel.

“I know that there are many initiatives abroad. Project Aladdin is doing a great job [countering Holocaust denial] in the wider Middle East. But here in Israel, it’s tough,” she told The Media Line.

“And the problem is certainly not only among Israeli Arab citizens who don’t stand in silence during the siren [on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day]. Many people have different reasons why not to stand up. Some say that it’s merely an Ashkenazi issue, that it doesn’t concern them and unfortunately, for many Arabs, it is still something very foreign,” Avital said.

Jalal Banna, a columnist and an expert on Arab affairs, said the State of Israel doesn’t do enough to promote understanding of the Holocaust among Arabs.

“The Holocaust is a human issue, not only Jewish and certainly not only Israeli. Yet the State of Israel appropriates the issue almost entirely and thereby creates antagonism,” Banna told The Media Line.

“The Arabs in Israel are first exposed to the Holocaust in high school; it is a part of the curriculum. But it is not presented as a significant historical event, one of the cruelest and most awful in history. It seems that those who wrote this curriculum just wanted to be done with it, to check off a box,” he said.

“It also seems that they were afraid to evoke emotion and empathy among the Arab students, fearing that someday –without making comparisons and parallels – these students will also demand some empathy and solidarity with their pain,” Banna said.

The situation in the Palestinian Authority is even worse since the textbooks do not include any mention of the Holocaust. However, in social networks, the word is often used in the context of denial or fake news.

Despite the positive changes taking place in some Arab countries today, Israel, the Yad Vashem memorial and other organizations still have a lot of work to do to explain, show and teach the Holocaust, not far from home, but in Israel, and in the PA.

This article is from “JPost“, from April 28, 2022

הפוסט Holocaust denial still common in the Arab world, but views are changing הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The Israeli public’s trust in the IDF is in decline, according to the 2021 Israeli Democracy Index. In October 2021, according to the survey, the level of trust (in the Jewish sector) reached a record low of 78%, compared to 90% in June 2021.

The data compiled by the Israel Democracy Institute’s Index also show a continuation of erosion of trust in other state institutions such as the presidency, the Knesset, the government and the judiciary. Yet, for many Israelis, the change in how citizens see the IDF – the people’s army that for years was seen as the ultimate melting pot where all social strata and all ethnic and religious groups mixed – is a worrying sign that reflects a significant change in public attitude toward the army and its role in society.

While the army keeps promoting its image of the defender of the nation, a unifying force, a powerful force for upward mobility, more and more people criticize the IDF for its constantly swelling budget, the poor living conditions of soldiers performing mandatory service, and its inability to provide a sense of security. Along with authentic grievances and complaints, there are also power struggles in the cabinet, political interests and plenty of egos to go around.

Three senior Israeli military officials (now retired) explain this complicated development to The Media Line.

Budget, pensions, and reservists

One of the most heated issues in public debate today is the question of the military’s budget, and most importantly, the generous pensions of retired IDF officers.

In 2021, soon after the state budget was approved, the Defense Ministry demanded and received another 7.4 billion shekels ($2.4 billion), a hefty addition to the already approved 58 billion shekels. In comparison, the Transportation Ministry received an addition of a mere 6 million shekels, while the Social Welfare Ministry got 17 million shekels. And a few days ago, the Finance Ministry reported that the average overall value of a pension paid to a retired IDF officer is 8.8 million shekels, compared with 1.7 million shekels for state employees.

Col. (res.) Ronen Itsik, who researches relations between the military and society and who served as a brigade commander in the Armored Corps, believes the problem is the lack of distinction drawn between those who serve with combat units and those who do not.

“The army should show sensitivity and respond to criticism and the public outcry. This hasn’t happened. There is no argument regarding those IDF officers who serve on the frontline, in the South or in the North. Their spouses most often can’t develop their own careers, since they [the officers] are rarely at home, and the public knows this. However, there is a question mark regarding those who serve at home-front bases. They don’t risk their lives, they go to work every day just like everybody else – a nurse at the hospital or a civil engineer,” says Itsik.

At the same time, Dr. Efraim Sneh, a retired brigadier general and a former deputy defense minister, believes the media is doing an injustice to the men and women who serve the country.

“The IDF’s ratings have dropped for many reasons, and one of them is the negative image that is presented by the media, which is portraying the officers as greedy. This media attack [concerning the pensions] is unjustified and its source is not the public but rather the Finance Ministry. It’s more about power struggles [among the political leadership], and the people are not aware of this fact,” Sneh says.

Itsik mentions another important factor that contributes to the drop in public trust – the changing status of reserve soldiers, miluimnikim.

“During the last 10 years many reserve units were closed, and we know from studies that when Mom or Dad do their reserve service, it affects the whole family. It becomes something very central and unifying and contributes to an increase in patriotism,” he says.

“We also saw a drop in IDF ratings after the Second Lebanon War [of 2006], when the IDF experienced severe problems in this respect; the reservists were mistreated, there was a lack of funds and supplies. I know that this issue is being taken care of right now and we will probably see positive results in the next few years,” says Itsik.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad is the executive director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) and chair of the Annual Herzliya Conference Series at Reichman University. He mentions yet another IDF-related controversy that recently stirred public debate – the tension between service in combat roles and technological ones.

“The IDF chief of staff said recently that the most important and valuable service is in the combat units, rather than in technological ones such as Unit 8200. So, if he really means it, he should raise the salary of these [combat] soldiers by five or even eight times. But the words have not been followed by deeds for now,” says Gilad.

In recent years the competition among young Israelis to get accepted to Unit 8200 − responsible for collecting signal intelligence and code decryption − and similar tech units has become fierce, since after service they can easily find lucrative employment in top Israeli high-tech companies.

“We need to fight this phenomenon where the sons of the rich do their service in the tech units, which only enlarges social gaps,” Sneh says. “This purpose can only be served through improvement of education in the periphery, since you can’t build a First World army with a Third World education.”

‘Glass half empty, glass half full’

While the reasons behind the drop in public trust in the IDF are many, some researchers and retired IDF officers debate the significance of the survey. Does it reflect a long-term trend or merely the current mood?

Itsik says that despite the data provided by the Israel Democracy Institute, there is no real decline in attitudes toward the IDF.

“When I look at the long-term study conducted at the University of Haifa since 2000 by Professor Gabriel Ben-Dor, I see that the level of trust in the IDF from 2000 until today remains high,” Itsik says. “There are peaks and low points, but all in all the trend remains the same. The findings of the Israel Democracy Institute also show this.

“I agree that there is volatility and that currently, we are not in a very good place. There are many factors that contribute to this – the problematic appointments during the last 10 years, the ambiguous results of the last military operation in Gaza [Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021], the problems of the reserve soldiers, the pensions issue, and yet I believe that we are looking at fluctuations within a trend, and of course, they have to be dealt with,” says Itsik.

Gilad says that in comparison to other state institutions, trust in the IDF still remains very high.

“The good news is that the Israeli public still thinks that there is no substitute for the IDF, and the vast majority believes that the IDF defends Israel sovereignty and independence,” he notes.

“After all, when you analyze Israel’s strategic situation, you realize that the security situation is actually very good – the borders are quiet, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear bomb, the IDF is striking Iranian targets in Syria and enjoys alliances with the Sunni Arab countries, Gaza is quiet. That’s why the trust level still stands at 78%,” Gilad says.

‘There are no grand victories anymore’

The relative security calm that Israel currently enjoys has proven to be a double-edged sword for the IDF. On the one hand, it gives it time to modernize and prepare for future scenarios.

In one of these scenarios, Israel will have to fight against Hizbullah in the North, Gaza in the South and pro-Iranian forces in Syria all at once.

On the other hand, when nothing happens on the security front, many Israelis ask whether such a huge chunk of their tax money should go to the military, while others expect better performance during combat, for example, an improvement over the events in Gaza during Operation Guardian of the Walls last May.

Itsik argues, “There was a large contradiction when the IDF presented the [aerial] liquidation of the so-called Hamas metro [miles of tunnels in Gaza] as a huge achievement, but very soon it became clear that very few terrorists were killed in this attack. Also, Israelis continued to be subject to [Hamas] missiles afterward, also in Jerusalem, so there was a problem with credibility. The public thought that the results of the operation were ambiguous.”

Sneh adds, “When there is no fighting, the public does not understand where all the money goes and starts asking questions.” He believes that the IDF should remain a “people’s army” where rich and poor, secular and religious, serve together.

Gilad says, “There aren’t any more ‘grand victories’ like we had in the past, and there won’t be any in the future. We must get used to this but remember that the IDF is the provider of Israel’s security and defense. Lessons should be learned, and mistakes corrected in order to increase the public trust in the army.”

This article is from “The Media Line“, from January 18, 2022

הפוסט Israelis Still Believe in IDF but Criticism Is Growing הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.