It is possible to suggest several explanations for the inability of the mediators to persuade Sinwar or to force his hand until now.

How is it that Hamas, not a particularly large or strong organization, is refusing to bend to the pressure from the United States, the main global power, and two major states in the Middle East, Egypt and Qatar?

Despite being under heavy military pressure from Israel, suffering large-scale casualties, and having lost most of its territorial strongholds, as well as its Philadelphi Corridor tunnel lifeline, Hamas remains unwilling to accept proposals that would seem to be relatively generous, considering its current situation.

To answer this question, one needs to go into Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s mind – a difficult, if not impossible, task, as the events of October 7 proved. Even if some psychologists might categorize his personality as psychotic or narcissistic, there is an element of rationality to his decision-making, even if this rationality is different from ours.

Despite this challenge, it is possible to suggest several explanations for the inability of the mediators to persuade Sinwar or to force his hand until now. The first explanation is that none of the mediators has sufficiently strong leverage against Hamas.

Of the three, Qatar would seem to have the three most significant assets: halting the financial aid it provides to Hamas (which in any case would seem not to be arriving at present); freezing the organization’s assets in Qatar; and closing Hamas’s offices in Qatar, which would mean exiling the organization’s leaders from its territory.

Qatar has threatened to expel the Hamas leadership from its territory, but this threat has not yet been carried out because Qatar understands that such a step would jeopardize its ability to mediate between Israel and Hamas.

Losing this role would damage Qatar’s regional and international status. In any case, hurting Hamas’s leadership’s standard of living is not of concern to Sinwar.

Egypt has even weaker leverage than Qatar. Though Egypt is considered in the Arab world as the “big sister,” it has few resources to deploy in mediation. It has even lost its last leverage – control of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Though its General Intelligence Service, responsible for relations with Hamas, provides a form of “bear hug” of the organization, there are more opposing than shared interests between the two.

US plays important role as mediator

The importance of the United States as a mediator lies in its ability to offer guarantees against any violation of the agreement by Israel after signing. Beyond this, President Joe Biden has no direct leverage against Hamas. The main, and perhaps only, indirect leverage at his disposal is to apply pressure to Qatar, a US ally that houses the largest American military base in the Middle East and enjoys special status as a non-NATO-member ally.

But the United States has no interest in harming itself by harming Qatar. In this context, it is possible that the United Nations has stronger leverage in the form of applying sanctions, under the terms of Article 7 of the UN Charter.

A second explanation relates to the fact that sanctions against uncooperative actors in the international arena are ineffective when those actors’ survival is at stake.

In other words, those in danger of being wiped out are not deterred by threats made by their allies or by mediators. Thus, any proposal that does not entail an unequivocal promise to end the war will be rejected, even at the cost of further casualties – which in any case, are not a factor for Hamas in considering whether to continue or end the fighting.

And finally, the pressure being applied to Israel by the international community, the military pressure being applied by Hezbollah on the northern border, and the pressure from Israeli society to reach a deal for the hostages have led Sinwar to conclude that his goals will be achieved eventually, even if it takes a long time. This policy involves risk-taking and brinkmanship, characteristic of leaders who are impetuous or extremely courageous.

What are the options?

If this assessment is accurate, then what can be done? There are three options:

The first is simply to accept Hamas’s demands. The advantage of this course of action is that it will bring the end of the war and the release of the hostages, and perhaps allow Israel to focus on the northern theater, which in any case requires a more robust policy, whether by diplomatic or military means.

The disadvantage is that Israel will be seen as not having achieved its military goals of toppling and removing Hamas, and Hamas will receive a boost to its self-image as having defeated Israel by surviving. In this sense, the war will be similar to the Suez War and the Yom Kippur War, which ended with military victories for Israel but with diplomatic victories for Nasser and Sadat, respectively.

The second option is to start working seriously on plans for the reconstruction of Gaza under alternative leadership – not an Israeli civilian or military administration, but on a body enjoying international legitimacy, such as the Palestinian Authority, albeit with a different leadership, enjoying local legitimacy. The return of the PA to Gaza, with backing from moderate Arab states, would be a real threat to the remnants of Hamas rule in Gaza.

This possibility also involves promoting normalization with Saudi Arabia, which in turn would be a catalyst for further security and economic integration of Israel in the region.

The third option is to continue the war until Hamas surrenders unconditionally, though presumably this goal is unattainable as long as Hamas continues to hold hostages.

The war in Gaza is asymmetrical: it is a war between a state and a non-state actor, between a large military deploying massive forces and advanced weaponry against an organization using limited (and sometimes primitive) means and guerrilla tactics.

In many ways, it is reminiscent of the Vietcong’s war against the United States in Vietnam, and we all know how that ended. Israel needs to choose a realistic option – that is, a combination of the first and second options described above.

The article was published on June 29th, 2024 in The Jerusalem Post.

הפוסט How has Hamas kept its strength for so long without giving in to mediation pressure? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Watch the interview

הפוסט Can Hamas Be Defeated? – Interview with Dr. Gil Murciano on DW News, June 2024 הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט How powerful is Hamas after 6 months of war with Israel? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Israel’s success in stabilizing the humanitarian situation in Gaza correlates with minimizing harm to non-combatants. This provides greater flexibility for Israeli troops to defeat Hamas.

Preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is an overriding Israeli security interest, directly affecting the achievement of its war objectives, including returning the hostages and toppling the Hamas regime.

However, even if the severity of the war has dulled Israeli compassion for the non-combatant Palestinians in Gaza, it is important to recognize that providing humanitarian aid correctly will enhance Israel’s security. It will protect the life and health of the abductees and soldiers in Gaza, prevent the spillover of infections and disease into Israel, grant international political and legal legitimacy to the war, and help topple the Hamas regime.

The humanitarian crisis endangers hostages, soldiers, and Israeli citizens

A severe humanitarian crisis is already developing in Gaza. The dire shortage of potable water and edible food, unprecedented sewage and waste overflows, shortages of vaccines and medicines, and terrible overcrowding have resulted in the spread of serious diseases and widespread hunger, especially among children.

Infections and epidemics not only directly impact abductees and soldiers in the field, but also pose a growing threat to residents of the Gaza border communities in Israel and in other parts of the country. Aid agencies are already reporting outbreaks of respiratory diseases, hepatitis, scabies and typhus, and increasing concern about the outbreak of polio and measles epidemics. Stray animals and pests that have emerged from the piles of rubble pose a real threat of transmitting diseases such as rabies or Q-fever, potentially reaching Israeli territory.

Meanwhile, untreated sewage in Gaza, flowing directly into the sea during rainfall, creates pollution that affects operations of the Ashkelon desalination plant. The health of both humans and the environment on one side of the border is interconnected with that on the other side.

The humanitarian crisis undermines Israel’s standing in the international legal arena

South Africa’s prosecution at the International Court of Justice in The Hague relies heavily on the extensive killing and destruction in Gaza, the lack of distinction between Hamas terrorists and non-combatants, and the severe humanitarian crisis in the beleaguered coastal enclave.

The accusations, bolstered by key Israeli figures calling for a comprehensive erasure of Gaza, make cynical use of the term “genocide,” but emphasize the harsh living conditions endured by Gazans. Clearly demonstrating the lack of intention to harm non-combatant Gazans and commitment to preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip will help Israel refute accusations of genocide and relegate South Africa’s claims to the dustbin of history.

The humanitarian crisis  constrains Israel’s use of military force

We are in the midst of a complex war against a barbaric enemy. The State of Israel, with the objective of toppling the Hamas regime, has initiated a protracted military campaign conducted in densely populated urban areas, both above and below ground. Since the start of the war, military necessity has clashed with human suffering in the Gaza Strip.

The deeper the humanitarian crisis created by Israel’s fighting, the more legitimacy it loses, and the stronger the international demands become to shorten or halt the war.

Israel’s success in managing and stabilizing the humanitarian situation in Gaza directly correlates with minimizing harm to non-combatants and improving living conditions for residents. This, in turn, provides greater flexibility for Israeli troops to fight Hamas.

Proper humanitarian aid  will contribute to the collapse of Hamas

Israel has the potential to enhance health conditions in Gaza by implementing several key measures. Firstly, it should resume power supply to medical facilities, and water and sewage infrastructure. Additionally, allocating some incoming fuel for the removal of waste and raw sewage from population centers is essential. Approving the introduction of chlorine to disinfect all water sources, most of which may be contaminated, is another crucial step. Furthermore, repairing water pipelines from Israel to the southern Gaza Strip is necessary to ensure a daily minimum water supply. Managing vaccination campaigns is also vital.

This leaves the question: Who will carry out these measures, and how? This challenge is an obstacle to any significant progress in humanitarian aid efforts. Gaza’s residents rely entirely on Hamas for aid distribution, which the October 7 massacre perpetrator exploits by diverting goods and equipment from aid trucks entering the enclave, and thereby perpetuating its power.

To weaken Hamas, it must be excluded from civilian life in the Gaza Strip. To that end, humanitarian aid, operation of critical infrastructure, and administration of health and education must be transferred to alternative actors. Israel must promptly support the design of an alternative system of government to the Hamas regime as a complementary measure to its military operations. Failure to act now creates a governmental vacuum (for example, in areas where Israel has defeated Hamas), allowing Hamas forces to swiftly return and reclaim territory.

Israel must capitalize on regional and international mobilization for this purpose. An unprecedented range of international forces, states, and aid organizations are willing to operate on the ground in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA funders are pressing for reforms in the organization’s mechanisms, and the PA is willing to undergo reforms with American backing. This presents a crucial opportunity to establish an alternative to the civilian administration of the Gaza Strip, which would also serve as governmental infrastructure for the day after.

A political strategy, which has been sorely lacking since the beginning of this war, is critical to advance the collapse of Hamas and the establishment of an alternative regime in Gaza. Israel should collaborate with the international community to seize the opportunity to alleviate the humanitarian crisis and strengthen local and regional forces that will assume responsibility for Gaza in the future. A pilot project to provide humanitarian and civilian services to refugees could be launched immediately in the northern Gaza Strip in a designated shelter managed by the WHO in collaboration with Palestinian Authority professionals under the auspices of the UAE.

Humanitarian aid, like a military campaign, cannot achieve its goals independently of political action. The humanitarian perspective mirrors the military one: Just as the absence of a political framework for the day after the war significantly undermines the IDF’s achievements and allows Hamas to resume control, so piecemeal solutions to the humanitarian crisis and the lack of a political decision also harm Israel’s goals and interests, enabling Hamas to retain power through humanitarian aid.

Both military and humanitarian actions serve Israel’s security objectives, but without an alternative to Hamas control, the organization continues to benefit, once again.

IN CONCLUSION, a significant easing of the humanitarian situation in Gaza will safeguard Israel’s interests and help oust the Hamas regime through the introduction of an alternative civil-governmental mechanism. Furthermore, the humanitarian, health, and infrastructural conditions will improve significantly only if Gaza is administered by governmental mechanisms with which Israel can engage. These two conditions are interdependent.

Calls are being heard in Israel to withhold humanitarian aid for Gaza as a means of pressuring Hamas to release the hostages. The safe return of the hostages is the most urgent and important goal of the war, and only after their return will we be able to begin rehabilitating our society.

However, the situation in Gaza has not been a priority for Hamas, which tends to strengthen as blame is placed on Israel for the worsening conditions. Therefore, blocking humanitarian aid does not increase pressure on Hamas to release the hostages.

On the contrary, it harms Israel’s war objectives and strengthens the terrorist group. Israel must do the opposite of what Hamas wants – instead of contributing to the humanitarian crisis and drawing international accusations of crimes against humanity and genocide, it must advocate for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, leveraging it to topple Hamas.

Bar Rapaport is the project manager for climate diplomacy at the Mitvim Institute. She is currently working to earn her PhD on regional cooperation in the midst of the climate crisis, with an emphasis on conflict and the Middle East, at the Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Research Institute.

הפוסט Why it’s essential to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The disappointment within Hamas stems primarily from what it regards as the lax response by Iran and Hezbollah. Not only did the two deny any connection to its decision to attack Israel on October 7, but their military response has been limited.

Iran activated its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen against Israel and the United States, but did not take any military or other action itself.

High expectations

Hamas expected a more significant Hezbollah response given the group’s military capabilities and proximity to Israel. But Hezbollah faces strong domestic opposition to war with Israel that would spell disaster for Lebanon.

Syria – Iran’s proxy and ally – has also largely remained aloof, as a result of domestic constraints and previous animosities with Hamas.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Hamas political bureau, expressed his disappointment in an interview with Al Jazeera, saying “we had high hopes for Hezbollah and our brothers in the West Bank, but we are amazed at the shameful position of our brothers in the Palestinian Authority.”

With the exception of Qatar, Hamas may not have had particularly high expectations of Arab countries, especially since some have even outlawed the organization (Egypt and Saudi Arabia) or expelled its representatives (Jordan).

However, the concluding statement of the November 11 Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh, while harshly condemning Israel, made no mention of Hamas and reiterated the decision of the 1974 Rabat summit – that the PLO, of which Hamas is not a member, is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Hamas does not regard condemnation of Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza as substitutes for a proactive stance, which would include suspending peace and normalization agreements with Israel, economic sanctions on the West and Israel, and other punitive measures available to the wealthy Gulf States.

ARAB OIL and gas producers could have announced an embargo on the countries that support Israel, as they did after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, or at least threatened to reduce their output, thus raising prices. Such a move is not in the cards, however. In fact, this is the first regional war that has led to sharp price declines for the benefit of major oil consumers with the cost of a barrel dropping from $82 to just $74 (as of December 20).

Though Jordan has recalled its ambassador from Israel, the move was predictable given four precedents during previous wars. Saudi Arabia also froze the normalization talks with Israel, but this, too, was not a surprise. Egypt and the other normalization countries did not recall their ambassadors.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry made an explicit statement with regard to Israel, saying “we have a very solid foundation in terms of the peace agreement that has shown its resilience; its ability to overcome challenges. And we are fully committed to maintaining the peace and continuing to have a normal relationship and the channels of communications that are deep and have been productive to both countries.”

His country’s condemnation of Hamas has been low-key, while the rulers of Bahrain and the UAE have called the October 7 massacre a “barbaric” act.

A notable exception was the Houthi response, escalating the conflict in the Red Sea and posing a threat to Israel and global maritime traffic in the Bab al-Mandeb straits. Yet, the Houthi response only serves to underscore the feeble Arab response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

THIS HAS prompted Palestinian frustration and rage. One of Hamas leaders, Khaled Mashaal, urged Islamic representatives in Morocco on November 23 to press their government to sever relations with Israel, calling such relations a “mistake.” He added that “it would be real support for Palestine that would put pressure on Israel and its allies… What is needed today is a political front that says ‘no’ to Israeli aggression, transcends differences of opinion and unites against Israel.”

Mashaal’s statement backfired, being perceived in Morocco as interference in its internal affairs.

Arab media have also echoed the Palestinian frustration. Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara, for example, characterized the Arab states’ response to the war as “dim and weak” – just as it had been in Israel’s four previous rounds of war with Hamas – and called for the de-normalization of relations with the Jewish state. He was particularly virulent in criticizing rich countries that “have the means to influence events, but don’t mean what they say.”

Palestinian journalist and lecturer Khaled Abu Toameh accused the Arabs of “betraying” the Palestinians. Palestinian researcher Mohsen Muhammad Saleh, meanwhile, described the Arab position on the fighting in Gaza as a “new low.” A majority of Palestinian intellectuals expect the Arab states to take concrete steps against Israel and the West, refusing to settle for hollow declarations and humanitarian aid.

THE PALESTINIANS have a long history of bitter disappointment with their Arab brethren. It goes back to the failed intervention of the Arab states in preventing Israel’s independence in the 1948 war, followed by the Palestinian refugees’ feelings of humiliation at their treatment in the Arab countries where they sought asylum. Subsequent developments deepened their anger: their sense of abandonment by Sadat when he made peace with Israel (1979), and Arab failure to prevent the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon (1982).

In their two uprisings (intifadas) against Israel (1987-1991 and 2000-2005), the Palestinians railed at the Arab world for failing to provide them with military and diplomatic aid. Then came the 2020 Abraham Accords that bypassed and ignored the Palestinians.

While certain Arab countries have assisted over the years with funding, hosting, training and diplomacy, among them Syria, Iraq, Libya and Algeria, the aid was limited and fell far short of furthering their struggle for independence.

Palestinian disappointment with the Arab states is well reflected in Khalil Shikaki’s opinion polls. In 2017, the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the territories, two-thirds of West Bank and Gaza residents claimed the Arabs had not stood by them. For most, the 2020 normalization agreements with Israel were also a stinging betrayal.

Most Arab media supports the Palestinian cause as do many citizens of Arab states. The mass Arab protests against the war might well have been far more widespread had it not been for government-imposed restrictions, reflecting the decades’ long disparity between public Arab attitudes toward Israel and the policy of Arab rulers.

THE RULERS of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco see Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood by extension, as a threat. Thus, just as the Arab states applauded behind the scenes when the Begin government destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, so Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza largely serves Arab interests.

These countries also have vested interests in economic and security ties with the United States, which they are reluctant to jeopardize by turning on Israel. In particular, Egypt and Jordan cannot afford a return to a state of war with Israel for economic and demographic reasons, even at the cost of domestic dissatisfaction with their position.

Thus, many Arab states are driven by political and economic interests incompatible with plunging the region into war.

What, then, would moderate Arab states be willing to do to advance a political solution to the Palestinian problem after the war? The proposed deployment of an Arab peacekeeping force in Gaza appears to be a non-starter.

Humanitarian, economic, and financial assistance to the residents of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority, which would also help reduce Qatar’s influence in Gaza, is feasible albeit a heavy financial undertaking.

If Israel moves toward a two-state solution, it will find a full partner in the moderate Arab states, facilitating Israel’s coveted goal of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which was abandoned due to the war.

The article was published on December 25 on the Jerusalem Post.

הפוסט Palestinians feel the Arab world has let them down הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

On that same day, a Democratic senator named Joseph R. Biden, along with Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff director Antony Blinken, staff member Puneet Talwar, and US ambassador to Israel Richard Jones met with veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres. The ensuing discussion, buried in piles of Wikileaks documents, testifies to the misconceptions and mistaken assessments of the time.

When Biden asked about the role Hamas might assume in the post-election period, Peres was dismissive.

What does Hamas have to do with victory?” he asked rhetorically and answered, “If they win, they face a dilemma. If they enter the government, they must change or (risk) endangering other Palestinians. They won’t get the financial support they need to deliver results if they don’t stop terror. That will put pressure on them to moderate.” Peres pointed to a possible paradox, whereby “the more Hamas wins, the stronger the position of Fatah [will be] in Palestinian politics.”

Witnessing the rise of Hamas in Gaza

Peres was not concerned about the rise of Hamas. He thought Israeli policymakers would refuse to work with the group if it remained a terrorist organization. On the other hand, he suggested that Israeli pundits should criticize Israeli politicians rather than the absence of strong Palestinian leadership. “They don’t have a Ben-Gurion or a Lincoln, but the Palestinians are still a people,” he said.

Biden also asked about the prospects of Gaza’s economy following Israel’s pullout in September 2005. Peres emphasized that Gaza needed regional cooperation between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in order to survive. Yet, he lamented the fact that Israel took it upon itself to export Gazan produce, referring to the undertaking as “a blessing that has become a curse: We must x-ray every tomato. Why should we torture them?”

Peres expressed his preference for Gaza to export its produce through Egypt.

Biden then asked whether the Gazan economy was large enough to attract foreign investment, to which Peres responded that Saudi and Palestinian billionaires were interested in joint ventures. In a prophetic judgment, Peres added, “The Saudis are becoming more pragmatic as they realize how important Jordan is as a buffer state with an Iraq dominated by the Shi’a.”

ASKED WHY Israel had not done more after the disengagement to unfetter the Gazan economy, Peres cited Palestinian rocket fire but did not offer any suggestions on how to deal with this problem. Pressing on the economic issue, Biden asked what could be done to prevent the disintegration of the Gazan economy. Peres lauded the possible nomination of former Palestinian finance minister Salam as prime minister (which indeed occurred in June 2007), but then offered another solution: Jordan would administer the West Bank economy, while Egypt administered the Gaza economy. He ended on an arrogant note, telling Biden that the Palestinians should understand that they could make money from business, not only from corruption.

The Peres-Biden conversation is illuminating. First, it demonstrates the absence of Israeli strategy for “the day after” its disengagement from Gaza.

The ideas put forth for an airport, seaport, and safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank were not implemented for security reasons, leaving the Gaza economy isolated, even before Hamas seized power in June 2007, and bearing out the PA’s concern that the enclave would become a de facto prison.

Second, the talk reveals flawed judgment regarding the meaning of the elections, which reflected structural, ideological, and political changes in Palestinian society. Hamas won not only because of PA corruption but also because the unilateral disengagement was perceived as a victory of its armed struggle – much like Hezbollah’s victory resulted in Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000.

Third, Peres clearly reflected an optimistic Israeli school of thought that Hamas could change its stripes and become more moderate as a result of outside pressure. What is more, some in Israel believed that certain Arab states would seriously consider administrating Gaza or the entire Palestinian territories.

Some of these flawed judgments are still prevalent in the conduct of the 2023 Gaza war.

During his recent visit to Israel at the start of the war, Biden reminisced about his meeting with prime minister Golda Meir when he was a young freshman senator in 1973. Biden did not mention his conversation with Peres that took place more than three decades later, and it is doubtful he has any clear memories of it. Yet the protocol exposes the problem of Israel’s decades-long Gaza conception, which has come back to bite it and has now been dumped at Biden’s door as president.

The article was published in the Jerusalem Post on December 12th.

הפוסט Biden saw the rise of Hamas – now he has to annihilate it הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

This is the sad reality that Israeli citizens must confront. While the attack on the World Trade Center brought with it widespread international shock and condemnation, many Israelis feel deserted by global public opinion and are suffering an unfathomable blow watching anti-Israel demonstrations around the world and diminishing international support, as they are forced to deal with the tragedy almost on their own.

The State of Israel is not the United States, with 33 times fewer residents and 440 times less land. The kibbutzim in the southern part of the country, where the Hamas terrorists infiltrated, are no more than a two-hour drive from the homes of over 70 per cent of Israeli citizens.

Israelis have experience with wars and acts of terror, but the events of the Black Sabbath changed something deep within each of us. We lost the almost imperceptible sense of personal security that we had until 7 October, the feeling of protection granted to us by the strong State of Israel.

There is almost no Israeli citizen who has not been personally and painfully affected by this catastrophe. The incomprehensible disaster is almost indigestible; children were murdered and kidnapped, parents were brutally killed in front of their children, and families waited for hours in safe rooms as parents tried to quiet their children in order to not be heard by the murderers. An incomprehensible cruelty reminding us of the deepest trauma of every Jew, the Holocaust.

Around 130,000 Israeli citizens from communities near the Gaza Strip, where the massacre occurred, and even further away have fled their homes and are not expected to return soon. The residents who lived closest to the border will not return to their homes until the State of Israel can guarantee their security. And the State has to provide this sense of security because they have no other land.

The need for a political solution

All my life, I have struggled for peace, for an end of the occupation and the promotion of a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many other residents of the kibbutzim in the south have also done so. I believed, and still do, in the right of the Palestinians to self-determination in their own state, with all my heart. I continue to believe in our need as Israeli citizens to fight against the occupation and expose the injustices it creates. I have criticised and continue to criticise the Israeli governments that weakened the Palestinian Authority and expanded the settlements in the West Bank. I did this as an Israeli fighting for the character of his state and its future. It is this belief that leads me to support the continuation of the Israeli military operation in Gaza, while at the same time making every effort to minimize any harm inflicted on innocent Palestinians.

I am not indifferent to the difficult scenes, the casualties – including many children – and the unimaginable suffering of the residents of Gaza. But I am fighting for my home, for my mere existence. It is not a war of choice. If brave citizens, along with the Israel Defense Forces, had not stopped them, Hamas terrorists would have continued to murder every Israeli they could. They attacked their victims like a hate-fueled mob, Jews and Arabs alike, showing no mercy for anyone, not even children and infants.

For years, despite countless rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli settlements and cities, Israeli policy has been one of ‘containment’ — responding with limited force, giving work permits to the approximately 20,000 laborers from Gaza entering Israel daily and turning a blind eye to Qatari support for Hamas. But no country, especially not a small one like Israel, can tolerate such a broad and ruthless terrorist attack on its citizens.

We have no choice. If we do not win the war against Hamas, the residents of the towns, villages and kibbutzim who fled will not be able to return to their homes. Not only them but also the residents of northern Israel, living close to Lebanon, will not be able to return to the towns and kibbutzim that are attacked every day by Hezbollah terrorists supported by Iran. If they do not return, Hamas and Hezbollah, who are also enemies of the Palestinians and the Lebanese, drunk on their success, will continue to strike until no one – Jews and Arabs alike – can live in Israel anymore.

Reality is complex

Calls for an unconditional ‘immediate ceasefire’ may sound good in theory, but in practice, they are calls for surrender to the Hamas terrorists and for the abandonment of Israeli citizens to a reality in which those who have harmed them so severely will be able to regain their strength to harm them again in the future. Humanitarian pauses are justified if they assist in releasing the kidnapped and providing aid to innocent Gazans. Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas, and, sadly, when the enemy operates from residential areas, setting up their command centres under hospitals, civilians get hit, too.

The world has become accustomed to painting a simplistic picture of good versus evil, weak versus strong, David versus Goliath. But the reality is more complex. Israel is not Goliath, and Hamas is not David. The reality is not black and white — it has many shades, and we would all do well to inspect it more meticulously and in a distinguishing manner.

Those who, 80 years after the Holocaust, do not see the justification for the existence of the State of Israel and call for freeing Palestine ‘from the River to the Sea’ are not people with whom I can find a common ground. But those who seek to fight for a better future for the Middle East must understand that without the ability to ensure basic security for its citizens, Israel cannot continue to exist. Right now, to achieve this, there is no choice but to eliminate Hamas’ military capacities and rule in Gaza and deter Hezbollah. Currently, it is primarily the Israelis who are in danger, but some are already looking to the next stage. It is no coincidence that Putin and Erdoğan rushed to stand by Hamas. They understand that if the State of Israel is defeated, it will be just the first step in their war against international liberal values.

From this tragedy, a positive outcome could occur in the form of a turning point. Ultimately, the understanding that the existence of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel is an Israeli interest must be spread in Israeli policy circles. Despite years of weakening the Palestinian Authority, it was and remains an important partner. Strengthening it and promoting a political solution that will also return it to rule Gaza must be a central component of the Israeli security concept.

In addition to the demand for and support of elections in Palestine, which, if held alongside a credible diplomatic horizon, will create a legitimate and supportive Palestinian address for a diplomatic solution. It won’t be Hamas.

Victory must be political. The military operation will yield a purely tactical win at best. A political, regional and international diplomatic strategy is needed.

The article was published in IPS on November 9th.

הפוסט A sense of security – gone הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Looking at the broader context it is clear that the Hamas massacre was also prompted by a perceived Israeli weakness stemming from deep internal divisions, as well as the organization’s desire to enhance its standing in the Palestinian arena given the declining popularity of the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by its president Mahmoud Abbas.

No less important was the intention of Hamas, backed and encouraged by Iran, to torpedo the fast-moving normalization process between Israel and Saudi Arabia. US President Joe Biden put it succinctly, saying, “One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel… [was because] the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel.”

Even before Biden’s explanation, a Hamas spokesman in Lebanon admitted that the goals of the terrorist attack were to destroy Israel, liberate Palestine, and deal a blow to normalization between Israel and the Arab world. Leading Iranian officials repeated this argument as well. Saudi Arabia’s announcement of a freeze in the US-mediated normalization negotiations with Israel appeared to have been a step toward this goal of Hamas.

However, the US and Saudi leaders have now affirmed that, as soon as the war is over, they will work toward a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians and continue the steps towards Israel-Saudi normalization already underway.

Why were Iran and Hamas so determined to torpedo the normalization process? 

The Iranian-led “resistance” axis regards the US-sponsored Israeli-Saudi normalization as a strategic move designed to change the regional balance of power by advancing a Saudi defense pact with the United States and strengthening Israel’s standing in the Middle East, by dint of the special Saudi role as custodian of Islam’s holy sites – Mecca and Medina – and its attendant influence on other Arab and Muslim countries regarding ties with Israel.

In these respects, Israeli-Saudi normalization would likely be a game-changer in the Middle East. Normalization was also supposed to bolster the PA, undermining the popularity and legitimacy of rival Hamas. Iran clearly had good reason to fear that these developments threatened its influence and goals in the region.

HAMAS HAS a history of mounting terror attacks intended, among other things, to undermine political moves. Thus, for example, a string of Hamas terror attacks against Israel in 1994-1995 were intended to torpedo the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and were undoubtedly a major factor in this outcome.

Seven years on, in 2002, on March 27, Hamas sought to sabotage the peace process by targeting the Park Hotel in the city of Netanya, murdering 29 Israeli civilians and wounding hundreds, then too, choosing the date of a major Jewish holiday celebration, Passover, to strike at those seated at the festive meal.

The attack was also intended to torpedo the Arab Peace Initiative scheduled for approval by the Arab League summit in Beirut the following day, March 28, 2002. Four days later, Hamas carried out another terrorist attack, killing 15 civilians in a Haifa restaurant and wounding some 40.

These mass casualty attacks resulted in an Israeli military operation, codenamed Defensive Shield, intended to wipe out Palestinian terrorist organizations in the West Bank. Needless to say, the Israeli government was disinclined to consider the Arab Peace Initiative following these brutal attacks.

The common thread tying together these attacks of the past three decades is the indication of strategic thinking on the part of all the parties involved in planning them. Even if there were other contributing factors to the failures of the peace negotiations, the Hamas attacks succeeded in achieving their goal of derailing peace.

At the end of this war, a supreme effort must be made to renew the US-mediated negotiations on an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement. The war has made clear that such an agreement would have to include a significant Palestinian “component,” offering a political horizon for the Palestinians’ aspirations.

The normalization agreement is of course important in itself, but it is also of paramount interest in order to highlight the failure of Iran and its allies to sabotage it.

The article was published in the Jerusalem Post on October 31.

הפוסט What are key goals in the war for Hamas? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Relations with Arab states

1. Israel is interested in bolstering the peace with Jordan and Egypt and achieving peace with additional Arab states in order to normalize relations with its neighbors in the Middle East. Arab leaders are invited to visit Israel.

2. Israel’s relations with Arab states should extend beyond the clandestine, security realm to include open diplomatic, economic and civilian cooperation.

3. Israel attaches importance to the thrice-endorsed 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and welcomes the willingness of Arab states to consistently ratify it over time. Israel views the proposal as an opportunity to promote negotiations with the Palestinians. Israel is also interested in launching a regional peace process with the involvement of both Arab states and the Palestinian Authority.

4. Israel believes Arab states could play a significant role in promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Such peace would also provide significant opportunities to fulfill the potential of Israel’s relations with the Arab world. Israel calls for a regional conference to relaunch the peace process.

5. Israel seeks to cooperate with Arab states on people-to-people projects that could change negative attitudes and forge links of peace. Israel seeks to contribute its know-how in the fields of hydrology, climate, renewable energy and security for the benefit of the Arab states and their inhabitants.

6. Israel believes its unique geopolitical location enables it to assume a significant role in furthering connections and cooperation between Europe and the Middle East. This is already happening in the Eastern Mediterranean, and should be broadened into wide-ranging, institutionalized multi-regional cooperation beneficial to both Israel and Arab states.

7. Israel will give top priority to restoring relations with Jordan and trust with King Abdullah. These relations are of supreme strategic importance and must be bolstered and developed. Israel recognizes Jordan’s special status vis-à-vis Islam’s holy sites in Jerusalem. It will work to advance new joint projects with Jordan, fulfill past commitments and is ready to help Jordan deal with the refugee challenge and with threats of terrorism.

8. Israel recognizes Egypt’s key regional importance and the vital role it plays in promoting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and preventing escalation between Israel and Gaza. Israel welcomes the growing cooperation with Egypt on natural gas, and will also invest efforts in promoting civilian ties with Egypt. First off, Israel will immediately appoint a new ambassador to Egypt following a lengthy hiatus during which the position was not staffed.

Relations with the Palestinians

1. Israel is interested in peace with the Palestinians based on the two-state solution and will take steps to advance it. Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not only reaching an arrangement with Gaza, is a top priority for Israel.

2. Israel is extending its hand to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in a bid to renew dialogue and the peace process and is interested in creating a direct channel between leaders and top officials. Israel also attaches importance to promoting ties and dialogue between the two peoples and building mutual respect and trust.

3. Israel does not want the PA’s collapse. It views the PA as a partner for negotiations and a key partner in resolving the situation in Gaza. Israel chooses to engage with the PA, which recognizes it, rather than with Hamas, which rejects its right to exist.

4. Israel is interested in continuing coordination with the PA to prevent security deterioration and addressing joint challenges and opportunities in other fields. Israel will support the PA’s efforts to unite the West Bank and Gaza Strip into one Palestinian entity under its leadership and to hold elections.

5. Israel pledges to help improve living conditions for the Palestinians, not as an alternative to a diplomatic solution but out of a moral-humanitarian commitment. Israel calls on the international community to contribute to this effort as well as to diplomatic efforts to advance peace.

6. Israel is willing to enable the planned construction in Kalkilya to accommodate natural population growth, to avoid demolishing houses and public facilities in east Jerusalem and Area C, to increase the number of work permits for Palestinians, and ease freedom of movement and the transfer of taxes it collects on behalf of the PA.

7. Israel appreciates the efforts invested by the US administration in formulating its vision of peace, but emphasizes that resolution of the conflict must stem from direct negotiations between the sides, with regional and international involvement, taking into consideration the needs and aspirations of both sides to the conflict.

8. Israel will not undertake unilateral annexation measures in the territories. It will freeze construction in the settlements that risks the feasibility of the two-state solution and will preserve the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites.

Relations with Europe

1. Israel wishes to turn the page on its relationship with the European Union. Israel regards the EU as a friend and partner with which it shares common values and wants to deepen and expand diverse and positive cooperation.

2. Israel will continue promoting bilateral relations with EU member states, viewing them as an effective tool to influence decision-making in Brussels. However, it will not take advantage of such moves to undermine the EU and deepen its internal divisions.

3. As a state committed to the values of liberal democracy, Israel attaches great importance to a strong EU that plays a key role in the international arena and will prioritize ties with European states that share those same values.

4. Israel will continue to criticize EU measures that it opposes, but will do so through open, honest dialogue and in as positive a climate as possible. The new government will cease the harsh rhetoric and incitement against the EU and express its criticism in a professional manner.

5. Israel will continue to boost its alliance with Greece and Cyprus and promote additional cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean, including the formation of regional frameworks with the participation of European and Arab states, and restoration of relations with Turkey to ambassadorial level.

6. Israel extends an invitation to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for an official visit. Israel’s foreign minister will conduct an official visit to Europe, during which he will seek to meet with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

7. Israel seeks to renew the high-level political dialogue with the EU and reconvene the Israel-EU Association Council, which has been suspended since 2012, in order to update old agreements and discuss new ones.

8. Israel welcomes the 2013 European proposal of upgrading Israel-EU relations to the level of a Special Privileged Partnership once Israeli-Palestinian peace is achieved, and is interested in launching a dialogue on the proposal’s potential content.

9. Israel values the EU’s support for advancement of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and cooperation through civil society organizations and other channels and its efforts to promote peace and democracy in the region.

10. Israel would like to inform the EU that it seeks the renewal of the peace process with the Palestinians and will avoid unilateral steps that endanger the feasibility of the two-state solution.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Initial policy recommendations for Foreign Minister Ashkenazi – opinion הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Challenges and Opportunities for Gaza: A Mediterranean Perspective הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The gas field was discovered in the year 2000 some 36kms offshore at a depth of 600 meters. Estimated to hold about 1 TCF, making it smaller than other fields discovered in the region, the Marine field is commercially viable. The reservoir was discovered by British Gas, which was subsequently bought by Shell. Once it transpired that prospects of developing it were slim, Shell sold its share to the PA, which is currently the largest owner along with the Palestinian-Lebanese Consolidated Contractors Company.

Many contacts were held over the years about possible development of the Marine reservoir, with Israel’s involvement, but nothing came of them largely for political reasons. Once Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, attempts to move forward the possible exploitation of the gas field came to a halt. These were renewed in 2013 around the efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, by then-Secretary of State John Kerry to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. Reported interest on the part of Russia and Energean Oil & Gas did not mature into concrete steps. Israeli Energy Minister Steinitz was quoted as telling participants of a January 2020 EMGF meeting in Cairo that contacts were underway between Israel and the Palestinians regarding possible gas sales to the PA in the West Bank, including the possible development of the Marine field. No additional details were announced and the Palestinian response was on the chilly side.

It is worth examining the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians in this regard. Israel’s interest in reaching an arrangement on Gaza to prevent further military clashes is obvious.

The Netanyahu government has in recent years expressed trust in possible long-term understandings with Hamas. Such a view fits in with the idea of “economic peace” that Netanyahu is promoting and is also in tune with the Trump plan (even though the plan is not expected to generate a real diplomatic process). In this context, there is also a convergence of interests between Israel and Egypt, which allows tight coordination of positions. Both states are interested in preventing escalation with Gaza and in progressing toward a longterm arrangement.

On the Palestinian side there are two players. The Hamas movement, which has adapted itself to the changes in the Middle East following the Arab Spring and to its room for maneuver vis-à-vis Egypt, is interested in an arrangement that would guarantee its control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is seeking to achieve this goal in a way that would also provide it flexibility within the Palestinian arena in the future. As far as the PA is concerned, its weakness is clear, intensified by the waning days of Mahmoud Abbas. An arrangement over Gaza that would allow leadership by the PA, including progress on developing the Marine gas field, would serve its interests.

The obstacles and difficulties facing progress in developing the gas field are clear and significant. These include: Control of Gaza by Hamas, a terrorist organization and concern over empowering it at the expense of the PA; the absence of a diplomatic process between Israel and the PA and the deep mistrust between the sides; and the internal Palestinian political split between the PA and Hamas.

However, regional circumstances in the Eastern Mediterranean are creating an opening for positive change. In recent years, a roadmap for potential cooperation in this region is taking shape, based on the discovery of natural gas as well as the repercussions of the Arab Spring. The most prominent institutional expression of the emerging regional structure is the EMGF, established in Cairo in early 2019, which is undergoing international institutionalization this year. It currently includes seven members – Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Jordan and the PA, and is supported by the EU and the US. The participation of the Palestinians in this forum is significant, and serves a clear Egyptian interest, which is also acceptable to Israel. The gas forum could serve to develop the Palestinian gas field from both a diplomatic and energy perspective.

From a diplomatic perspective – developing the gas filed under the umbrella of the EMGF could provide a convenient framework for the relevant players – Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt. It could be regarded, rightly so, as an expression of regional cooperation based on converging interests.

From an energy point of view – a possible link of the gas field to Egypt, which constitutes a key diplomatic and energy player, could help resolve various disagreements and sensitivities. Egypt is interested in boosting its status as a regional energy hub, which also serves the Israeli interest (for now). Shell, which sold its share in the Marine field is still active in the region (it holds a 30 percent share of the Cypriot Aphrodite gas field) and owns liquefaction facilities in Egypt.

What should Israel do?

Accelerate diplomatic moves to reach an arrangement over Gaza – this requires aligning positions and consulting with Egypt, and renewal of activity vis-à-vis Hamas and the PA, including on the issue of the Marine gas field development. Israel must restore trust with the PA and make it clear that it wants to restore the PA to a leading and more prominent role vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip;

Mobilize US support – Israel must update the US administration regarding its thinking on the development of the gas field as part of the arrangement with Gaza and ensure its support;

Create an economic-energy discourse on Palestinian gas – restore the development of the gas field to a high place on the agenda of the relevant players, including energy companies, and stir up their renewed diplomatic and economic interest in this issue;

Re-examine key issues – should Israel advance a direct link of the Gaza field to Egypt, for example to the pipeline through which Israel already exports gas to Egypt (if this is technically feasible) and thereby circumvent Palestinian disinterest and distrust of what could be considered an Israeli takeover of the gas? Can it be useful to also add a Cyprus angle to this endeavor, for example through involvement of Shell company?

Reaching a long-term arrangement between Israel and Gaza requires a complex and complicated process. Development of Gaza’s offshore gas field could and should constitute a concrete catalyst for such a process, as it addresses key interests of the relevant players. This idea also promotes a vision of regional, Mediterranean cooperation, in which the international community plays an important role in attempts to stabilize a bloody conflict.

הפוסט The Diplomatic Potential in Developing Gaza’s Offshore Gas Field הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

In the 1990s, Qatar was one of the first Arab states to open a diplomatic mission in Israel and allow Israel to open a commercial office on its territory. With the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, relations were suspended, and even when operations of the Israeli trade office were resumed in Qatar in the mid-2000s and when Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni conducted an official visit to Qatar, relations were no longer the same. Qatari media adopted a harsh and highly critical tone on Israel, and the regime feared warmer ties would undermine the united Arab stance against normalization with Israel absent an IsraeliPalestinian agreement. In the days of the Arab Spring, Qatar openly supported the Muslim Brotherhood and significantly strengthened its links with Turkey, further exacerbating the distrust between Jerusalem and Doha.

The opportunity to improve Israel-Qatar relations arose, of all times, at the height of Israel’s deep crisis with the Gaza Strip. A strange deal was forged between Hamas – a number of whose leaders were being hosted by Qatar after leaving Syria during the civil war, the Qatari regime – which sought to extricate itself from regional isolation and improve its image in Washington, and Israel – which needed a mediator to restore calm and help alleviate the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Leaders in Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were likely displeased with the arrangement. Egyptian and Gulf media devoted extensive coverage to news of a rare visit by the head of the Mossad to Doha in February 2020, as revealed by Yisrael Beitenu party Chair Avigdor Liberman, wondering whether Israel was seeking closer ties with Qatar. So far, this pragmatic cooperation between Israel and Qatar, based on the shared interests of all parties involved, has not undermined Israel’s growing rapprochement with other Sunni states.

Nonetheless, by allowing Qatar to play an increasingly significant role in the Gaza Strip, is Israel developing a dependence on the emirate and subsuming reality in the territories to Doha’s wishes? For now, there is no alternative to the Qatari funds keeping the heads of Gaza’s residents above water. However, it is important to realize that this money also perpetuates Hamas’ rule in Gaza, deepens the Islamist movement’s entrenchment in its unyielding attitude toward reconciliation with Fatah and, in fact, undermines domestic Palestinian unity. The Netanyahu government apparently believes that its current “divide and rule” policy serves it well. That explains why Israel has not returned to the negotiating table. Netanyahu believes that the Palestinian issue is no longer on the agenda and that relations with most Arab states can be advanced even without negotiations and compromises.

Reality proves the opposite. Israel is not an island, nor a villa encircled by walls in the middle of the jungle. Israel needs cooperation in the Middle East and the Mediterranean in order to advance its interests in the region. The Palestinian issue remains on the table and the absence of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still hampers establishment of diplomatic relations and expansion of partnerships between Israel and most states in the Arab and Muslim world. Visits by Israeli athletes and diplomats in the Gulf are nice to have, but the potential for cooperation with the Gulf States, as well as with Israel’s immediate neighbors Egypt and Jordan, is far greater.

Israel needs a broad regional policy to guide it and enable the promotion of its interests not only in the short term, but in the long one, too. Relations with Doha are possible to have, but Israel must be cautious and approach them with its eyes wide open, given that Qatar’s foreign policy contradicts what Israel believes and would like to see in the Middle East. The Qatari gifts carry a price tag: Aid for Gaza is not just aid for Gaza – it is also a contribution to strengthening the regional Islamist alliance (Qatar-Turkey-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya), and only a temporary solution to Gaza’s distress. Gaza does not require band aids. What is required is a complex and comprehensive solution, in coordination with regional states that are confronting Islamist terrorism, which will also eventually provide a channel for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

הפוסט Israel and Qatar Focus on Shared Interests, Setting Aside Differences הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Development of the Marine gas field off the Gaza coast is a new element that could and should help in this regard. The development could take place under the auspices of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) established last year in Cairo. That would allow the sides to overcome the internal Palestinian political crisis stemming from the split between Hamas and the PA and hampering the development of the gas field. It could also resolve the severe crisis in the Palestinian energy sector and ease the economic hardship in the Gaza Strip.

The gas field was discovered in the year 2000 some 36kms offshore at a depth of 600 meters. Estimated to hold about 1 TCF, making it smaller than other fields discovered in the region, the Marine field is commercially viable. The reservoir was discovered by British Gas, which was subsequently bought by Shell. Once it transpired that prospects of developing it were slim, Shell sold its share to the PA, which is currently the largest owner along with the Palestinian-Lebanese Consolidated Contractors Company.

Many contacts were held over the years about possible development of the Marine reservoir, with Israel’s involvement, but nothing came of them largely for political reasons. Once Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, attempts to move forward the possible exploitation of the gas field came to a halt. These were renewed in 2013 around the efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, by then-Secretary of State John Kerry to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. Reported interest on the part of Russia and Energean Oil & Gas did not mature into concrete steps. Israeli Energy Minister Steinitz was quoted as telling participants of a January 2020 EMGF meeting in Cairo that contacts were underway between Israel and the Palestinians regarding possible gas sales to the PA in the West Bank, including the possible development of the Marine field. No additional details were announced and the Palestinian response was on the chilly side.

It is worth examining the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians in this regard. Israel’s interest in reaching an arrangement on Gaza to prevent further military clashes is obvious. The Netanyahu government has in recent years expressed trust in possible long-term understandings with Hamas. Such a view fits in with the idea of “economic peace” that Netanyahu is promoting and is also in tune with the Trump plan (even though the plan is not expected to generate a real diplomatic process). In this context, there is also a convergence of interests between Israel and Egypt, which allows tight coordination of positions. Both states are interested in preventing escalation with Gaza and in progressing toward a longterm arrangement.

On the Palestinian side there are two players. The Hamas movement, which has adapted itself to the changes in the Middle East following the Arab Spring and to its room for maneuver vis-à-vis Egypt, is interested in an arrangement that would guarantee its control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is seeking to achieve this goal in a way that would also provide it flexibility within the Palestinian arena in the future. As far as the PA is concerned, its weakness is clear, intensified by the waning days of Mahmoud Abbas. An arrangement over Gaza that would allow leadership by the PA, including progress on developing the Marine gas field, would serve its interests.

The obstacles and difficulties facing progress in developing the gas field are clear and significant. These include: Control of Gaza by Hamas, a terrorist organization and concern over empowering it at the expense of the PA; the absence of a diplomatic process between Israel and the PA and the deep mistrust between the sides; and the internal Palestinian political split between the PA and Hamas.

However, regional circumstances in the Eastern Mediterranean are creating an opening for positive change. In recent years, a roadmap for potential cooperation in this region is taking shape, based on the discovery of natural gas as well as the repercussions of the Arab Spring. The most prominent institutional expression of the emerging regional structure is the EMGF, established in Cairo in early 2019, which is undergoing international institutionalization this year. It currently includes seven members – Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Jordan and the PA, and is supported by the EU and the US. The participation of the Palestinians in this forum is significant, and serves a clear Egyptian interest, which is also acceptable to Israel. The gas forum could serve to develop the Palestinian gas field from both a diplomatic and energy perspective.

From a diplomatic perspective – developing the gas filed under the umbrella of the EMGF could provide a convenient framework for the relevant players – Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt. It could be regarded, rightly so, as an expression of regional cooperation based on converging interests.

From an energy point of view – a possible link of the gas field to Egypt, which constitutes a key diplomatic and energy player, could help resolve various disagreements and sensitivities. Egypt is interested in boosting its status as a regional energy hub, which also serves the Israeli interest (for now). Shell, which sold its share in the Marine field is still active in the region (it holds a 30 percent share of the Cypriot Aphrodite gas field) and owns liquefaction facilities in Egypt.

What should Israel do?

Accelerate diplomatic moves to reach an arrangement over Gaza – this requires aligning positions and consulting with Egypt, and renewal of activity vis-à-vis Hamas and the PA, including on the issue of the Marine gas field development. Israel must restore trust with the PA and make it clear that it wants to restore the PA to a leading and more prominent role vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip;

Mobilize US support – Israel must update the US administration regarding its thinking on the development of the gas field as part of the arrangement with Gaza and ensure its support;

Create an economic-energy discourse on Palestinian gas – restore the development of the gas field to a high place on the agenda of the relevant players, including energy companies, and stir up their renewed diplomatic and economic interest in this issue;

Re-examine key issues – should Israel advance a direct link of the Gaza field to Egypt, for example to the pipeline through which Israel already exports gas to Egypt (if this is technically feasible) and thereby circumvent Palestinian disinterest and distrust of what could be considered an Israeli takeover of the gas? Can it be useful to also add a Cyprus angle to this endeavor, for example through involvement of Shell company?

Reaching a long-term arrangement between Israel and Gaza requires a complex and complicated process. Development of Gaza’s offshore gas field could and should constitute a concrete catalyst for such a process, as it addresses key interests of the relevant players. This idea also promotes a vision of regional, Mediterranean cooperation, in which the international community plays an important role in attempts to stabilize a bloody conflict.

הפוסט The Diplomatic Potential in Developing Gaza’s Offshore Gas Field הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Instead of dealing with foreign policy and diplomacy, Israel has over the years developed a narrow and pessimistic concept of national security, which consists of providing military intelligence responses to specific security threats, but lacks a pro-active diplomatic approach. Military-defense thinking is undeniably of paramount importance to Israel’s existence and security, and preparing the IDF and other defense agencies for the many challenges they face is a critical issue, indeed. However, every state has at its disposal a potential array of diplomatic assets that are no less essential, and sometimes even more so, to shaping its national security. Foreign policy is not designed to complement military policy, on the contrary. Military strategy is supposed to be a derivative of foreign policy goals driven, first and foremost, by the desire to forge alliances, agreements and normalization based on a broad complex of international relations in order to preclude clashes and wars.

Israel’s aversion to formulating a comprehensive and integrative diplomatic strategy over the past decade is a mistake, at best, and neglect of its national security needs, at worst. The leadership must shift course and place Israeli foreign policy on a pro-active path, replacing the ad hoc measures of “putting out fires” characterized by passiveness and pessimism to which we have grown accustomed over the past decade. The next government must break out of this foreign policy bunker and emerge into the sunlight and fresh air. Israel is crying out for a strategy that would allow it to achieve regional diplomatic arrangements, to exist within sovereign, permanent borders as a Jewish and democratic state with a distinct Jewish majority, without ruling over another people – while enjoying recognition by most countries of the world and full normalization of relations with them.

The existing Israeli paradigm is illustrated, for example, in the issue of the Gaza Strip’s future. Israel has adopted an essentially military strategy on Gaza and its Hamas rulers, manifested in localized management of the conflict and preservation of the current situation. However, leaders are elected to strive for change and shape a better and more promising future for their country in a responsible and sober manner.

To that end, Israel’s military strategy vis-à-vis Hamas in Gaza is insufficient; a distinct foreign policy strategy is required. After all, the Gaza issue has clear regional and global aspects, mainly as regards the humanitarian crisis afflicting the enclave and prospects of infrastructure and financial development and reconstruction using international state and institutional aid.

That is why Israel must define the broad, regional vision to which it aspires. A vision that includes normalization in the Middle East and neighborly relations with a demilitarized Palestinian state would create a context within which Israel could shape policy on various regional issues, including Gaza. However, the road to that goal invariably entails a diplomatic initiative, not a military one.

Various arrangements and mobilization of foreign aid for regional development, including of Gaza, must be set in motion. Within the framework of such broad, diplomatic activity, a determined Israeli initiative is required to renew the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority, giving full consideration to Israel’s security needs. Broader and more comprehensive diplomacy is also required to provide an overarching framework for the whole process: An Israeli initiative for regional negotiations that would include, in addition to the Palestinians, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Gulf states and the Arab League. Participants would commit to shouldering the burden involved in weakening Hamas and rebuilding Gaza, with the help of the international community. To that end, Israel’s political leadership must first commit to preserving and protecting Israel’s future existence as a Jewish and democratic state. That means striving for separation from the Palestinians with all the attendant diplomatic implications, and ensuring Israel’s security interests and needs, both during negotiations and after an arrangement is reached. There is no guarantee of the strategy’s success, because its implementation depends on additional elements. However, its very adoption and the shift from a passive, reactive policy to initiatives on long-term solutions would benefit Israel in public diplomacy and in presenting its case in the international arena, while safeguarding its security and avoiding significant military concessions. Nothing will change as long as Israel continues to adopt a military-defense strategy without any vision or diplomatic initiative, precludes positive change on the ground, lacks sufficient international legitimization for security activity Israel undertakes, and perpetuates the current stagnation with the Palestinians.

In the coming years, Israel should advance a comprehensive regional agreement under the auspices of the US and other international players, which takes into consideration Israel’s essential, long-term security needs; promote a move to separate from the Palestinians in the context of two independent states and as part of the regional agreement; help reconstruct Gaza, as part of an agreement with the Palestinians and with the support of the international community (including Arab states); develop a public diplomacy and foreign policy strategy in case an agreement with the Palestinians will not be feasible even after Israel makes an effort to achieve one; adopt a “carrot and stick” diplomatic strategy that includes potential deterrence and incentives vis-à-vis significant regional powers, mainly Iran and Turkey; restore bipartisan American support for Israel, taking into account the changes in US politics and society, including within the Jewish community there; work to consolidate Israel’s relations with current and emerging global powers, such as Russia, China and India.

A compelling, relevant foreign policy approach must be developed as a key layer of Israel’s national security. At the same time, it is vital for Israel’s next government to rehabilitate and strengthen Israel’s Foreign Service.

הפוסט Israel Needs a Diplomatic Strategy הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Gaza Helps Israel and Qatar Find Common Ground הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Egypt’s international standing as an important regional leader. Egypt’s role as a mediator acceptable to all sides allows it to ensure that the “arrangements” it helps broker serve its own interests as well, including its desire to pursue cooperation with Israel on strategic issues such as security and energy. Addressing the 2019 Herzliya Conference, Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Khaled Azmi expressed his country’s key interest in preserving its stability as a nation-state in the face of regional challenges. He also emphasized the importance of providing a response to the aspirations of millions of young people in the Middle East (where 60% of the population is below the age of 30).

Israel perceives its peace with Egypt as a highly important asset. Four decades of peace have proven its resilience in the face of changes and shockwaves, and have provided a potential platform for strategic cooperation. However, relations between Israel and Egypt are characterized as a “cold peace”. Egypt is unwilling to fully normalize with Israel, despite crucial shared interests, as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved. Although this position has become somewhat muted considering the growing defense strategic cooperation between Israel and the Sunni states in the region, it still dictates the nature and extent of relations. A 2018 study that examined existing cooperation between Israel and Egypt pointed to strategic cooperation between the states, as well as cool bilateral relations on all other fronts. This article follows-up and looks at the 2019 developments in the relations.

הפוסט Israel-Egypt Cooperation in 2019: Strategic Warming, Civilian Coolness? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Israel and Qatar: Relations Nurtured by the Palestinian Issue הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Qatar’s friendship is good for Israel הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Surprisingly, all those interviewed hold similar views despite their different political stripes. However, they are suggesting tactical solutions, rather than strategic and diplomatic goals, which are therefore bound to be short-term in nature.

A strategic approach to Gaza must relate to the overall Palestinian issue, not just to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The policy of recent Israeli governments separating the Gaza issue from the West Bank one has convinced Israelis that this split is, indeed, the desired goal. But it is a flawed assumption. Ironically, the Trump plan, which undermines prospects of peace in many respects, pointed to the inevitable solution of linking Gaza and the West Bank.

Any solution to the Gaza issue must include the Palestinian Authority (PA). But we have made the PA irrelevant to Gaza and thus achieved a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Israeli government has thwarted all attempts at rapprochement between Gaza and the PA. Such was the case when PA President Mahmoud Abbas sought to hold Palestinian elections, or when he tried to form a government of technocrats that could have enabled Hamas to move forward vis-à-vis Israel without initially abandoning its ideology.

We have weakened the PA by refusing to credit and encourage its non-violent, pro-diplomacy policies. From his first day on the job, Abbas sought agreement, if possible through bilateral negotiations, and if not, by appealing to multinational organizations.

We have turned his attempts at dialogue with Israel into pathetic overtures by continuing to build in the settlements and using negotiations to buy time and create facts on the ground. When the Palestinians tried to achieve their aims by taking multilateral steps, we dubbed their measures “diplomatic terrorism” and exerted pressure on the Americans to block them, even though the same measures – appealing to the UN – gained Israel its own independence.

While Abbas supports a two-state solution and recognition of Israel in its 1967 borders with land swaps, and even accepts the principle of a demilitarized Palestinian state, we insist instead on dealing with Hamas, which rejects our existence. Whereas Abbas continues to instruct his security forces to cooperate with the IDF and Shin Bet in foiling terror attacks, and is therefore accused by many Palestinians of collaboration with Israel, we reward Hamas with benefits and payments from Qatar.

A strategic, long-term solution to the Gaza issue is linked to renewal of the diplomatic process with the PA, and to the encouragement of a technocratic unity government in Gaza with which gradual progress can be made on demilitarization and rehabilitation. A long-term solution must be diplomatic. All our previous attempts to create deterrence have taught us that there is no military solution.

We currently have much better Palestinian partners for peace than we had in the past. The terrorist Arafat has been replaced by Abbas, who reviles terrorism; the three “No’s” (no to peace with Israel, no to recognition of Israel, no to negotiations with Israel) of the 1967 Arab League summit in Khartoum have been replaced by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The key message of that initiative is, “please move ahead with a diplomatic solution to the Palestinian issue so that we can normalize relations with you based on the understanding that Israel could constitute part of the solution to regional problems, rather than the problem itself”.

While all these positive changes were occurring around us, our leaders continued to explain why Israel has no Palestinian partner and to empower Hamas. That is why Israeli discourse keeps going back to the same tactical suggestions that resolve nothing. These solutions only sound logical absent of a strategic alternative. But such an alternative exists and it requires courageous and sober leadership rather than political slogans and hollow clichés.

Nadav Tamir is a Board Member at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies; a former diplomat and policy advisor to President Peres.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The Solution to Gaza is a Diplomatic One הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

During the Oslo process, Israel had a two-track policy. It conducted talks with the PLO, which had officially and publicly recognized “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security,” in the hopes of reaching a final status agreement, and at the same time Israel waged uncompromising war on Hamas, which refused to recognize both Israel and the Oslo Accords. That policy was shared by both the left-wing and right-wing Israeli governments through the 1990s. Suggestions by certain Israeli figures, among them Rabbi Menachem Froman and Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy to promote dialogue with Hamas were rejected out of hand. However, it became increasingly obvious over the years that ignoring Hamas and excluding it from the process would be very hard given its standing in Palestinian society, especially after its 2006 election victory and takeover of the Gaza Strip.

One way of understanding Israel’s dilemma is through the concept of “peace spoilers.” In the 1990s, there was a growing discussion among academics in the field of conflict analysis, about how to relate to actors, often non-state ones, who undertake concerted efforts to thwart peace processes or agreements that they view as a threat to themselves and their goals. One of the main examples discussed in those days were Hamas and Jewish extremists, both of whom sought to foil the Oslo process. Other peace processes in the 1990s encountered a similar phenomenon. In Northern Ireland, the Real Irish Republican Army split from the IRA and carried out terror attacks in a bid to prevent a peace agreement. In South Africa, deadly violence in the early 1990s threatened to undermine attempts of reconciliation. Scholars debated how best to deal with such actors – whether to fight against them or to communicate with them and try to integrate them into the process.

Even after the split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 2007, Israel continued with its parallel policy: Security coordination and peace talks (until the 2014 collapse of negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry) vis-a-vis the PLO-led Palestinian Authority (PA) under Mahmoud Abbas, along with a blockade of Gaza and repeated rounds of fighting with Hamas, whom Israel saw as “peace spoilers” who must be fought.

Successive Israeli governments insisted that they would not conduct any dialogue with a Palestinian unity government if it included Hamas. In October 2017, the Netanyahu government’s security cabinet reiterated this stance in light of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation attempts, announcing that Israel would engage with such a Palestinian government only if Hamas recognized Israel, stopped its terrorist activity, disarmed and severed ties with Iran.

But over the last decade, the ground started shifting, gradually. In 2011 Israel and Hamas reached an agreement on releasing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners; the parties also negotiated indirectly on ceasefires to end several rounds of fighting. But these contacts were a precursor to a far more dramatic and significant move. Ironically, the most right-wing government in Israeli history, formed in 2015, which did not include representatives of centrist or left-wing parties, was the one that eventually led to a radical shift of Israel’s position. During 2018, Israel and Hamas launched indirect intensive negotiations, mediated by Egypt and UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov.

This shift has several reasons: Both parties were finally open to the idea of dialogue, after a decade of repeated and indecisive clashes, and a primed for a more pragmatic recognition of reality. But at the same time, it also stemmed from a mutual interest in managing the conflict rather than resolving it – and in weakening the PA under Abbas. The same dynamics are true today. The Netanyahu government is not interested in fostering a peace process that would entail territorial concessions in the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state, whereas Hamas is interested in preserving its power and standing. Netanyahu declared in March 2019 that contacts with Hamas were maintaining the split between Gaza and the PA-controlled West Bank, thus scuppering the possibility of establishing Palestinian state. A close Netanyahu campaign aide, Jonathan Urich, boasted in an April 2019 interview that his boss had “managed to achieve a split between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and in fact crushed the vision of a Palestinian state in these two areas. Part of this achievement is linked to the Qatari money reaching Hamas each month.”

This in itself constituted a turnaround in Israel’s position: for years, it had demanded that control over Gaza be restored to the PA. Looking at the Israel-PA-Hamas triangle, it appears that any real dialogue between Israel and the PA has collapsed; contacts between Hamas and the PA have reached a dead end; and only the channel between Hamas and Israel is still working. During the 2007-2008 Annapolis process, Israel’s goal was to bolster Abbas vis-à-vis Hamas and reach a final status agreement with him, which would be expanded in its next phase to include Gaza. However, Israel is now working to preserve the split between the two Palestinian entities, and no longer seeks to create any affinity between Gaza and the PA, or to push for a broader Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It’s worth taking a step back to see just how unthinkable (until very recently) Israel’s pivot has been, and how dramatically expedient, or pragmatic, its redefinition of an acceptable partner for dialogue has been. If, as recently as some two years ago, the Israeli government rejected the idea of talks with a Palestinian unity government due to its affiliation with Hamas, today the Israeli government is talking to Hamas, while not conducting any diplomatic dialogue with Abbas, and even adopting an increasingly harsh tone toward him and the Palestinian Authority. The emerging message is that Israel is rewarding Hamas, which uses violent means against Israel (firing rockets and incendiary devices at Israel), and punishing the PA, which has adhered to tight security coordination with Israel.

Lior Lehrs is the Director of the Program on Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(originally published in Haaretz)

הפוסט Peace-Spoilers or Negotiation Partners? Netanyahu’s Understandings with Hamas הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

1) From creeping annexation in the West Bank to intentions for official annexation – Driven by political campaigning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his intention to formally annex the Jordan Valley. He subsequently expanded his intentions to annexation of all West Bank settlements, generating declarations of domestic public support for the move. While the US administration avoided challenging Netanyahu on the issue, many international players, among them candidates for the US Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, expressed opposition. At the same time, Israel’s government continued to advance creeping annexation in the West Bank, as manifested in ongoing construction, diversion of resources and regulatory changes.

3) Opposition to international criticism of the occupation and settlements while relying on a weaker US administration – Israel continued its campaign against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in the legal sphere and on social media, and by banning activists entry into the country. It faced growing criticism of the occupation and settlements, including a legal decision in Europe on labeling settlement products and a decision in the International Criminal Court on a possible inquiry regarding war crimes. Israel’s countered these via personal attacks on the critics, attempts to undermine their authority and discredit their claims, and reliance on the Trump administration’s support despite a decline in international US influence.

4) Crises in ties with Jordan and a disconnect between the leaders without a significant Israeli response – A severe crisis of trust emerged between Jordan and Israel, including a disconnect between their leaders. King Abdullah stated that relations with Israel are at their lowest ebb ever. The border enclaves of Naharayim and Tzofar were restored to full Jordanian sovereignty, and protests erupted in Jordan against Israeli gas exports and the peace treaty between the two sides. The administrative detention in Israel of two Jordanian citizens raised tensions, whereas Netanyahu’s stated desire to annex the Jordan Valley was perceived as a negative game-changer. President Reuven Rivlin stepped in to try restoring trust and expanding the dialogue channels between the two states.

5) Attempts to raise the level of ties with Gulf states and increase their visibility – Israel sought to publicize the development of its ties with Gulf states, including the presence of senior Israeli officials at international events in the Gulf, positive social media interaction, participation in sports competitions, and visits of unofficial delegations. Israel stepped up its preparations toward its participation in Expo 2020 in Dubai. Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared his intention to advance non-belligerent agreements with Gulf states, which in return underscored the need for progress between Israel and the Palestinians as a condition for normalizing relations. These developments occurred against the backdrop of Iran’s growing aggression toward Gulf states, which was not met with a significant American response.

6) Efforts against Iranian entrenchment along Israel’s borders and against the nuclear agreement with Iran – Israel urged Western European states to adopt a tough line on Iran and support renewed economic sanctions, but without significant effect. It took part in an attempt to establish an international maritime security force in the Gulf and achieved certain success in encouraging other countries to classify Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as terrorist organizations. On the military level, Israel kept up its raids on Iranian targets in Syria, expanding them to Lebanon and Iraq. In view of growing Russian criticism, Israel acted to preserve its defense coordination mechanism with Russia.

7) Israel and Europe alternate between cooperation and disagreement while Israel dials down its Visegrád Group links – The European Union continued to be Israel’s biggest trading partner, and additional areas of cooperation were advanced. The new EU leadership expressed commitment to the two-state solution and to upgrading Israel-EU ties once peace with the Palestinians is achieved. Israel’s government took a negative and confrontational stance toward the EU, an attitude which filtered down and affected Israeli public perception of the organization as a foe rather than a friend. Israel’s warm ties with the Visegrád Group, which Netanyahu championed earlier this year, disappeared from the public discourse, while tensions with Poland increased over Holocaust remembrance issues.

8) Strengthening of alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean while trying to keep an open channel to Turkey – Israel continued to deepen its cooperation with Cyprus, Greece and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on energy and participation in the regional gas forum (EMGF) established in Cairo in early 2019. Turkey’s growing isolation in the region began affecting Israeli policy. Although it had avoided doing so in the past, Israel expressed growing support for Greece and Cyprus in their maritime disputes with Turkey. At the same time, it worked to maintain an open channel to Turkey, despite tensions over the Palestinian issue, and especially over Jerusalem, Gaza and Hamas activity in Turkey.

9) Netanyahu mobilized foreign policy issues for his election campaign but his image in the world suffered – As he did ahead of the April 2019 elections, ahead of the September elections Netanyahu also sought to portray his foreign policy achievements. He scheduled (and sometimes canceled) international visits and meetings in a bid to improve his electoral prospects and aid his attempts to form a government. He highlighted issues such as the Jordan Valley annexation, Israel’s struggle against Iran and Gaza, efforts to relocate embassies to Jerusalem and the idea of a defense treaty with the US. The peace process was absent from the election campaigns. However, foreign leaders, among them Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, were less responsive to Netanyahu’s political needs than they had been in the past.

10) Despite the appointment of a full-time foreign minister, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) continued to face a severe crisis – After four years, Netanyahu appointed a full-time foreign minister but this did not resolve the crisis suffered by the MFA. The ministry’s deep budgetary shortfall and labor disputes with the Finance Ministry continued. Israel’s unusual political predicament took its toll and further undermined the MFA’s ability to carry out its tasks. Israel failed to appoint new ambassadors to France, Russia, Canada and the UN, and left its embassy in Cairo without a permanent ambassador (although an appointment was already approved by the MFA). At the same time, Israel’s defense agencies continued to play a dominant role in foreign policy issues, at the expense of diplomats.

Dr. Roee Kibrik is director of research at Mitvim-The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, of which Dr. Nimrod Goren is the founder and head.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Ten trends in Israel’s regional foreign policies July-December 2019 הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Shrinking the freedom of expression is a strategic move by the PA. Since its founding, the PA has used censorship as a tool to weaken oppositional voices from Hamas and the Left. At first, limitations on the freedom of expression were not anchored in legislation. The PA, through its security services, directly interacted with editors, journalists and newspaper editorial teams to dictate the limits of freedom of expression, without a formal censorship body. In June 2017 the PA announced – as a complementary step to older censorship laws – a presidential order preventing electronic criminal activity, adjusted to a zeitgeist where the Internet has replaced the city square. The order allows the PA to issue heavy fines and arrest anyone who expresses criticism of the PA online, including journalists and social activists. This order also allows the PA to mark anyone who shares or re-tweets critical content as a target.

The presidential order allowed the PA to begin waves of arrests, first against journalists identified with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, like Ahmad al-Halaiqah from the village of al-Shuyukh, Mamdouh Hamamreh from Husan, and Tareq Abu Zeid from Nablus. The order was also used to allow the arrests of social and political activists who focused their struggle against Israel, like Issa Amro from Hebron (who was arrested after he criticized the PA on social media). This reality stirs up criticism against the PA, domestically and abroad. International human rights organizations and the European Union have followed with concern the shrinking of freedom of expression, especially after the arrest of journalists, and they are not suppressing their criticism.

NEVERTHELESS, IT appears that the PA is not deterred, and is even increasing its measures due to the political circumstances.
The leadership of the PA in the West Bank is worried about a possible coup attempt by Hamas. Although Hamas lacks real military capabilities in the West Bank, it enjoys developed media capabilities. Hamas and Islamic organizations have a network of satellite television channels at their disposal through which they broadcast to the West Bank.

Moreover, they also have a significant number of propaganda outlets, news websites, and news agencies that they are identified with (for example, the Shehab News Agency, which boasts millions of followers), and which have wide exposure in the West Bank and the Arab world. In the age of social media and the fast exchange of messages, these are efficient tools for creating political power and influence. The PA is aware of the strength of Hamas’s media influence and is trying to damage it. The PA is even sacrificing the principle of freedom of expression within Palestinian society for the sake of this goal.

The shrinking of freedom of expression appears to be an organized policy of the PA, meant to help cope with the political challenges it faces in the waning years of Abbas’s presidency. These challenges include a lack of announcements about the identity of Abbas’s successor and the question of the continued existence of the PA in its current form. The expansion of measures limiting freedom of expression demonstrates the importance that the PA gives to the media as shapers of public opinion.

The voices emerging from the streets and the virtual city squares are worrying for the leadership of the PA, and the PA is acting to deepen its control over these spheres. From the perspective of the PA, this is a strategic process that is meant to entrench its control in the lead-up to a period of political instability.

The writer is a policy fellow at Mitvim-The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, the director of the Middle East Studies Department at the Emek Yizrael Academic College, and an expert on Palestinian society and politics.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The PA’s shrinking space for freedom of expression הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Trends in Israel’s Regional Foreign Policies, Vol. 3 הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Israel’s policy vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip is one of transferring the responsibility for the situation over to the “other side”: be it Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the international community. The argument’s essence is: “we are here and they are there”, and Israel therefore claims that it is neither its business nor its responsibility to find a solution. This kind of policy is certainly not appropriate for a country responsible for the humanitarian needs of Gaza, and in doing so Israel is burying its head in the sand. There is no escape from advancing a clear and courageous Israeli strategy towards the Gaza Strip. The guiding point of departure should be that the problem is at our doorstep and it does not really matter whether we are right or wrong. The reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, which occasionally comes up as “a necessary alternative that demonstrates Israel’s heavy hand and preserves its deterrence”, is contrary to Israeli interests. It is not without reason that Israeli governments, including the outgoing one, refrained from using this alternative. After all, it is preferable to deal with a rival such as Hamas, even if it is a non-state actor with an extreme ideology, rather than deal with chaos or the rise of even more extreme groups. In the end, after an extensive military move, Israel will likely face the same dilemmas, only at higher cost.

Israel should essentially be interested in preventing a comprehensive escalation in the Gaza Strip and attain a long-term ceasefire, as part of an economic-humanitarian arrangement, while preserving the option to move forward with the peace process, eventually leading to a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian final-status agreement. The proper way to achieve these two objectives is through a broad international initiative, that also includes Israel and other regional actors, for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. This initiative should address the main problems involved: the lack of infrastructure, primarily the shortage of electricity, the water problem, the collapsing health system, high unemployment, and the isolation from the world. It is obvious that the familiar counter-arguments immediately emerge: such a move will strengthen Hamas, the PA will oppose and jeopardize the agreement, Hamas and other organizations will continue smuggling weapons, and finally, it is not clear who will pay for such an extensive rebuilding initiative.

While these arguments are indeed legitimate and correct, at least partially, we should not use them to block all initiatives, or else the problem will remain with us. Currently, the peace process is stalled, and both sides are deeply skeptical about the prospects for its renewal, also due to the Palestinian split between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, it should not discourage us, and perhaps even serve as a catalyst for action. Even in the view of Israel’s right-wing government, which is not particularly troubled by the political deadlock and does not seem to be concerned with the renewal of the peace process, a move to rebuild the Gaza Strip must be a major interest.

The proposed outline should include the following components: (a) an Israeli initiative to formulate an international plan – a sort of “Marshall Plan” – for the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip; (b) a rehabilitation plan to be led by the international community, that will include an economic-financial mechanism to support Gaza and provide a political umbrella; (c) involvement of the PA in the implementation of the plan (but this does not need to be a precondition, should the Palestinian leadership refuse); (d) participation of Israel in the process, including in terms of allocating funds for its implementation; (e) formulation of an international supervision mechanism to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip.

The moral aspect should also lead Israel to take such action. Although Hamas is a non-state actor that is responsible to the serious situation on ground, Israel is facing a serious problem, for which it is partially responsible as well. The duty to protect Israeli citizens and the strategic security interests of the State of Israel are not in conflict with the need to acknowledge the harsh living conditions at our doorstep. Ignoring them seriously jeopardizes Israel’s long-term interests. Israel’s claim to be the only democracy in the region and an island of stability and pluralism obliges us to weigh the ensuing moral responsibility, and to initiate an urgent political-economic-humanitarian process to support Gaza. This will probably not be a perfect move, but a necessary one that serves a host of Israeli interests, and in any case its human and economic cost is lower than that of any other alternative.

Amb. (ret.) Michael Harari is a Policy Fellow at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies. He served as the Israeli Ambassador to Cyprus from 2010 to 2015.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Israel Should Advance an International Initiative to Support Gaza הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Israel’s warm relationship with the US administration, the enhanced alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean, and burgeoning relations with Gulf States could bolster these claims. However, missing from this rosy picture are the stagnated peace process with the Palestinians, the inability to resolve the festering conflict with Hamas in Gaza, tensions with the EU, crises with Russia and Turkey, difficulties with key Jewish communities, troubling embraces of illiberal leaders from Hungary, Brazil, the Philippines, Italy, and more.

It will be up to the next Israeli government to reevaluate and provide alternatives to Israel’s current foreign policy, to the values guiding it, and to the status of those government agencies tasked with implementing it. Should the next foreign minister – assuming a fulltime minister will be appointed, unlike after the 2015 elections – will have interest in promoting a pro-peace, multi-regional, internationalist, modern and inclusive Israeli foreign policy, he or she should take the following steps during the first 100 days in office:

First on the agenda is launching a process to advance peace with the Palestinian Authority (PA) based on previous agreements and international resolutions, in accordance with the accepted parameters of a two-state solution. Such a move could be launched with a public statement of intent regarding the final goal of the negotiations as proof of seriousness, a meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the creation of a bilateral channel for talks (with an initial clandestine component). Israel should also support the establishment of an updated multilateral mechanism to support the peace process, as an improvement to the existing Quartet, in which specific European and Middle Eastern countries will also take part. While advancing such an initiative, the next Israeli government must recognize the need for a renewed political unity between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as the current split poses a major obstacle on the way to a two-state solution.

The second step to follow the first should be leveraging the move vis-à-vis the Palestinians to realize the unfulfilled regional potential. Israel has been presented with unique opportunities in recent years to significantly upgrade its standing in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean and in Europe, most of which remain unrealized due to the freeze in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Progress with the Palestinians would enable the next government to take relations with Arab countries to the next level, making them more public and diverse, rather than focusing mostly on behind-the-scenes security coordination. It would also revive regional incentives for peace that previous Israeli governments wrongly ignored – the Arab Peace Initiative and the EU’s proposal of a Special Privileged Partnership, and enable the leveraging of economic cooperation in the Mediterranean to affect change in the diplomatic, civil and security spheres. Finally, it would remove significant obstacles to upgrading Israel’s relationship with the EU.

The third measure is strengthening the democratic component in Israel’s foreign relations. In recent years, the Israeli government eroded basic principles of Israeli democracy. Along with the repercussions of these actions on Israeli society, they have also had an impact on the state’s foreign relations. The next foreign minister will have to prioritize relations and alliances with democratic states, even those critical of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians. As a rule, Israel must recognize the legitimacy of criticism and conduct dialogue with those voicing it rather than seeking to undermine them. The new foreign minister will have to pull back from Israel’s rapprochement with far-right elements in Europe, some of them tainted by antisemitism. Instead of lashing out at the EU and joining forces with European member states seeking to divide and weaken it, Israel must regard the EU as a partner – both in practical terms and from a value-based perspective. Rather than inviting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Jerusalem, after the European Parliament elections in May Israel should invite whoever replaces Federica Mogherini as the EU’s foreign policy chief.

An effective foreign policy requires a strong and well-functioning foreign ministry and recognition of diplomacy as a central instrument in advancing national security. Thus, the fourth move required of the new foreign minister will be to formulate a national foreign policy paradigm, bring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to the forefront of core foreign policy issues, upgrade the standing of the Foreign Service vis-à-vis the defense establishment, and restore to the MFA responsibilities delegated to other government bodies in recent years. The minister will also have to work with the Knesset to increase its focus on foreign policy issues (first and foremost by its Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee), and advance internal structural reforms within the MFA. Last but by no means least, the new foreign minister will have to raise public awareness of the importance of diplomacy and of the MFA’s role in implementing it.

The upcoming general elections provide an opportunity to change course in Israel’s foreign policy, towards an empowered Foreign Service, better ties with the Middle East and Europe, and progress in the quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace. A full plate awaits Israel’s next foreign minister.

Dr. Nimrod Goren is head of the Mitvim Institute and a lecturer at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט What Should Israel’s Next Foreign Minister Do? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

With Tzipi Livni’s decision to quit politics, the last voice preaching for an immediate settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians has also disappeared. Obviously, this is one of the achievements of the Right, which succeeded in diverting attention from the issue that should be the most important one in the upcoming elections.

The temporary quiet in the Palestinian territories, as well as the continued covert cooperation between the IDF and the Palestinian security forces, support the belief that the more we wait, the better Israel’s situation becomes. This is especially true with regard to the ongoing construction in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. However, the clock continues to tick and the conflict with the Palestinians will erupt sooner or later if the deadlock continues. Recognizing the destructive consequences of the current stalemate between the Israelis and the Palestinians is the first step toward a historic reconciliation between the two peoples, and this is where the election campaign may play a key role.

Dealing with the pressing Palestinian issue is critical for two reasons: the more urgent one is that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is 83-years-old and unhealthy. The fact that he has been consistently opposed to the use of violence, and was involved in the Oslo Accords and adhered to them, is indicative of his thinking and policy. He has made a few mistakes, such as rejecting (or not accepting) Olmert’s proposals in late 2008, and by making some hasty statements – especially after Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. However, all in all he has been the most moderate of all Palestinian leaders. Abbas has not appointed a successor, and the struggle over the Palestinian leadership may be ugly and violent, which may also hinder negotiations.

The second reason relates to the demographics in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza – where the number of Palestinians is almost equal to the number of Jews. This process leads to one state, which is not Jewish or democratic.

It may be argued that negotiating with the Palestinians now is risky in light of the division between Fatah and Hamas, which seems unbridgeable. However, the Oslo Accords were signed with Arafat when he was very weak, and when his involvement in the Palestinian intifada was largely expunged following his support of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. A new Israeli government that recognizes Abbas’s conciliatory policy and rewards him will be able to embark on a peace process.

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the initiator of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, used Abbas to carry out his plan rather than turning him into a partner. As a result, Hamas could then portray the disengagement as a success of its own military struggle – just as Hezbollah did in the wake of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The Israeli mistake was not necessarily the withdrawal but rather its unilateral implementation, which prevented the moderate Palestinian camp from enjoying its dividends.

Israeli governments were not generous with Abbas, offering him only few gestures. The current Netanyahu government has not allowed Abbas even a shred of achievement, nor a retroactive recognition of the Palestinian construction in Kalkilya, which was supposed to expand the Palestinian Authority’s territory. This step was part of a larger secret plan, coordinated with several moderate Arab states and intended as a prelude to Israeli-Arab negotiations along with a series of gestures from the Arab side. But Netanyahu has succumbed to pressure from the hard-liners in his government. It has become his pattern of behavior: advancing his agenda behind the scenes while withdrawing in public.

Netanyahu and his right-wing partners have found a way to evade the Palestinian issue by appealing to pragmatic Arab countries, which fear Iran and terrorism and therefore see Israel as a partner in this joint struggle. Although these Arab countries are not particularly interested in the Palestinian issue, as long as Israel does not make steps toward resolving the conflict, it will not be possible to have overt relations with them, and the relations will remain largely hidden.

Arab leaders have enough problems at home, and the risk embedded in making relations with Israel official – without obtaining a political gain that will serve them internally – is too high. However, according to the 2018 Israeli Foreign Policy Index of the Mitvim Institute, 54 percent of Jewish Israelis think that the Arab countries will normalize their relations with Israel even without the Palestinians, because Netanyahu convinced them it is possible. Alas, this is wishful thinking. This is not to negate the possibility of short-term gains – similar to the one Netanyahu made when visiting Oman – but this does not change the situation in a meaningful way.

Therefore, the upcoming elections are an opportunity to bring the Palestinian issue back to the center of the national agenda, with the understanding that significant progress toward a solution is also a significant step forward in solving the fundamental problems of the State of Israel. Moreover, a new Israeli initiative by a new government will be received with enthusiasm by the US and the EU, and will improve Israel’s international standing.

Prof. Elie Podeh is a Board Member at the Mitvim Institute. He teaches Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Who Remembers the Palestinian Issue? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

In effect, the government that is now dispersing is the second one Hamdallah has led. He was first appointed prime minister in 2013 and started his second term in 2015 after Abbas picked him to lead the Fatah-Hamas unity government. That government was comprised of technocrats and appointed not only to govern but also to prepare the groundwork for a Palestinian legislative election and to institute reforms that would allow the Palestinian political system to reunite.

The PA is managed as a presidential republic, in which the president holds most of the power and the government is basically an executive body that does what the president wants. Dismissing the government is one of the tools the president can use to send a message to the people, handle criticism from home or coordinate things ahead of actions required to make political change.

Abbas chose to appoint a new government as a way of dealing with political challenges at home and responding to current events in Palestinian society. The race for succession between various Fatah officials is creating considerable tension. One concern all senior officials in the movement share is that Hamdallah is coalescing political and popular power as prime minister and could become a serious rival in the battle to succeed Abbas. Even though Hamdallah, a former president of the al-Najah University in Nablus, is identified with the Fatah, he holds no official role in the movement. So paradoxically, the Fatah leadership took care to portray him as a political player who isn’t really one of them.

The Fatah succession race is playing out alongside the more than decade long struggle between Fatah and Hamas for control of the PA’s political system. As head of the unity government, Hamdallah is now having to pay a high political price for the decision by Abbas and the top Fatah echelon to put a cork in efforts to reconcile the two rival Palestinian factions. The main reason Abbas dismissed the government – which will nevertheless still exist and hold ministerial responsibility for forming a new government – is his need to prepare the groundwork for legislative and presidential elections. These elections are slated to be held in the West Bank only, and not in Gaza, and will effectively make the division between Fatah and Hamas into a permanent fact.

Shoving a serving prime minister aside is another signal from Abbas that he is still powerful. Abbas wants to lay down the outline for Palestinian policy in the future and ensure that Fatah stays in power after Gaza was lost on his watch. Despite the concentrated political power he has demonstrated in recent years, which sometimes took the form of limiting free speech, Abbas has decided – along with dismissing the Hamdallah government – to freeze a bill that would establish a Palestinian social security institution. That bill sparked an outcry in many sectors of Palestinian society, as people feared that money would be deducted from their salaries and put into the PA’s accounts.

Until a new PA government is appointed, Abbas and the rest of the Fatah leadership have some time to get a sense of how the public is responding to their political moves. The next PA prime minister will need to deal with less public backing for the Fatah government. The new Palestinian government will also face challenges in building a Palestinian state, given the lack of faith between the PA and the US administration; the lack of a peace plan; and a total freeze in negotiations between the PA and Israel.

Dr. Ido Zelkovitz is a Policy Fellow at the Mitvim Institute and Head of Middle East Studies at the Yezreel Valley College.

(originally published in Yisrael Hayom)

הפוסט Where Are Palestinian Politics Headed? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Despite the convenient metaphor, Gaza is not a pressure cooker from which excess pressure can be released through a valve or lifting a lid. The explosive situation in Gaza cannot be resolved only by opening and closing the Erez border crossing, or by occasional Israeli decisions to expand Gaza’s fishing area to nine nautical miles. Perhaps many would like to see Gaza disappear, sinking into the depths of oblivion. Nobody seems to like Gaza, no one wants Gaza. Netanyahu himself recently said that if Gaza could be handed over to anyone, he might have supported its reoccupation. Rumor has it, that Gazans claim that even God does not like Gaza. However, Gaza is here to stay. And as much as it is being isolated and placed behind high fences and thick walls of repression, Gaza finds itself yet again in the heart of regional politics. Gaza is a regional issue and since any clash in Gaza might ignite the whole region, many regional players find themselves involved in Gaza, each having its own interests and considerations, not out of love for Gaza, but out of concern for itself.

The main protagonists in this drama are Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Israel and Egypt, who have different and at times conflicting interests in Gaza. Such a situation poses difficulties in dealing with the humanitarian crisis and achieving stability and security. Ostensibly, there is not much to expect from other foreign actors involved in Gaza. Any such foreign actor – Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the UN, the EU, and the US – uses Gaza to advance domestic and regional interests. Erdoğan uses the situation in Gaza to provoke Israel and make political gains at home while positioning himself as an important leader in the Muslim world. Qatar is using its support of Gaza to gain advantage in the Gulf and position itself in the region. For the part of the EU and UN agencies, the situation in Gaza may really matter, but they do not have the political power to change reality (luckily and most recently, the UN was able to act as an effective mediator alongside Egypt and help prevent another round of violence). This is also the case regarding other actors.

However, even if they do not really care about Gaza, the fact that Gaza has become a usable political-public currency, is perhaps its greatest source of political power. The vested interests that foreign players have in Gaza, can be a good starting point for a change in reality. The main challenge, therefore, is to mobilize such actors to advance their interest in Gaza while improving the quality of life for Gazans. One important steps to be taken to this effect is to shift from a donor model to an investment model. The donor model, such as the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) that meets every year since 1993, or ad-hoc conferences that gather to discuss the rehabilitation of Gaza following yet another round of fighting, provides Gaza with only so much money, while donors have almost no responsibility for the effective use of their money. On the other hand, designing an investment mechanism requires investors to be involved in managing their funds. The investment model leads to increased involvement and increased interest in stability, and creates favorable conditions to support each investment. It is not a magic solution, just another tool, but an important one. The more players invest in Gaza, the greater the chances that Gaza will not sink.

Dr. Roee Kibrik is Director of Research at the Mitvim Institute.

(originally published in Ynetnews)

הפוסט A Better Way for the International Community to Benefit the People of Gaza הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The consequences of the “Arab Shaking” have yet to end. Each state that experienced these “winds of change”, withstands the emerging regional and international reality differently, based on the way it defines its current position. Egypt under a-Sisi, and in the post-Mursi era, has re-defined its aims and mode of action. The newly created Egyptian national security outlook prioritized two main objectives: to restore (both domestic and regional) security and to strengthen the Egyptian economy.

Regarding the security objective, as soon as Egypt defined “terrorism” (both domestic and international) as its biggest threat, it made sure to label the Muslin Brotherhood movement a terror organization and carried out severe measures against its members. Furthermore, the Egyptian authorities have occasionally accused the Hamas of carrying out terror attacks in cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood and intermittently with ISIS. No wonder that every now and then news surrounding military cooperation between Egypt and Israel battling ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula appear in the media.

In addition to this, the Iranian policy in the Middle East is perceived by Egypt as a threat (and so by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates). Both Turkey and Qatar are considered Egypt’s consistent and uncompromising rivals, due to their support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and based on their membership in the Middle Eastern axis opposing Egypt. A new reality has evolved that we have never seen before, in which the regional interests of Israel and Egypt, as well as those of other Arab states, have intertwined.

The long-standing Egyptian policy that strives to resolve the Palestinian issue relies, even to this day, on its ability to engage in what is happening in the Gaza strip. Egypt wishes to promote steps of reconciliation within the Palestinian wing itself (between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority), and to serve as a mediator between the Palestinians as well as between the Palestinians and Israel. All actors in this equation view Egypt as a trustworthy and influential actor. In this way, Egypt acts as the most significant mediator that negotiates understandings between Israel and Hamas, and that supports Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Egypt is expected to continue playing such a role in the future as well.

The meeting between Israel and Egypt’s leaders that took place during the 2018 UN General Assembly, was not the first meeting between Netanyahu and a-Sisi this past year. Among the issues discussed by the two leaders were the situation in Gaza, the Palestinian issue, security matters, regional developments and bilateral issues. The meeting reflected rather accurately the cooperative relations between the two countries over the past four years.

The second objective put forward by the Egyptian leadership has been to stabilize the economy. A strong sense of security and a steady economy may turn Egypt into a source for regional stability. This leads Egypt to be increasingly interested in promoting economic and trade cooperation with Israel. Egypt hold an important strategic location, on the maritime route from the Indian ocean through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, and toward the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, the interest in Egypt’s stabilization is not limited to regional actors alone, but is also eminent for the US, the EU, Russia, India, and China. This generates international interest in supporting Israeli-Egyptian cooperation as a keystone for enhancing regional stability.

Broader cooperation between Israel and Egypt in the security and-political spheres may stimulate their economic relations and therefore work for the benefit of both countries. Nevertheless, there is still a significant gap between the high level of strategic cooperation between Israel and Egypt, and their much lower level of civil cooperation. The number of Israelis touring Egypt is stable but rather low. Trade between the countries is taking place but to a limited extent, and the same is true regarding the field of agriculture, where there is far greater potential for cooperation than what is taking place today (at least in comparison to cooperation in the 1990’s). In addition to that, there is potential for Egypt to utilize technologies such as solar energy and water desalination, areas of which are widely known as Israel’s field of expertise, both as a manufacturer and as an implementer.

The field of energy, and in particular the production and marketing of natural gas, plays a central role in the Israeli-Egyptian economic and trade cooperation. Moreover, both countries can cooperate in traditional industry fields, in unique qualified industrial zones (QIZ, a three-way agreement that allows the export of free trade Egyptian goods to the US, in the condition they hold a certain percent of Israeli components), in agriculture, tourism and more. Such cooperation can promote both Israel’s and Egypt’s economies, and have a positive economic impact on the broader region.

The announcement made by the Israeli company “Delek Drilling” that it will purchase (together with the Noble Energy and East Gas companies) the Egyptian EMG company is a step towards achieving these goals. The natural gas pipeline owned by EMG connects Israel and Egypt, and will deliver natural gas from the “Tamar” and “Leviathan” reservoirs to Egypt. This is considered to be a milestone in transforming Egypt into a regional energy hub, as a major importer and as an exporter based on its liquefying gas facilities. According to Israel’s Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz, the rehabilitation of the Israeli-Egyptian natural gas pipeline, along with the construction of a Jordanian-Israeli pipeline, creates a regional foundation between the “peace countries”. It is rare to have a joint infrastructure project with geo-political significance take shape between Israel and its neighbors.

The positive nature of Israel-Egypt ties in recent years, together with evolving regional developments in the Middle East, Egypt’s role in mediating between Israel and the Palestinians, and the steps taken by Egypt to thaw the “cold” peace with Israel, may all point to the existence of an opportunity for further advancement in ties between two strategic partners in the region – Egypt and Israel.

Dr. Haim Koren, a task-team member at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, served as the Israeli Ambassador to Egypt between the years 2014 and 2016. This article is based on a research on Israel-Egypt relations, written as part of Mitvim Institute’s project on the unfulfilled potential of Israel’s relations with Arab countries.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Israel and Egypt: A Strategic Axis in the Regional Landscape? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

It is difficult to follow the rapid developments and to understand the connection, if there is any, between the various developments taking place throughout the Middle East and Africa. What we are witnessing is the fruition of seeds sown more than a decade ago, when prime minister Ariel Sharon instructed Mossad chief Meir Dagan to seek ways to strengthen ties with Sunni Arab states that did not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The goal was to create a joint front against Shi’ite Iran that seeks to develop nuclear weapons. The American invasion of Iraq in April 2003, which overthrew Saddam Hussein and brought a new Shi’ite regime to power, changed the balance of power in favor of Iran and against the Gulf states.

The regional change was particularly noticeable during the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, when the Sunni Arab states in the Gulf, Jordan and Egypt verbally attacked the Shi’ite Iranian-led Hezbollah organization. Thus, these countries informally stood by Israel during that war. The ties the Mossad started weaving back then continued during the term of prime minister Ehud Olmert who, according to foreign sources, met a senior Saudi official in Jordan in 2006. WikiLeaks documents dating from 2008-2009 show that Mossad and Foreign Ministry officials met with senior officials from the Gulf states, such as Oman and Bahrain, and possibly from other countries too.

The Arab Spring revolutions that broke out in December 2010 in Tunisia brought about the overthrow of regimes and triggered civil wars. They created chaos in an area that was wellserving the supporters of radical Islam, such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. Once the regime in Egypt was stabilized in June 2013, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi did not hesitate to seek Israel’s assistance in his war against terrorism in Sinai, whether by obtaining permission to increase the Egyptian military force in Sinai, by exchanging intelligence information, or by using Israeli drones. The Jordanian regime, which survived the turmoil, was also assisted by Israel in various ways to confront internal and external threats. The nuclear agreement with Iran, signed during Obama’s presidency (in July 2015) by the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, gave further impetus to the informal alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab states. All the countries threatened by Iran found themselves in the same boat with Israel, which turned out to be the one representing their interests around the world, including in the US Congress.

The beginning of the Trump administration in January 2017 marked a significant policy change toward Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and gave a tailwind to the unwritten alliance that had developed between Israel and the Sunni Arab states since the mid-2000s. Moreover, the positive attitude towards Netanyahu in Washington, improved Israel’s prestige in many capitals in the region.

One of the main reasons for Israel’s success in creating alliances in the region – starting with the Kurds, through the periphery alliance with Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia in the 1960s – was its ability to use the influence of the Jewish lobby. Even though using this channel was not always successful, Israel’s image as having political clout in the US achieved its goal. We can safely assume that this consideration played an important role in the decision of Oman, Chad and Sudan to improve ties with Israel. Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, for example, has been trying for years to remove his country from the list of countries supporting terrorism, and to this end has disengaged from Iran and sent troops to help the Saudis in Yemen. Already in 2016, there were first reports that Israel was lobbying the US and European countries to help the regime in Sudan.

The outcome of these developments was the creation of an opportunity to maintain clandestine contacts, and more recently, even overt, with the Sunni Arab states. Three reasons can explain the current timing: First, most Arab countries are preoccupied with domestic problems that require Israeli security and intelligence assistance or help with reaching out to the US. Second, the Arab states realize that the efforts to resolve the IsraeliPalestinian conflict are stalled. In other words, not only the Israelis, who are led by an extreme right-wing government, do not show any will to promote peace. The Palestinians, who are seeing the end of Mahmoud Abbas’ rule and the cleavage between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, do not want – nor can – to advance a political process. This understanding made everyone realize that whatever the opportunities currently are, they should be exhausted.

Finally, the domino effect may also have played a role. Just as the revolution in Tunisia created a ripple effect in other Arab countries, the courage of one Arab leader to take action encouraged others to follow suit. In other words, when the Arab public is preoccupied with mundane problems, they may be less inclined to deal with breaking the taboo on overt relations with Israel. However, everyone – politicians on the Arab side and academics on both sides of the divide – agree that the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Arab states will have to wait for a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians, or at least for significant progress towards its resolution. It is possible that this logic is less valid for Muslim countries in Africa and Asia, but only time will tell. The fact that Saudi Arabia recently denied a visa to Israeli chess players – resulting in the transfer of the tournament to Russia – is an indication of the difficulties of normalizing relations overtly.

Ironically and paradoxically, the Arab Spring that led to chaos in the Arab world led to a spring in Israel’s relations with Arab and Muslim countries. It should be emphasized, however, that this positive development was not the result of a coherent policy of Netanyahu’s government, but rather of regional and global processes that the government neither controls nor influences. Netanyahu can boast that he achieved all this without dismantling the settlements or giving up Israeli land, but in fact, he was simply in the right place at the right time to rake in political and diplomatic capital.

Prof. Elie Podeh is a Board Member at the Mitvim Institute. He teaches at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The Spring of Israel’s Relations with its Arab Neighbors הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Over the past year, and since publishing its updated political document in March 2017, the Hamas movement admitted wholeheartedly that its political endeavor has not succeeded: its attempt to govern the Gaza Strip failed. After more than a year of division, Hamas is willing to unconditionally pass civil control of the Gaza Strip to Mahmoud Abbas and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. However, Abbas refuses to accept only civil authority over the Strip and in fact declared an uncompromising, all-out war on Hamas.

In order to understand the intensity of Abbas’ battle against Hamas, we must go back to the years 2006-2007, to the moment at which Abbas lost the Gaza Strip, first at the ballot box and later at the end of the barrel of a gun. In fact, since he was elected as the President of the Palestinian Authority in 2005, Abbas has not set foot in the Gaza Strip. Indeed, losing control of it is part of his legacy.

In contrast to Yasser Arafat, who had roots in Gaza and spoke like one of the people, Abbas was born in Tzfat, from where his family fled to Syria, and has no special emotional connection to the Strip. Throughout his period in office, he has focused on the project of building the Palestinian State in the West Bank and the diplomatic battle against the State of Israel, neglecting the Gaza Strip. He abandoned the people of Gaza to the hands of Hamas and the economic mercies of the international community and Gulf states, trusting them to add patch after patch to cover the desolation and wretchedness of the Gaza Strip.

After three rounds of warfare, with the Gaza Strip tired and beaten, Abbas has still not changed his strategic approach towards it. Since 2014, not only has the leadership of the Palestinian Authority failed to stretch out its hand to support the people of the Strip economically but, moreover, has imposed a long series of economic sanctions which affect the civilians. These include failure to pay for fuel sent to the Strip, thus increasing civilian pressure on Hamas and proving to the residents of the Strip that the Islamist movement cannot provide for their most basic needs.

Following Abbas’ clear political failure to advance the vision of a Palestinian state, the political struggle against Hamas has become more significant. Hamas of 2018 is looking to the future, and its leadership deems itself the proper heir to the leadership of the Palestinian national movement. Abbas, who lost the Gaza Strip, is not interested in losing the political leadership and the historical status of the Fatah movement within the PLO.

The bloody battles since summer 2007 are etched into the memories of Fatah members; the decade-long isolation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank has increased the estrangement between the sides; Abbas’ despair at the political process, alongside the suspicion and ideological and political disgust he feels towards Hamas, has led him to radicalize his position, making it difficult to reconcile the dialogue between the two sides.

Abbas’ main demand from Hamas to enable an advance towards reconciliation is that the movement dismantle its military wing. Hamas without Jihad, Hamas without arms, will lose not only its ideological identity but also its political bargaining chips. Understanding that Hamas will not relinquish its weapons, Abbas’ only option is to continue putting economic pressure on the movement’s rule in the Gaza Strip. He hopes that these steps will lead to mass protests against Hamas, enabling him to return to the Strip as victor.

The continued economic decline and the intensification of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip heighten the tension between Hamas and Israel. Hamas must direct its anger and frustration outside, away from itself. Military conflict between Hamas and Israel can result in the dismantlement of Hamas’ weapons following an Israeli military campaign. In the past, the Palestinian Authority ruled out this option, but it seems that now, from Abbas’ perspective, any path that can eventually lead to a unification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under his control is deemed suitable. Indeed, a unified control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will increase the Palestinian Authority’s prestige and allow it to exert greater pressure on the State of Israel in the future, should the peace process between the two sides resume.

Dr. Ido Zelkovitz is a Policy Fellow at the Mitvim Institute and Head of Middle East Studies at the Yezreel Valley College.

הפוסט Mahmoud Abbas’ Interest is to Topple Hamas הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The lack of open and direct dialogue between Israel and Hamas necessitates international mediation. While neither Israel nor Hamas are interested in a violent confrontation, such a confrontation can occur at any given moment. The continued hostility between them, alongside a severe humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the inability of Hamas to deliver the economic and political conditions required to end this crisis, maintain prospects for violent outbreaks. The use of violence as a political tool helps Hamas raise the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on the regional agenda, as a means of preserving its status as the ruling entity in the Gaza Strip.

Given that the current state of affairs continues, international mediation initiatives towards a ceasefire in Gaza are doomed to fail. Without an agreement between Israel and Hamas, and without the backing and active involvement of the Palestinian Authority, there is no real prospect to improve living conditions in the Gaza Strip.

In light of Israel’s decision to refrain from an all-out military attack to defeat Hamas, both sides are looking for interim solutions to the challenges posed by Gaza. The Palestinian Authority, which sees itself as the legitimate sovereign of the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which fears a spillover of violence that will undermine stability along the Sinai-Gaza border, are also parties to this charged relationship.

Due to Palestinian Authority’s historical semi-state status and to the PLO’s role as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Egypt cannot abrogate Mahmoud Abbas’ demands and ignore the Palestinian Authority’s needs while searching for a solution to Gaza. Abbas sees the recent indirect dialogue between Israel and Hamas as undermining the status of the PLO. The international mediation, led by the UN envoy and some Arab states, grants Hamas with increased political legitimacy, and Abbas, who has already lost control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, cannot afford a situation whereby the PLO’s political status is further undermined.

Attempts by Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire agreement that does not involve the Palestinian Authority raise concerns among the PLO and Fatah leaderships. The PLO is therefore making efforts to thwart any initiative that does not give it a central role in the reconstruction of Gaza. This was said quite overtly during the recent PLO Central Council meeting in Ramallah (15-17 August 2018). It has also become a major source of contention in the intra-Palestinian reconciliation attempts.

The inability of Hamas and Fatah to unify the Palestinian political system also makes it difficult to reach a regional arrangement in Gaza. The disputes among the Palestinian movements obstruct efforts by the donor countries to extend assistance, since there is no agreed upon mechanism for transferring and managing the funds.

A ceasefire arrangement could serve as a temporary solution, but one that will continue to inflame the tensions between Fatah and Hamas, and between Israel and Hamas. Since Israel’s Cast Lead operation in Gaza in the summer of 2014, there have been cycles of violent confrontations between Israel and Hamas, that did not evolve to a comprehensive military conflict. The current year has seen another escalation, which was triggered by the Gazans’ “Return Campaign”, which included marches towards the border fence as well as arson attempts via kites.

These actions and the casualties involved were supposed to generate support of Hamas’ objectives in the Arab world and beyond. This campaign, however, failed. The marches led to escalation and to an increase in Palestinian fatalities, but did not generate the media response and political pressure on Israel that Hamas hoped for, not even on the part of Arab countries. The lack of political achievements of such a popular struggle strengthened Hamas’ military wing, at the expense of the movement’s political wing.

Efforts to reach a ceasefire are intended to produce a glimmer of hope for the residents of Gaza, but the political obstacles, primarily the split between Hamas and Fatah, reduce the chances of success. Moreover, Israel currently sees the developments in Syria (especially the Iranian presence there) as a more urgent challenge to deal with than that of Gaza. But leaving Gaza behind only raises the bar of violence there. It leads to renewed escalation and riots with the IDF along the border, with Hamas closely monitoring their intensity.

As long as the Fatah-Hamas rift remains unresolved, international mediation regarding Gaza can produce only temporary solutions. The socio-economic problems of the Gaza Strip and the division of power within Palestinian society will continue to create difficulties and to challenge the status quo. To counter this, permanent solutions are needed, and these can only be achieved under international auspices and with US support.

However, the current lack of trust between the PLO and the US administration prevents this. Trump’s decision to cut funding to UNRWA reflected once again that Gaza is not just an internal Palestinian issue. It is turning from a regional problem to a complex international one, in which there is a clash between American interests and those of other major countries.

While US President Trump aspires – unsuccessfully for the time being – to lead peace efforts under his own terms, the EU and other donor countries are looking for alternative short-term solutions that will significantly ease living conditions in Gaza. Such solutions, despite their importance, are not likely to solve the intra-Palestinian divide nor to produce a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The road to an effective solution must include constructive US involvement that backs both sides to the conflict, and not just Israel. This is necessary for Israelis to feel that their security interests are taken care of, for the Palestinians to restore trust in the US, and for the US to once again be able to play the role of an accepted mediator.

Dr. Ido Zelkovitz is a Policy Fellow at the Mitvim Institute and Head of Middle East Studies at the Yezreel Valley College.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The Quest for a Long-Term Ceasefire in the Gaza Strip הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

At the outset, it is important to highlight the fact that the Oslo Agreement is not all about failure. It has one major, significant success: the mutual recognition of both sides. In fact, the Palestinians had already recognized Israel indirectly in November 1988, when they accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242 and condemned the use of terrorism. The Shamir government was unwilling to recognize the change in the Palestinian position, and the law that prohibited meetings between Israelis and Palestinians, promulgated in 1985, remained in force until late 1992. This mutual recognition enabled the warring parties to humanize the other and commence negotiations. Moreover, the agreement enabled the establishment of an embryonic Palestinian entity (the Palestinian Authority), which was supposed to develop within five years – though it was not stated officially – into a sovereign state. Ironically, the basic logic of the Oslo process – its gradualism, which was meant to build trust between the parties – was also its major flaw: it allowed the opposition forces on both sides to sabotage the agreement.

In our historical perspective, the Oslo Agreement looks like a failure. The reasons for that failure lie on both sides.

The Israeli party is to be blamed for three failures: (1) For not stopping the building of new settlements in the occupied territories. On the eve of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, there were fewer than 120,000 settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; by the end of 2016, the number had risen to 400,000 (not including East Jerusalem). This shows – in the Palestinian view – that Israel has never been sincere about implementing the agreement; (2) Israel has never indicated the end result, which is the building of an independent Palestinian state; (3) Israel – in spite of its military strength – has never been generous toward the Palestinians during the negotiations. Instead of treating the Palestinians with respect and honor, it continued humiliating and insulting them. After all, Israel received what it mostly desired – recognition – upfront, while the Palestinians’ most wanted demands – a state with recognized boundaries, control of East Jerusalem and resolution of the refugee problem – remained all unfulfilled.

The Palestinians, for their part, failed as well, on at least three fronts: (1) By not curbing the attacks of Hamas terrorists. It is debatable whether Arafat was capable of confronting Hamas militarily, but it is clear that he did not do his utmost to prevent these suicide attacks; (2) The Palestinian media, including the educational system, continued to delegitimize the Israeli side. This negative media campaign solidified the negative image of Israelis in Palestinian eyes and convinced Israelis that the Palestinians have not really changed their position toward them; (3) The Palestinians have never internalized that in spite of Israel’s military superiority, its psychological psyche needs continued assurance. Acknowledgment of Israel as a Jewish state would not be harmful to the Palestinians; in many ways it only reaffirms what had been already declared in the UN 1947 partition plan.

In spite of all these failures, the Oslo Agreement could have worked had Prime Minister Rabin not been assassinated in November 1995. History cannot tell us what could have occurred if Rabin had not been shot, yet in my research on missed opportunities in the ArabIsraeli conflict I reached the conclusion that Rabin – with his military background and political acumen – could have made the difference. It is important also to note that Rabin simultaneously negotiated with the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad; signing an agreement with him would have laid enormous pressure on Arafat to proceed as well.

We will never know whether Rabin could have succeeded, but his assassination removed from the field a major player who could have made a difference. This act was tantamount to the assassination of the Oslo track. The episode demonstrates that in spite of the importance of historical processes, the role of leaders in history is still paramount. This only accentuates the regretful conclusion that lack of leadership – on both sides of the conflict – is a major reason for the conflict’s endurance.

Prof. Elie Podeh is a Board Member at the Mitvim Institute. He teaches at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The Oslo Agreement was Assassinated with Rabin הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The Arab Spring that erupted in late 2010 brought revolution and regime change to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen; civil war to Syria, Libya and Yemen; and widespread demonstrations to Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco. Yet, these events did not affect – at least until now – the territorial integrity of those states. The reality is that these boundaries are more stable than many people anticipated – a product of international norms, local state identities and the elite’s interests. Some changes may still be foreseen in Libya and Yemen, yet the overall picture is of continuing stability despite these upheavals.

No less stable were the authoritarian regimes, some demonstrating even harsher methods of control than before. Sisi’s Egypt is a case in point. The one exception was Tunisia, which succeeded in transforming its authoritarian regime into a democracy. Indeed, according to the ranks of Freedom House, Tunisia is the only Arab country that was rated as “free,” with a score that was not far from Israel’s (70 in comparison to 79). Only four Arab states were considered “partly free” – Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait (in that order), while all the rest were rated “not free.”

However, most Arab countries remained fragile, on the verge of collapse. Some are virtually failed states. According to the Fragile States Index of the Fund of Peace, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia are among the 10 most fragile of the world’s 178 states. Fragility stems not only from constant and embittered civil wars but from structural, economic and social problems; malfunctioning governments and bureaucracies; and spiraling population growth.

The only improvement in the last year occurred in Iraq, which rose from four in 2006 to 11 in 2018. Yet, the picture is not as bleak in the Arabian Gulf, where all Gulf Cooperation Council countries were said to be stable with little poverty, in contrast to the relative high percentage of poverty in Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Morocco and other Arab countries.

Superpower intervention in the Middle East has not dramatically changed either. Putin’s Russia is still the major foreign power in Syrian, trying to project power in other states through diplomacy and arm sales. Neither has the US withdrawn from the Middle East, yet its role is secondary. It is yet to be seen whether President Donald Trump’s bold decisions – pulling out of the nuclear deal, imposing sanctions on Iran and Turkey, and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – will have positive effects. The unpredictability of US policy is generally detrimental to the region’s stability.

Iran and Turkey continue to meddle in the region’s affairs. Iran continues to project power with the help of its proxies – Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iranian forces in Iraq. Turkey is directly involved in the Syrian crisis, in an effort to prevent the emergence of an independent or autonomous Kurdish entity by creating a security zone on the Turkish-Syrian border. Yet, both Iran and Turkey are now entangled in domestic economic crises of their own, which may curtail their ability to project power beyond their borders anytime soon.

The emergence of non-Arab regional powers accentuates the fact that the traditional Arab powers – Egypt, Iraq and Syria – no longer play a key role in regional politics. This is a result of domestic challenges that continue to hamper their ability to project power. Iraq’s role has been marginalized since the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), while Egypt’s and Syria’s power has declined since the Arab Spring. Egypt’s absence from the Arab world and its involvement in the crises along its borders (particularly in Gaza and along the Nile) attest to the severity of its domestic constraints. Saudi Arabia attempted to fill this vacuum, although its military adventure in Yemen, the economic pressure on Qatar and the diplomatic struggle in Syria have not yet yielded impressive results.

The Israeli-Palestinian sphere provides the best illustration of the (un)changing nature of the Middle East. Gaza continues to attract headlines with its humanitarian crises, often attributed to the Israeli and Egyptian siege. Egyptian mediation between Israel and Hamas in an attempt to reach a prolonged ceasefire (hudna) has been underway for some time and may bring some cessation of the violence, but will not change the basic animosity and mistrust that will continue to exist between Israelis and Palestinians as long as no comprehensive agreement is reached.

Trump’s “deal of the century” has not yet been released but it seems that his Jerusalem decision put the brakes on a future agreement unless he finds a way to compensate the Palestinians. Yet, any compensation will meet a strong Israeli outcry, which may impede further progress.

Israeli decision makers see the complex situation in the Middle East as serving their interests. As long as Iran, Shi’ism and terrorism pose a threat to Israel and to the major Arab Sunni countries, covert cooperation from those quarters will likely continue. Seen from Jerusalem, the stalemate in the peace process is a blessing, allowing Israel to further entrench its already strong hold in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Israeli leaders should, however, be reminded that as much as Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are a constant threat, it is the Palestinian problem that is the core of the conflict. Its resolution is the only way for normalizing Israel’s place in the Middle East.

Prof. Elie Podeh is a Board Member at the Mitvim Institute. He teaches at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Israel in an (Un)Changing Middle East הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

As the atmosphere on the Gaza border has been heating up in recent weeks, the humanitarian crisis requires an urgent response. This is a clear Israeli interest, since the situation in Gaza encourages violence that affects life in Israel proper, leads to international criticism of Israel and stands in contrast to Jewish and human values.

There are several plans that outline ways to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, including the construction of a port in the El Arish area of Egypt, the construction of infrastructure facilities on an artificial island off the coast of Gaza, the development of the gas field opposite the Gaza Strip in favor of vital electricity generation and desalination projects, and the construction of a marine port in Cyprus.

The Cyprus option was discussed again recently at the initiative of Defense Minister Lieberman during the tripartite meeting between the defense ministers of Israel, Greece and Cyprus on June 22 in Nicosia. The proposed outline includes the construction of a seaport in Cyprus (or, in effect, the allocation of a number of docks in an existing port), which will serve as a conduit for the transfer of aid to the Gaza Strip under Israeli security supervision. The idea is not new, and the Cypriot response is generally cautious, although mostly positive. In the past, they tried to mobilize the EU in order to provide a sponsorship (mainly political) for the initiative and presumably this is what they will try to do now.

Nicosia, on one hand, attaches great importance to the close relationship with Israel, and hence the need for serious consideration of the Israeli request, which puts Cyprus in a power position as a significant regional player. On the other hand, the Cypriots understand that the Palestinian Authority is not enthusiastic about the idea, as generally they are fearful, and rightly so, to meddle in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially in view of the split between Hamas and Palestinian Authority.

In Cyprus, as well as in the EU, there is great understanding of Israel’s security concerns and presumably of Israel’s future demand for tight and efficient control of the goods to be transferred from a Cypriot port to the Gaza Strip. The idea of the Cyprus port, which can be part of a successful Israeli policy in the eastern Mediterranean, has several requirements: 1) serious Israeli-Cypriot (and perhaps Greek) dialogue; 2) discussion and arrangement with Egypt; 3) an international political umbrella with the participation of the EU, the US, and possibly relevant Arab states (e.g., Saudi Arabia); 4) an internal Israeli campaign to mobilize public support for such a move, including the support of the defense administration, which frequently warns against a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The construction of a seaport for the Gaza Strip in Cyprus should be dissociated from the broader political process with the Palestinians; currently negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority do not seem feasible, therefore it should not be a precondition for advancing the initiative. However, there is a need to coordinate it with the Palestinian Authority, in order to neutralize any objection for such a move that could be seen as one that strengthens Hamas. There will also be a need for indirect coordination with Hamas (through the Egyptians) in order to ensure that conditions for a successful deal are in place.

The Israeli interest is to prevent a serious humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The return of the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip is not in sight, and therefore the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip is still the lesser of two evils in Israel’s view and certainly preferable to the takeover of a more radical Islamist groups.

Furthermore, Israel must initiate and even participate (including through a significant economic contribution) in such an extensive and ambitious effort to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip. A sort of “Marshall Plan” is needed for the Gaza Strip, one that will mobilize the Arab states and the international community to fundamentally change the situation in the Gaza Strip. Such a move would benefit everyone, including Israel, both politically and publicly. The latest round of violence in the Gaza Strip and the almost daily incidents illustrate the explosive potential of Israel-Hamas relations. Presumably, the current cease-fire will not last. The Cypriot initiative, however specific, can trigger a process that will help neutralize what appears to be an inevitable confrontation. Israel must seriously advance this initiative – the sooner the better.

Amb. (ret.) Michael Harari is a Policy Fellow at the Mitvim Institute. He held senior positions at the Foreign Ministry’s Policy Planning Division and Center for Policy Research.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט A Port in Cyprus Can Help Resolve Gaza’s Humanitarian Crisis הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

But Israel – or the “Little Satan” – plays no less central a role. Thanks to tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear aspirations and its proxy war involvement in Syria close to Israel’s northern border, for the first time, Iran and Israel’s relationship is showing signs of evolving from a cold war to a hot war.

Despite this, Iranians and Israelis are, surprisingly, communicating with one another more now than they have since the days of the Shah. And it is during this period of geopolitical uncertainty that civil society actors on both sides should buck the trend and encourage and participate in a new narrative of understanding and goodwill.

Every year, at the state ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draws parallels between the murderous plans of the Nazis and the inflammatory rhetoric of the Islamic Republic. And like their premier, most Israelis see Iran as an existential threat.

Iran’s decades-long propagation of Holocaust denial, as well as arming of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, reinforces this ingrained perception. When Iran test fires ballistic missiles decorated with Hebrew writing that calls for Israel’s destruction, it reaffirms popular opinion on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. According to a poll conducted in early May, 44 percent of Israelis support a unilateral strike in order to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The prospects of military confrontation between Israel and Iran have increased over Syria. Israel established two red lines on Iran’s entrenchment and transfers of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah, and has responded to Iranian disregard for these red lines with a series of airstrikes on Iranian facilities in Syria. But Israel does not seek an expansion of this conflict, and is using two soft-power tactics in the hopes of forcing Iran’s hand.

The first tactic is diplomacy with Russia. While successfully lobbying the Trump administration to walk away from the JCPOA and reinstitute economic sanctions on Iran, Netanyahu has simultaneously prioritized his relationship with President Vladimir Putin.

Israel doesn’t have much choice. After Russia installed its S-300 air defense systems in Syria, Israel was compelled to develop a de-conflicting mechanism so that its planes could continue to overfly Syrian airspace without interfering with Moscow’s interests. Negotiations between Jerusalem and the Kremlin over an Iranian withdrawal from southern Syria are ongoing and according to reports, received a boost during Trump and Putin’s Helsinki summit and other recent high-level meetings.

The second Israeli strategy – and one that turns more heads – is a direct courtship of the Iranian people. In a series of videos published on YouTube aimed at the Iranian public, Netanyahu describes the travails of the imaginary 15-year old Iranian teen girl Fatehmeh; he longs for the day when Israeli and Iranian national soccer teams can compete against one another, asks Iranians to consider using Israeli agricultural technology to minimize the effects of drought, and congratulates Iranian protesters for questioning the allocution of state funds to military campaigns in the Middle East.

Israel may be executing this new approach in tandem with the U.S., which over the last year has frequently engaged Iranians and the Iranian government with different messages. Israel’s government seems to have accepted the notion that it can pressure Tehran’s ruling class by addressing the Iranian public. The game plan is simple: force the regime to justify its war-mongering policies to its own people, and force Iranians to ask what price they are willing to pay in order to pursue this ideological end-goal, to query whether the call for the destruction of Israel resonates beyond the Iranian leadership and Revolutionary Guards cadre.

No Israeli leader has ever adopted this approach before, and Netanyahu knows full well that he is touching a nerve. The timing is no coincidence. Not only is Tehran under international pressure to rethink its regional agenda, but, domestically, anger over the regime’s disconnected foreign and economic policies is also growing. Slogans such as “Leave Palestine be, think about us [Iran]” and “Palestine, Syria are reasons for our misery” are now commonly used in protests taking place across Iran.

Netanyahu’s message is accurate, but there could not be a worse messenger. Rather than ceding the platform to Netanyahu – an unpopular figure in Iran – Israelis must seize this opportunity and develop their own dialogue with the Iranian people. Similarly, Iranians need to be ready to respond to their Israeli counterparts, and engage in a serious conversation about their vision for the future.

Creating successful mechanisms for Israeli-Iranian dialogue was the central question raised by a group of U.S.-based Israeli and Iranian policy analysts and scholars (including the authors of this piece) in Washington, D.C. in late 2017. While participants agreed that Israeli and Iranian officials would not be conducting direct negotiations to reduce bilateral tensions anytime soon, many felt that the Iran nuclear deal, to which at the time the U.S. was still a signatory, presented an opening for some limited people-to-people dialogue, especially if executed in coordination with Israeli and Iranian diaspora communities. Despite Trump’s withdrawal from the deal, the discussion about how this people-to-people dialogue might develop is as relevant as ever.

Iranians at the meetings explained that, while their countrymen are protesting their government’s adventurism abroad, this should not lead Israelis to assume that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments in Iran are merely skin-deep. Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians over the last decades have strengthened negative Iranian attitudes towards the Jewish state. Moderate voices in Iran who recognize that hostility towards Israel does not serve their country’s interests do exist, however they lack clear incentives to advocate for a moderate approach.

Emphasizing cultural bonds between the two peoples won’t bridge political differences between the two governments, but they deserve more attention. As our meetings revealed, there are no shortage of stories from older generations who recall the once warm relationship between Tehran and Jerusalem. In a similar vein, the 2015 Israeli film “Baba Joon” was well-received by Iranian audiences because of its touching depiction of how an immigrant family from Iran retained their Persian identity despite relocating to Israel. Unsurprisingly, many Persian Israelis root for “Team Melli” during the World Cup.

A similar emphasis should be placed on social media initiatives. The 2012 “Israel Loves Iran” and corresponding “Iran Loves Israel” campaigns attracted the support of thousands to an anti-war message and revealed how many Israelis and Iranians refuse to accept their respective government’s worldview. These campaigns were particularly successful in targeting younger audiences, and breaking taboos – particularly in Iran, where until several years ago the media would never refer to Israel by name.

Above all, Israelis and Iranians need to be realistic about what a military conflict would mean and the role their governments play in perpetuating this antagonism. So long as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is in charge, an Iranian U-turn on Israel isn’t in the cards. And it is even less likely that Iran will halt its support for other regional actors, such as Hezbollah, in the years to come. Top-down changes within Israel should not be anticipated either. Rather than wait for political elites to make rational choices, Israeli and Iranian citizens must be the ones to engage one another in dialogue, voice their concerns to their respective leaders, and explore every alternative to war.

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA damaged the ability of third parties to effectively deescalate tensions between Israel and Iran. Russian efforts to establish a buffer zone in Syria should be applauded, but the results may only serve a stopgap before the next chapter of hostilities. Despite this pessimism, the channels of communication have never been more accessible. People-to-people initiatives may not be able to reverse the narrative of conflict that pervades the Israeli-Iranian relationship, but it may thwart a descent into chaos.

Gabriel Mitchell is policy fellow at the Mitvim Institute for Regional Foreign Policies and a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech. Alex Vatanka is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute.

(originally published in Haaretz)

הפוסט Netanyahu Is Actively Courting the Iranian People, but There Could Not Be a Worse Messenger הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

On May 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of two foreign leaders to accompany Russian President Vladimir Putin to a V-Day parade viewing in Moscow. Netanyahu’s role in the event was a strong public signal of the intimacy between Jerusalem and Moscow. After all, the other foreign leader to visit with Putin that day was President Aleksandar Vučić of Serbia. The Serbian president represents a country that has had – according to President Putin – diplomatic relations with Russia for 180 years, and shares common political, cultural, and even familial bonds with Russia dating to the thirteenth century. High-level exchanges continued after the visit. On May 30, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke on the phone with President Putin regarding the Iranian presence in Syria. The next day Israel’s Soviet-born defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, visited Moscow and thanked the Russians for “understanding Israel’s security concerns in north.” On June 7, a Russian military delegation met with Defense Minister Lieberman in Israel to discuss “Syrian military arrangements.” This flurry of diplomatic activity came a few weeks after Israel stated it would not tolerate long-term Iranian presence in Syria. Jerusalem – which was traditionally concerned by Tehran’s nuclear project – demonstrated its opposition to long-term conventional Iranian presence in Syria by launching a number of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria.

Since a deal was allegedly struck in early June, some changes are already noticeable on the ground. On June 8, it was reported that tensions arose between Russia and Iran over questions of Iran’s military deployment in Syria. Iranian-backed forces are reported to be dressing up as Syrian soldiers when deploying near the Israeli border. It is not clear if Russia and Israel achieved an agreement, and if the parties will respect such an accord. Nevertheless, the current level of Israeli-Russian exchanges over military issues in Syria illuminates at least three important issues. First, it reflects the superior Russian maneuvering over the Syrian situation. Moscow has made itself the linchpin of any current or future arrangement in Syria, and has managed to use its status to advance its broader foreign policy goals. Russia’s achievement is taken straight out of Henry Kissinger’s playbook. In the early 1970s Kissinger was able to convince the USSR’s most important Arab ally, Egypt, that only Washington could secure Cairo’s goal of getting the Sinai back from Israel. With this leverage, he managed to move the long-time Soviet ally into the proWestern ambit. Now, it’s Russia’s turn to show a close US ally, Israel, that only Moscow can secure its interests in Syria as the US loses interest there and perhaps in the region at large. This is not to say that Israel will abandon its long-term alliance with the US, but it may take Moscow’s preferences more seriously. In 2014, Jerusalem gave a hint in this direction when it avoided supporting what seemed like anti-Russian resolution at the UN regarding Ukraine, despite Washington’s expectation that Israel would support the resolution.

Second, the possibility of an Israeli-Russian deal over Syria also indicates the birth of a more nuanced Israeli approach in the region. Israel has relied for decades on the preponderance of its military forces to resolve many of its security challenges in Syria and beyond. Indeed, its main mode of operation in Syria in the last few years featured aerial attacks on Hezbollah’s materiel. Israel’s concurrent diplomatic strategy was rather simple, it pleaded with the US to secure Israel’s interests in international fora. But Russia’s intervention in Syria in September 2015 introduced to the Middle East – for the first time in decades – a military force that could constrain Israel. In response, Jerusalem took a more sophisticated approach, effectively coupling its historic reliance on force with sophisticated diplomacy. Traditional Israeli warnings against a monolithic, Russia-backed Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah axis of evil, were abandoned. Instead, Israel has shown an ability to use wedging (between Russia and Iran) to achieve its goals. Taken alongside the wedging strategy it employed on the Palestinian front between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, it appears Israel no longer relies on force alone.

Finally, Russian-Israeli exchanges have occurred during an especially close period in IsraeliAmerican relations. In May, the US reversed a seventy-year-old policy and accepted, in effect, Israel’s claim that Jerusalem is its capital. Israel’s prime minister, a former US citizen and a graduate of MIT, and Israel’s defense minister, a former Soviet citizen who maintains close contacts in the post-Soviet sphere, conduct this delicate Israeli dance between the two great powers. This maneuvering between Washington and Moscow is reminiscent of the early days of the Zionist movement, when the movement’s limited power forced it to excel diplomatically – the crowning achievement of which was securing both Soviet and American support for the creation of a Jewish state in 1947 at the outset of the Cold War.

With the slow change in global power politics, from US hegemony to a multipolar world, these last few weeks in the Middle East provide a glimpse into the adjustments that will be made by regional powers like Israel that are also US allies. Such powers will move from complete reliance on Washington to diplomacy that includes close exchanges with other powers, even at a cost of some tension with the U. This multipolar environment is bound to include others besides Washington and Moscow. Indeed, as events were unfolding in the northern Israel, the Chinese Middle East peace envoy, Gong Xiaosheng, was visiting the West Bank. The region’s diplomats will need to demonstrate skill in balancing competing interests. Israel’s possible agreement with Russia over Syria shows that it has the ability to play effectively in the multipolar world, but with the US, Russia, and China meddling in the region, much diplomatic talent will still be required.

Dr. Ehud Eiran is an Assistant Professor at the University of Haifa, Israel, and a Board Member at the Mitvim Institute.

(originally published by the Atlantic Council)

הפוסט The Art of the (Israeli-Russian) Deal הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Since then, the number of Iraqis making contact with Israelis has grown tremendously, mainly through social networks. Among other things, Iraqi surfers recently set up a Facebook page called “The Virtual Embassy of Iraq in Israel”. The Israeli Foreign Ministry reports that about one-third of the Ministry’s Arabic site’s followers (ca. half a million) are Iraqis, and their attitude toward Israel is generally positive and friendly. In their honor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently inaugurated a unique Facebook page called “Israel in the Iraqi Discourse”, which received very positive comments and raised much interest in Iraq. In addition, other interested Israelis (for the sake of full disclosure, the author of this article is among them) maintain daily contact with many friends throughout Iraq.

A segmentation of the Iraqi participants in the discussions conducted on the Foreign Ministry’s Arabic page shows that most of the participants are educated young people between the ages of 18 and 35, an age group that accounts for about 70 percent of Iraq’s population, with about a third of them living in Baghdad. They are not afraid to disclose their real names and photographs, and they represent various Iraqi population groups: Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, and others. These young people are usually politically and socially active and constitute the backbone of Iraq’s educated class. They came to deal with Israel and Israelis out of interest in the Jewish past in Iraq or out of a certain attraction to the democratic and liberal model presented by Israel. Recently, their support for Israel has grown in the face of their hostility to Iran. Their positions on the Israeli issue are distinctly different from those prevailing in the Arab world.

Unlike other Arab countries, the interest in Israel among Iraqis is not confined to politics; it extends to the cultural and religious spheres and the daily aspects of life in Israel. Many Iraqis openly express their desire to visit Israel, but when they try to carry it out they encounter the arbitrariness of the Israeli establishment and are generally refused. The two pages of the Foreign Ministry in Arabic frequently publish non-political articles that shed light on different aspects of the Israeli way of being which raise great interest among Iraqi users. The knowledge of young Iraqis about Israel is sometimes surprising, as demonstrated through the popularity of Sarit Hadad.

It is difficult to determine whether the phenomenon is limited to social networks or whether it will also have political ramifications in future. The educated Iraqi youth in question influence the political and cultural agenda and shape public opinion. Yet in recent elections in Iraq, many of them supported the boycott movement, and others voted mainly for the parties of al-Sadr and al-Abadi, or for smaller parties on the fringe of the Iraqi national and anti-Iranian camp.

For some reason, official Israel has not yet discovered Iraq, the largest Arab state on the East. Iraq is the second largest exporter of oil in the world, after Saudi Arabia, and is a significant potential trading partner. Iraq, which is being rebuilt, is desperate for assistance with infrastructure construction, banking, irrigation, agriculture, communications, and more. It also needs indirect assistance with improving its credit rating and with encouraging foreign investments. Iraq would also welcome the assistance of Intelligence services in its fight against terrorism, in which Iraq has acquired great skill in recent years.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is of secondary importance in shaping Iraq’s official position vis-a-vis Israel. The Iraqi public is quite indifferent to Palestinian suffering, and Iraq supports the Arab peace initiative, which calls for Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose capital is East Jerusalem. It does not recognize the Hamas rule in Gaza.

As Iraq enters the period of establishing a coalition that will paralyze the political system for a while, it is worth thinking about how Israel should approach this important country. While the Iraqi political echelon is preoccupied with its own affairs, the educated and the young people discuss the matter openly and boldly. In its attempts to establish relations with the Arab states, Israel tends to focus on forging contacts with the political elite, and sometimes only with one specific leader. This is how peace agreements were reached with Egypt and Jordan, and to a great extent this is also the story of the Oslo process with the Palestinians. The educated middle class in the Arab countries was neglected and as a result became alienated from the process and hostile to Israel. Iraq offers the opportunity for a different process which may begin with the educated class and will prepare the ground within wide and influential circles before the formal diplomatic rapprochement between the two countries begins. This different process will lay a firm foundation for future relationships.

Dr. Ronen Zeidel is a senior researcher of Iraq at the Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University and a research fellow at the Mitvim Institute. This article is based on a study on Israeli-Iraqi relations which is part of the “Israel-Arab Relations: The Unfulfilled Potential” project.

(originally published in Ynetnews)

הפוסט Laying a Civil Foundation for Cooperation between Israel and Iraq הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The leaders played a significant role in the process. The president of South Korea, as opposed to his predecessors who supported tough policies and the enforcement of sanctions, adhered to his policy of dialogue with the neighbor to the north. He took advantage of the hosting of the Winter Olympics to invite a delegation from North Korea. Indeed, the participation of Kim’s sister in the opening ceremony was the harbinger of the change in North Korea’s position. On the other hand, North Korea’s president, Kim, has shown that his rigid and threatening image was wrong. Whether the economic sanctions and the fear of an American attack played a role, or whether in Kim’s view the last ballistic experiment has deterred the US, the result has been a change in his position. There are obviously those who fear that this is merely a tactical change designed to maximize profits within the international community, but in any case, the leadership has proven that it is capable of changing positions and initiating a “game-changing” course.

In comparison, the leaders on both sides of our “conflict” – Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas – have not yet proved that they are capable and willing to promote a real solution to the conflict. Netanyahu’s hands are tied by his right-wing coalition that is ideologically committed to the vision of a greater Israel. He is also engaged in internal political struggles and is troubled by his legal issues of corruption. His policies and behavior convey that he has neither motivation nor determination to resolve the conflict. On the other hand, Abbas has so far escaped two rounds of negotiations, one with Olmert in 2008 and the second with Netanyahu in 2014, and it does not seem that he is inclined – now that he is approaching the end of his political career – to sign the deal of his life. Moreover, Abbas does not enjoy Palestinian legitimacy in the PA, while Hamas challenges his authority. There are two conditions that need to be met in order to promote a solution, legitimacy and determination. Both leaders do not meet these conditions, partially or fully.

The second element concerns the role of the mediator. Trump tried to give a feel of neutrality to his mediation, when he was secretly negotiating with North Korea, during which he also sent the head of the CIA, Pompeo (who in the meanwhile had been appointed Secretary of State) for a visit. He also wisely used “sticks” and “carrots”: on the one hand, he increased the economic pressure on North Korea and also threatened to take military action; On the other hand, he proposed to hold a summit with Kim soon, which previous presidents were not willing to do, thereby granting American legitimacy to the isolated president. Unfortunately, with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump has so far made almost every possible mistake, the last of which is the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The decision, which was meant to be part of the “carrots” that Israel would receive in exchange for its concessions in the negotiations, eliminated Trump’s pretense of becoming a neutral mediator. He can still correct this by making a counter-decision “in favor of” the Palestinians, but it does not appear that he intends to do so.

Finally, the outstanding issues in the two conflicts are completely different; The main issue in the Korean conflict is the unification of the two parts of the nation, which was arbitrarily separated during the Cold War: the north is afraid of losing power; while the south fears the economic costs of unifying a strong and progressive economy with the backward economy of the north. The importance of this issue should not be underestimated, but it has already been solved elsewhere, when East and West Germany united even though the conditions were different. More importantly, the Korean conflict does not include some of the explosive components of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the question of borders, the question of Palestine’s independence, and notably the status of Jerusalem and the refugee question. The fact that the religious aspect does not play a role in the Korean conflict makes it less complicated and more manageable.

Beyond that, the history of “our” conflict does not work in Trump’s favor; external mediation alone has never been able to solve it. Peace with Egypt was initiated by Sadat; the Oslo Accords were initiated by Israeli and Palestinian civil society players; while peace with Jordan was led mainly by Hussein and Rabin. It follows, therefore, that unlike the Korean story, Trump’s chances of breaking the impasse in our conflict are not great. If he wishes to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Korean arena seems more promising.

Prof. Elie Podeh is a Board Member at the Mitvim Institute, and teaches Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Dr. Alon Levkowitz is an expert on Korea, teaches at Beit Berl College and is a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Korea Is Not a Likely Precedent for Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Netanyahu has faced trouble, including ministerial resignations and police investigations, since shortly after the 2015 elections. Over the last year, the arguments for his imminent demise gathered steam: In February, police recommended that the attorney general indict him for corruption based on investigations in four different cases. The situation in the Gaza Strip festered; the Temple Mount nearly exploded; and the news warned almost nightly of a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. There has been no progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace since negotiations collapsed in 2014. And at home, a wave of rage against economic hardship and massive social inequality erupted in 2011, when Netanyahu was prime minister as well, yet there has been no relief for the exorbitant cost of living in the seven years since.

Why then is Bibi more beloved than ever? In 2016, Netanyahu’s Likud party polled at an average of 25.7 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, lower than the 30 seats it won in 2015 but still ahead of all rivals. Each year, the average has crept upward. When the police recommended indicting Netanyahu, his party’s numbers rose. When U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, polls gave him the highest numbers in a decade, 35 or 36 seats; one survey was even rumored to predict 42.

As with so many things in Israel, Netanyahu’s solid support is based on security. In Israel’s political discourse, the word “security” signifies threats from any form of Palestinian violence, whether Qassam rocket fire, Palestinian demonstrations and attempts to cross the Gaza border, or girls wielding scissors. On Netanyahu’s watch, Israel has fought two wars against Hamas and dealt with a wave of stabbing attacks, along with a crisis on the Temple Mount and now the deadly escalation in Gaza.

When violence rises, Israelis vote right. This was the ultimate lesson of the Second Intifada, which brought a Likud leader back to power in 2001 after a short Labor Party term; the left has never won an election since.

Netanyahu has mastered the use of crises to shore up his support. Periodic escalation reminds nearly half of Israeli voters that they are relieved to keep the right in power. Just one-quarter of Israelis even believe peace is possible, and at present fewer than half of Israeli Jews support the two-state solution. The question in their minds is who knows how to manage a security problem, not who can bring peace. One Israeli voter recently told me she appreciates Netanyahu for knowing when to end military escalations. In other words, not only do many centrists and right-wingers not blame him for wars; they laud him for restraint.

Regional threats such as Iran, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State are also part of the security issue, but they are more theoretical. Israel has never fought a war with Iran. The last war with Hezbollah was 12 years ago, and there is no Islamic State to speak of in Israel. But in the public mind, they loom large, especially when Netanyahu hammers home the existential threat of Iran at all opportunities (or broadcasts a campaign ad saying the Israeli left will bring the Islamic State to Jerusalem). Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal was the jewel in Netanyahu’s crown. Whether the deal survives or whether it hinders or helps Iran’s presumed quest for military nuclear capabilities wasn’t truly the point. Netanyahu spoke, and a few days later the most powerful man in the world listened. That’s power.

It’s also vindication. For eight years, Netanyahu antagonized President Barack Obama. Israelis know the United States is Israel’s best friend; Netanyahu’s defiant attitude was a risky course not only for U.S.-Israeli relations but for Netanyahu’s home-front, too. After the 2015 elections, just one-quarter of Israelis thought U.S.-Israeli relations were good; three quarters rated relations bad or neutral; and Israeli Jews were split on whether Obama or Netanyahu was to blame.

Trump’s electoral victory set the relationship between the leaders back on solid ground; colossal policy victories such as pushing Washington to abandon the Iran deal and moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem conveyed to voters that Netanyahu was right all along. He had the grand plan before anyone believed in it.

There was another side of the foreign-policy scheme. In his fourth term, Netanyahu has made a big show of cultivating other friends beyond the United States or Europe — including India and Azerbaijan — to build economic ties and enhance the country’s regional security interests. The most important, if cryptic, relationship is with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It’s no accident that Netanyahu met Putin last week between the two strikes against Iranian targets in Syria or numerous times over the last two years as Israel has stepped up attacks of the same nature.

It’s too simplistic to say Israelis are distracted by terrorism and escalation away from Netanyahu’s corruption cases. Rather, Netanyahu’s military and diplomatic victories complement and thus burnish his image in domestic politics. Israelis regularly say, sighing, “There’s nobody else.” They mean that on the domestic as well as international scene.

Very few Israeli coalition governments have survived for a full term; most collapse and lead to early elections. Israel has had 34 coalitions in 70 years. By contrast, Netanyahu’s second government from 2009 to 2013 came close to a full term, and there’s no guarantee his current one will fall before 2019 — which would be close to another full term. Combined with his staying power (nearly 13 years combined, the second longest-serving prime minister), Netanyahu has brought a measure of political stability to Israel.

But there is a price. By the start of his fourth term, Netanyahu seemed to have unleashed his true self: a cult of personality in style and an increasingly consolidated strongman form of governance in practice.

For a time in early 2016, he held five ministerial portfolios in addition to prime minister, before slowly parceling them out; he still holds the post of foreign minister. His government shut down Israel’s historic public broadcast authority and has heaped policy and legal hardships on a new, reconstituted state-funded news corporation. Meanwhile, Netanyahu enjoys the stalwart support of the country’s highest-circulating newspaper funded by his patron Sheldon Adelson. His government is on a warpath against the Supreme Court and is currently debating a bill that would allow the Knesset to override the court’s right of judicial review.

When Netanyahu wanted a massive deal for the extraction of natural gas, the director of Israel’s antitrust authority and the economy minister resigned in protest, arguing that the arrangement prevented competition and protected a cartel, citing his direct interference. Netanyahu made himself economy minister, which allowed him to activate a special clause to sidestep antitrust regulations. To do that, he was required to consult with a Knesset committee by law. The committee members voted against the clause; he ignored them.

The result of strongman leadership is that people become much less enthusiastic for the foundations of democracy, favoring splashy personal achievements or controversy instead. And the irony of consolidating power is that it harms democracy but simultaneously generates an environment in which one person gets credit for everything going well, reinforcing support for that same leader.

Such a leader could also be blamed for all bad things. But many Israelis have apparently traded personal economic frustrations for an occasional celebration, be it Israel’s victory in the Eurovision contest or the U.S. Embassy moving to Jerusalem. Voters have lowered their standards on personal integrity in return for domestic tranquility, punctured only by the occasional war that most believe could not have been prevented. And, so the logic goes, it’s better to have Bibi fighting that war — or killing those protesters in Gaza who dare to seek a way out after 11 years of closure — than a despised left-winger.

Sooner or later, Netanyahu will eventually exit the political stage. But given the way that every crisis reinforces his power, and what his years in power have done to Israel, the pendulum doesn’t look likely to swing in the other direction soon.

(originally published in Foreign Policy)

הפוסט Netanyahu Needs Conflict to Survive הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Changes in Domestic Palestinian Politics and Their Influence on Israel and the Middle East הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Trump’s Statement on Jerusalem הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The internal Palestinian split, manifested in the creation of two geographically and culturally distinct political entities – in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank – has continued for a decade. Throughout this period, the difficulty in bridging the gaps between Fatah and Hamas stemmed from disagreements in the political and social worldview regarding the character of the future Palestinian society and state. It was also a result of the violent circumstances in which the split emerged in 2007 – killings and violent struggle between the two movements in the Gaza Strip.

The cautious optimism among Palestinians following the signing of the Fatah-Hamas agreement is a product of the changing circumstances; first and foremost, the increasing Egyptian involvement in the reconciliation process. It was Egypt, which through a persistent struggle succeeded in creating the current path for the Palestinian dialogue. This has been accomplished after Egypt emphasized its crucial role to both sides and created a system of dependencies.

הפוסט A Look at the Palestinian Reconciliation Process הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

From a historical perspective, this is one of the worst moments in the history of the Palestinian national movement. The political-geographical split is making it difficult for the PLO leadership to navigate through the diplomatic route toward the two-states-for-two-people solution, as it committed to in the Oslo Agreements. The alternative Hamas tried to present in the form of jihad collapsed too, leading to a serious humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The crisis the two leaderships – the PA and the Hamas – are experiencing obligates them to find solutions that could give the young generation a sense of hope. Naturally, the weakness of the national system and party affiliation makes it possible to create political alliances based on alternative identities. So far, it seems the key for creating change in Palestinian society can be found in the creation of communal alliances around strengthening the regional-geographical connection while bolstering the national connection as well.

That’s the background for the recent Egyptian-brokered unnatural affair between Mohammad Dahlan, who was expelled from Fatah in 2011 but sees himself as Mahmoud Abbas’s future successor, and Hamas’s newly elected leader, Yahya Sanwar. Dahlan, the former head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force, was described by the Hamas leadership on the eve of the military takeover of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007 as a corrupt person damaging the values of Islam.

The parties have surprisingly moved closer not just thanks to a political meeting of interests, but due to traditional cultural identity components, led by the interpersonal connection and the local identity. Sanwar and Dahlan grew up together in the Khan Younis refugee camp, share the refugee mindset and the same background. In addition, there is no history of bad blood between them. Dahlan and Sanwar’s ways parted in the beginning of the first intifada.

Since then, until their recent meeting in Cairo, there has been no animosity between the two, but perhaps yearning.

The personal acquaintance and the local identity shared by Dahlan and Sanwar is seen as an asset by Egypt too, which is interested in severing the ties between Hamas’s military wing and Islamist organizations in the Sinai Peninsula.

The creation of an economic-political dependence system, which passes through Dahlan and is backed by Sanwar, will make it possible for Egypt to achieve these goals. Thus, the local Gazan identity, which receives a lot of legitimization from Egypt, allows Hamas to find a formula that would make its political survival possible.

For Dahlan, the local identity could serve as a renewed stepping stone to a national leadership position. The purpose of the alliance between Dahlan and Hamas is to lead joint moves that would create a better day-to-day life for the strip’s residents, who are suffering from a shortage of electricity, water and basic civilian infrastructure. Dahlan and the donation money from the Gulf are supposed to fill the void left behind by Abbas. The Palestinian president chose to withdraw funds to harm the Gaza Strip’s bureaucratic systems and civilian infrastructure in an attempt to subdue Hamas, following Sanwar’s efforts to create an alternative government that would neutralize the influence of the Palestinian Authority’s government offices in the Gaza Strip.

Beyond the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas, the internal Fatah battle between Abbas and Dahlan is personal and filled with bad blood. In the past, Abbas rejected Egyptian attempts to reconcile between the parties, and he is determined to block Dahlan’s way back into Fatah and prevent him from reaching an influential position in the future.

As part of his attempts to try to thwart Dahlan’s return to a political position of power, Abbas initiated last week a meeting with the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, led by Nasser alDin al-Shaer. The meeting between the Fatah and Hamas leaderships in the West Bank focused on the efforts to reach an intra-Palestinian reconciliation and a solution to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Abbas, like Dahlan and Sanwar, is using communalregional politics to advance issues of national importance and shape a political agenda.

From the West Bank, the message reached the Gaza Strip. One of the Hamas leaders, Salah al-Bardawil, in response called for a return to the reconciliation path. He said Hamas was willing to cancel the alternative government workers’ council in exchange for setting a general election date and implementing a reform in the PLO’s structure.

Fatah, Hamas and Dahlan are using the local identity to make some gains in the Palestinian national political arena. Local, clan and tribal identity components are usually seen as an obstacle to the national pattern of action. In the Palestinian case, the communal-regional politics is being painted in national and Islamic colors and serving as a future engine of growth, which will have a future key role in the inheritance battles in the post-Abbas era.

(originally published in Ynet)

הפוסט Sanwar and Dahlan: An Egyptian-Brokered Alliance against Abbas הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Although the Arab world rejected this term as an Israeli attempt to achieve dominance in the region through non-military means, Israeli diplomacy made progress toward this end by scoring substantial achievements in the region.

Today, however, it is not Israel’s contribution that has prompted the formation of the current New Middle East. It is a product of a number of developments, including the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, the rise of Iran as a regional power seeking hegemony and nuclear power, and the wave of the Arab Spring revolutions that triggered chaos in several major (Egypt, Syria) and minor (Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Bahrain) countries.

The shattering of the Arab world has forced some of its elements to seek external allies to battle threats from within and without. Together, these developments forged a new architecture of alliances and coalitions based on shared interests.

One of the typical features of the New Middle East is that alliances are not based solely along religious or ethnic lines. For example, several Sunni states, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are concerned by the expansion of Iran and Shi’ite Islam, and its allies, while the Sunni states of Qatar and Turkey maintain good relations with Iran. Furthermore, the Sunni Arab World is not only joining forces against Qatar, because of the latter’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood and its pro-Iranian policy, but also against a range of different Sunni organizations that are considered terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, Islamic State, the Muslim Brotherhood, and more.

Another indication of the divisions among Sunnis is the split among the Palestinians, who are divided not only geographically but also ideologically and politically between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. If this were not enough, the Iraqi Kurds (who are Sunni Muslims but not Arabs) announced a referendum on their independence, exerting pressure on the federal government in Baghdad and on neighboring Turkey, which has a large Kurdish minority.

The conflict between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam and the conflicts among the Sunnis themselves are one of the reasons that major players in the Arab world are reaching out to countries outside the Arab system. Since the pragmatic Sunni Arab countries adopt a Western-oriented policy and their armies rely on Western technology, approaching Russia is not considered a real option.

However, the West in general – the US and Europe – and limit its role. Furthermore, external allies are needed to replace Iran and Turkey, which served as local allies on the margins on the Arab system and today have either become an enemy (in the case of Iran) or hesitate to cooperate (Turkey).

Thus, Israel has suddenly found itself by default courted by major countries in the Sunni Arab world. This development offers Israel several achievements: first, recognition as an important player in the Middle Eastern arena. Second, if cooperation in the past focused on the minorities (such as Druse, Kurds, Maronites, etc.) and periphery (Turkey, Iran), now Israel has penetrated the core Sunni Arab world. Third, while Israeli-Arab cooperation occurs mainly behind the scenes, some elements are currently rising to the surface. The new public visibility of cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States is intentionally designed to intimidate their common enemy, Iran.

If cooperation with Israel remained secret, Israel would not be able to be used as a deterrent card. For the PA or rather for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, public cooperation with Israel against Hamas is dangerous, although the new political configuration that firmly places Hamas alongside Qatar and Iran on the side of the “bad guys” seems to have mitigated Abbas’ concerns of public indications of collaboration with Israel.

Although today’s New Middle East poses greater security threats than the former New Middle East, it is more amenable for Israel, because the Arab countries do not feel that they are being coerced into cooperation with Israel. Rather, this new constellation represents a conscious decision based on a realistic analysis of interests, and the longstanding logic “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” – a motto that has served Israel well over the years.

Israeli decision-makers identified the emergence of this unique regional opportunity relatively late, although having discovered it, they pounced upon it like a treasure chest. It is, however, too early to celebrate: cooperation between Israel and the Arab states remained limited by an undeniable “glass ceiling” whose height and thickness may be difficult to determine but its central component is clearly the Palestinian issue.

In the 1990s, Israel was permitted to penetrate the Arab world and establish diplomatic and economic ties with countries in the Middle East and North Africa in line with progress on the Palestinian issue, but these ties dissipated with the collapse of the Oslo process and the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000. The lesson of this period is that a significant breakthrough between Israelis and Palestinian can remove barriers and dramatically increase Israel’s regional integration.

Most Sunni Arab states have abandoned ideology in favor of political realism. It is time for the Israeli government to do so too, and make progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The New Middle East הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Hamas’ New Policy Document הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

As part of the lessons learned from the Arafat era, in which violence was encouraged and used as a political tool, Abbas wants to change the way Palestinians are viewed by Western eyes. Instead of Palestinians being viewed as peace rejectionists who adopt violence as what they think is a legitimate tool, Abbas wants them to be viewed as a nation searching for a diplomatic solution for its national tribulations, while receiving support from the global community.

However, this strategy now faces a number of challenges following the rise of the Trump administration and the new winds blowing in the White House, as well as several regional changes: the growing Russian involvement in the Middle East, and Russia’s signals to the PA and Islamic factions that it is ready to take a more active role in the intra-Palestinian arena.

The new American administration does not bode well for the Palestinians. During the election campaign, Trump issued statements that he would give Israel a green light to expand settlements and that he would relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He also appointed a right-wing ambassador to Israel (David Friedman) who supports the settlement enterprise. All these actions aroused deep suspicion among the Palestinians. Even if Trump does not carry through on the embassy relocation, due to the sensitivity of the subject and concern over the great anger it would arouse in the Arab world – the very fact that the president supports such an idea teaches the Palestinians that they do not have a friend in the White House.

One of the paths taken by the PA to protest the emerging American policy was to accept a Russian invitation to attend a summit with all the Palestinian factions in Moscow in January 2017. The close ties between the PLO and Russia are natural, as they are based on a positive historic relationship. The socialist and Marxist factions within the PLO enjoy an ideological-historical affinity with the Russians. These groups include: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP); and the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP; communists). Abbas himself was closely aligned with the Russian regime for many years. It was in Moscow that Abbas wrote his controversial doctorate. Also, Abbas served as chairman of the Russia-PLO Friendship Association for many years.

The goal of the discussions held between the Palestinian factions under the Russian umbrella was to try to promote an internal Palestinian reconciliation, and an actual timetable for its implementation. Following the summit in Moscow, Fatah and Hamas reached a new agreement about conducting municipal elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in mid-May 2017. The discussions regarding the elections dates were held simultaneously with laborious talks between the various factions that attempted to create a formula for reforming the PLO’s political structure and integrating Islamic elements in PLO institutions.

But the growing Palestinian rapprochement with Russia does not only focus on attempts to achieve internal Palestinian reconciliation. It also serves to exert pressure on Israel and diminish US prestige in the region. Thus, the PA is sending out two messages, one to Russia and one to the US. They are telling Russia that the Palestinians are willing to give Russia a role in their internal reconciliation process, and they are sending a message to the US regarding the way the Israeli-Palestinian peace process should be conducted in the future. Abbas declares at every international forum that he accepts Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to an Abbas-Netanyahu summit in Moscow. He reiterates that he is waiting for an answer from the Israeli government, to jump-start the peace process.

The fact that the Palestinians do not view the US as an “honest broker” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only heightens Abbas’ achievement in convincing the Obama administration to refrain from using its veto power to block UN Resolution 2334.

Resolution 2334 is one of the salient Palestinian diplomatic achievements in the Obama era. This resolution was warmly received by the PLO. More surprising was that it also drew positive reactions from Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, despite the fact that the resolution supports the two-state solution, calls for continued security coordination between Israel and the PA and is vague regarding if and how pressure will actually be placed on Israel.

The tightening relationship between the PA and Russia against the background of the change of government in the US shows that the Palestinians are trying to tell the Trump administration that there are additional power brokers in the global arena. And, according to the Palestinians, these other entities can counterbalance what they believe will be Trump’s pro-Israel policy.

Russia’s involvement in the Middle East is growing and is expressed by the active fighting of Russian forces alongside Assad’s regime in Syria against the rebels, and also by Russian provision of advanced weapons to Syria and Iran. This involvement, together with the Palestinian-Russian alliance, creates a sense of Middle East deja-vu. Are we returning to the diplomatic principles of the Cold War?

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט The future of Palestinian diplomacy in the Trump era הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

After an arduous negotiation process of more than three years, Israel and Turkey reached a compromise on this particular issue. According to the agreement, the Gaza blockade will not be lied as Turkey demanded; however, it will be “softened” for Turkey. Essentially, Turkey will be able to ship humanitarian aid to Gaza through Israel’s Ashdod port, and will be allowed to build a hospital and a power plant in the Gaza Strip. In fact, immediately after the deal was sealed with Israel, Turkey sent its Lady Leyla ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The rapprochement with Israel also allows Turkey to play a significant political role in the region. Most opinions suggest that Turkey could be influential in mediating between Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah, and thereby contribute to a long-term unity government in Palestine. Turkey’s potential role as a mediator between Palestinians and Israel is also widely discussed. Undoubtedly, Turkey will be able to play these roles after building sufficient trust with Israel following the agreement. However, the sealed deal between the two countries also offers Turkey a chance to play other structural roles in the region, in view of Turkey’s so power and image in the eyes of Arab and Muslim societies in the Middle East, together with its long experience of statehood and diplomacy.

This paper is part of the Israel-Turkey Policy Dialogue Publication Series of Mitvim and GPoT Center, in cooperation with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

הפוסט The Israel-Turkey Deal Could Benefit the Palestinians הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The split between Fatah and Hamas, the stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the violence in Palestinian society (both inwards and against the IDF and Israeli civilian targets) cannot overshadow the fact that the crisis between Fatah and Hamas will not be concluded until the two movements undergo internal processes of comprehensive reforms.

הפוסט The Postponement of the Palestinian Local Elections and its Ramifications הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The adoption of this discourse should not be taken for granted; it is the result of intellectual and media activity undertaken by various civil society organizations that identified a historic opportunity – the result of changes taking place in the region – to cooperate with the “moderate” Arab states who share common interests with Israel, such as halting the political and ideological expansion of Iran and the Shi’ite axis (including Syria and Hezbollah), and a joint struggle against Sunni Jihadist Islamic non-state actors.

The original purpose of the regional concept was not to disregard, escape or divert attention from the Palestinian problem, but rather to harness the Arab states as an umbrella of support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. As bilateral negotiations are at a standstill, the regional framework was supposed to steer the parties away from the impasse.

According to this logic, the Arab states can help in several ways: Egypt has leverage over Hamas because of their common border; Jordan has an interest in reaching a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem as well as a desire to play a role in the Jerusalem issue; and Saudi Arabia can provide religious legitimacy to any political compromise. All these countries have leverage over the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the main problem is that the public consciousness has shifted in line with the positions of the right-wing politicians. In other words, those who promote the regional discourse do not do so in order to make progress on the Palestinian issue, but rather to reap the benefits of the changes in the region without having to pay its price in the Palestinian sphere. In such a way, the right-wing government also enhances its supposedly moderate image.

Indeed, Egypt’s ambassador’s return to Israel, the visit of its foreign minister (after nine years), intelligence and military cooperation with Egypt, Jordan and possibly the Gulf – all indicate that regional cooperation is alive and kicking, while the Palestinian track has been abandoned.

The public, according to a Mitvim Institute’s public opinion poll (July 2016), graciously accept it; they are mostly interested in cooperation with Egypt, while the PA is lagging behind in fourth place out of five options. In other words, the public welcomes regional cooperation according to the right-wing vision.

This regional approach is misguided and will not ultimately succeed as one may have hoped. Certain achievements may indeed be reached, but they will be limited and kept under wraps. Israel has a history of contacts with countries, organizations and prominent figures in the Arab world. As these connections were viewed in the Arab world as illegitimate, they were kept behind the scenes. Some Arab leaders also paid with their lives for this (such as Jordan’s king Abdullah, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and others). As a result, Israel has suffered over the years from what I call the “mistress syndrome.” The only time it enjoyed an extensive and open relationship with the Arab world was in the ‘90s, after the signing of the Oslo Accords. All of the achievements in the field of diplomatic relations, the economic conferences and projects evaporated at the onset of the al-Aksa intifada in 2000. In other words, real, open and meaningful cooperation will not exist without a solution, or at least significant progress, on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Any attempt to promote regional cooperation without tackling the Palestinian issue is throwing dust in one’s eyes.

And, as we know, there is plenty of dust in our region.

In view of the fact that the discourse of “opportunities” and the “regional initiative” have been adopted by the government and the public at large, focus should now be placed on introducing another discourse, one of missed opportunities. The Israeli public likes to quote the legendary foreign minister Abba Eban’s saying that “the Arabs/Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Yet, a recent study that I completed shows that not only have the Palestinians missed opportunities, but Israel has as well. Therefore, emphasis should not only be placed on identifying a historic opportunity – which indeed exists – but emphasis should be placed on ensuring that it will not be missed.

As things stand now, the Israeli government shows no motivation to seize this historic opportunity to advance a regional initiative that includes a two-state solution, in accordance with the recommendations of the recent Quartet Report. In August 1952, David Ben-Gurion told the Knesset that “I do not want to be the man that our grandchildren… blame for having had the chance to try and achieve Jewish-Arab peace – and to have missed it.”

I believe that Netanyahu should hang this quote over his desk.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט From opportunities to missed opportunities הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The report was supposed to be the peak of the Quartet’s (United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia) reinvigoration process, that included regular meetings and consultations with leading Arab states. This process also intended to convey the message that the international community has not yet lost interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The aim of the report was to indicate the obstacles that are preventing progress toward peace, and to formulate recommendations that will help create conditions to resume negotiations and maintain the feasibility of the two-state solution.

The Quartet Report of July 2016 is very different and much more modest than the Roadmap published by the Quartet in 2003. It focuses on the analysis of the current situation, and avoids addressing terms of reference for a final-status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The report expresses criticism of both sides: of the Palestinians, for the acts of violence and terrorism in the West Bank, amassing weapons, constructing tunnels and firing rockets from Gaza, and incitement in official media and social networks; of Israel, for continued settlement expansion, “legalizing” outposts, expropriation of land, withholding construction permits from Palestinians in the territories, and settler violence against Palestinians.

One notable achievement of the report is the ability of the Quarter members to agree on these issues, while presenting them in a rather harsh manner. This reflects the zone of agreement that exists on these issues among key players in the international arena. The final version of the report, however, is a softer version of the initial draft, and settles on presenting a snapshot of current reality without dealing with the deeper issues that led to the obstacles identified in the report.

The report is the product of a sort of academic learning process that included interviews with various people from both sides of the conflict. The data scattered throughout the report – numbers of settlers, expropriation of land, building permits, house demolitions – indicate that the drafters of the report were well versed in the facts on the ground. Based on acquired information, the report presents 10 recommendations, which do not go beyond being a wish list.

For example, both parties are asked to “work to de-escalate tensions by exercising restraint and refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric”; both parties are asked to “take all necessary steps to prevent violence and protect the lives and property of all civilians”; the Palestinian Authority (PA) is asked to “act decisively…to cease incitement to violence and strengthen ongoing efforts to combat terrorism”; while Israel is asked to “cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion, designating land for exclusive Israeli use, and denying Palestinian development.”

Moreover, the report calls for a unified, legitimate and democratic Palestinian government, and for Israelis and Palestinians to “foster a climate of tolerance” and promote cooperation in various fields. Yet, the question that the report does not answer is how to do all of this.

The report was written during the historic reality of a diplomatic standstill, lack of trust between Israel and the PA and the lack of recognition between Israel and Hamas and the PA and Hamas. In this situation, the report’s recommendations are expected to fall on deaf ears. The report should have suggested what could be done in this complex reality, as well as what the international community can and should do in the absence of any Israeli or Palestinian political will to move forward.

It was important that the drafters of the report positively referenced the Arab Peace Initiative and the French initiative. In a time when no negotiations between Israelis and Palestinian are taking place but there are several international initiatives on the table, it is essential for the international community to act in accordance and to produce initiatives that do not compete but rather complement one another. This will prevent Israelis and Palestinians from adopting the “divide and conquer” approach in relation to the various initiatives – i.e.

to accept the French initiative and reject the Quartet Report, or to reject the French initiative and accept an initiative for regional security cooperation.

Presumably, a more detailed Quartet Report would not have resulted in a breakthrough in the peace process.

As the well-known English idiom says, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” If the two sides do not want to act decisively to end the conflict, it just won’t happen. As this is the current situation, it seems as if the Quartet Report will join the long list of reports, documents and peace plans that failed to have an impact. But if and when the next round of Israeli-Palestinian violence occurs, the members of the Quartet will be able to say “we told you so.” They have successfully identified the existing obstacles and the roots of future tragedies.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Notes on the Quartet report הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

As part of the deal, Israel will deposit $20 million in a Turkish bank account as compensation to the families of those who died during the I.D.F. operation to seize the Mavi Marmara in 2010. In return, Turkey will drop the lawsuit against four senior Israeli officers deemed responsible for the operation. Turkey will also be allowed to play a more central role in supplying humanitarian aid to, and supervising the development of basic infrastructure projects in, the Gaza Strip. Shipments, however, will still be inspected at Israel’s Ashdod port prior to transport via the Erez Crossing—the first of which arrived this weekend. Finally, both sides agreed to exchange ambassadors in the coming weeks.

Analysis of the deal has been skeptical; rapprochement does not change the underlying fact that Turkey continues to support Hamas, an organization committed to Israel’s destruction. One does not need to be an expert in order to predict that the next round of violence in the Gaza Strip—more of a when than an if—will put the deal’s resilience to the test.

But the fact that the two sides reached an accord suggests that differences over Gaza are taking a backseat to more pressing matters. Many didn’t believe that the deal would happen, and yet it did.

For Turkey, reconciliation with Israel is the first step to reversing a failed foreign policy that led to its regional isolation. It is no coincidence that the final round of negotiations began shortly after Turkey downed a Russian jet along the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015, or that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued an apology to Moscow shortly after signing the deal with Israel. Increased security cooperation, enabled in part by Ankara’s decision to lift its veto of a permanent Israeli mission to NATO, should contribute to Turkish efforts to contain ISIS as well as joint Israeli-Turkish interest in limiting Iranian influence in Syria.

Israel is also concerned with regional instability, yet its desire to export natural gas seems to be an equally dominant incentive. Of the multiple export options available to Israel, none are more financially viable than the construction of an underwater pipeline to Turkey. The obstacles standing before a project of this kind are many: a pipeline would run through Cypriot territorial waters and therefore requires Nicosia’ approval; the global energy market could continue to plummet thereby reducing investor interest; and, of course, bilateral ties could collapse again prior to a hypothetical pipeline’s completion. However, given the degree to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the deal’s impact upon Israel’s future energy security, there can be little doubt as to its centrality in this story.

Deep distrust remains on both sides. Israel and Turkey share many overlapping strategic interests, but they prioritize them differently. Regional challenges such as the Syrian civil war, and the threat of ISIS are not necessarily a source of cohesion. Yet in the last few months, both sides engaged in a public relations campaign in order develop the necessary goodwill for reconciliation. This is likely to continue in the coming months.

Forging a new narrative requires the implementation of a multi-tier process that includes the diversification of official channels that enhance Israeli-Turkish strategic, economic, and humanitarian cooperation. Civil society actors will play an important role in bolstering these efforts and increasing people-to-people dialogue. Each country’s business community, indirectly responsible for keeping the possibility of reconciliation alive during this period of diplomatic tension, must also be vocal partners in defining the future of the relationship.

Most importantly, Israeli and Turkish leaderships must create a mechanism that will allow them to effectively manage future conflicts. Throughout the decades, Israel-Turkey ties have often been impacted by developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict. But whereas previous Turkish support for the Palestinian cause was limited to diplomatic rhetoric, patronage under Erdogan and the A.K.P. became increasingly proactive, particularly in Gaza, necessitating a reevaluation of the relationship between Turkey and Israel.

As long as Turkey’s relationship with Hamas remains political, détente could provide a window of opportunity to rebuild the Gaza Strip. As revealed a few days after the signing of the deal, Turkey will be permitted to transfer funds to banks in the Gaza for the purpose of financing projects previously approved by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Plans are already underway to build a desalination plant and power station. Basic infrastructure projects not only improve the daily lives of Gazans, but also could stave off future conflict between Israel and Hamas by creating a valuable channel of communication that runs through Ankara.

Why should the United States support this process? After all, Erdogan and Netanyahu are persona non grata at the White House these days. Neither has been particularly supportive of President Barack Obama’s Middle East policies, and that may not change after he leaves office in January. However, American security interests are dependent on Washington’s ability to cooperate with and lead its allies. Now that the reconciliation process has confirmed the sources of Israeli-Turkish tension and mutual interest, the next administration will be better positioned to incentivize cooperation over discord.

Rapprochement signals the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. But as emphasized by Israel’s lead negotiator with Turkey, Joseph Ciechanover, the deal only planted a “seedling”. Both parties come away from the reconciliation process with a better understanding of one another’s interests, and therefore will be better adapted to repair and cultivate this partnership going forward. The future of the relationship will be determined by how the two sides choose to care for and grow their partnership, hopefully with an eye toward not only their immediate interests, but also the long-term prospects for peace in the region.

(originally published by the Middle East Institute)

הפוסט Israel-Turkey: Where to from Now? הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Impressions from a day in Gaza הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Disaster diplomacy: The attack that brought Israel and Turkey closer הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט The Islamic State’s Sinai Attack: Commentary & Analysis הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

The essence of this “doctrine” is that a combination of engagement and satisfaction of core strategic needs could serve American interests far better than sanctions and isolation.

America, in Obama’s opinion, with its overwhelming power, should have the confidence to take some calculated risks to create important new opportunities.

He believes that the United States is sufficiently powerful to test new diplomatic propositions without putting itself at risk. Although Obama hopes to see a change in Iran’s position in the forthcoming years, leading it to discontinue or slow its nuclear journey, America will be in a position to use its deterrence capabilities and military force if no such change develops.

According to this argument, a superpower with a defense budget of $600 billion should be able to ward off any threat emanating from a nation with $30b budget.

Time will tell whether the Obama Doctrine with regard to Iran (and pariah states in general) was successful or merely wishful thinking, but no one can deny the logic of this reasoning, even if doubts regarding the sincerity of Iranian intentions persist. Interestingly, the logic underlying this doctrine appears to be even more relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian case.

A self-confident Israel, with a defense budget amounting to NIS 57b., is a superpower in comparison to the approximately $1b. budget of the Palestinian Authority (the figures for Hamas are more problematic although there is obviously a wide gap here as well). According to the Obama Doctrine, such a gap allows Israel to take risks and offer some substantial concessions with regard to the occupied territories. Israel’s consistent argument that it does not have the luxury to test this proposition is disingenuous because its military might could easily undo whatever has been conceded.

Moreover, an agreement with the Palestinians would be supported by security guarantees provided by the United States, the European Community and perhaps other parties in the region, which would help deter Israel’s potential enemies.

Unfortunately, the chances that the newly composed rightwing government will adopt this line of reasoning are slim at best. For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political allies, there is no partner on the Palestinian side. While he may be correct with regard to Hamas, placing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas firmly in the “no partner” square is a mistake. The problem, however, goes far beyond the policy of the current government, as most Israeli governments were reluctant to take initiative in the realm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel was even reluctant to formally endorse, or even positively respond, to the Arab Peace Initiative, which might have served as an umbrella for advancing an agreement with the Palestinians.

The conclusion must be, therefore, that the chances for an independent Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough initiated by Israel are close to zero. This leaves the Obama administration as the only viable player that can ignite the process by offering a blueprint for a solution.

If Obama applies his doctrine to the Israeli-Palestinian case, we can expect the Obama Doctrine to be followed by the Obama Peace Plan or the Obama Peace Parameters.

In contrast to Clinton, who offered his vision in his final days in office in December 2000, Obama has sufficient time in office to promote his plan if he acts now. While the chances of this eventuality seem remote in view of the failure of the Kerry mission in 2014, coupled by Obama’s reluctance to further antagonize the Israeli government following the controversy over the Iran deal, perhaps Obama might be ready to take the chance of offering his own vision for the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After all, the deal with Iran was similarly driven by the conviction that it was “the right thing to do.” Such a proposal would surely arouse heated political debate in Israel and may lead to internal changes.

But if the Israeli government involves itself in domestic American politics, there is no reason why the United States cannot do the same.

(originally published in the Jerusalem Post)

הפוסט Applying the ‘Obama Doctrine’ to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

In a clear and loud voice, Mahmoud Abbas renounced the disgraceful crime of kidnapping three teens in Gush Etzion, and said in front of representatives of states which have no diplomatic relations with Israel that he was determined to continue the security coordination with it.

Abbas declared that the PA would do everything in its power to make sure that the kidnapped teens are located and returned safely to their families. He asserted that this was a Palestinian interest.

Abbas chose to face the populist atmosphere on the Palestinian street courageously. The criminal abduction was accepted by many groups there as a legitimate act. Campaigns celebrating the capture of “three new Gilad Shalits” began popping up on the social media. Not only in the Gaza Strip, but also at Birzeit University, the incident was marked by handing out candy to passersby.

Despicably, under false pretense, the Palestinian terror organizations even began claiming that “three Israeli soldiers” had been taken captive.

הפוסט By condemning abduction, Abbas proved he’s a statesman הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

One can say that the Palestinian reconciliation process is also an outcome of the Arab spring. While in the Arab world the masses flocked to the streets and demanded the removal of tyrannous regimes, Palestinian city squares by and large remained quiet and empty. The only voices heard in the Palestinian public sphere were calls to end the intra-Palestinian division.

The failure of the Israeli government-PLO peace talks and the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip pushed the rivals into one each other arms. The announcement of future reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas could be described as one more initiative in the process of achieving a way out of the Palestinian political deadlock.

Turkey has emerged as a regional super power in the Palestinian reconciliation process. Hamas sees Turkey under Erdoğan’s rule as a role model for a future Palestinian state. One should also remember that Turkey was the first country that recognized the legitimacy of Hamas to rule over the Palestinian territories after it won the election of June 2006 in a fair democratic process.

Chairman of Hamas politburo Khaled Mashal has a very good personal relationship with the AK Party leadership. On Sept. 30, 2012 Mashal was a guest of honor at the AK Party congress, alongside former Egyptian President Morsi. Since then, Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ prime minister in the Gaza Strip, held several meetings with Erdoğan on the intra-Palestinian reconciliation process and on Turkey’s potential role as mediator.

Despite the strong personal relationship between Hamas and the AK Party leadership, the Erdoğan rule did not undermine Mahmoud Abass position as PLO chairman. The Turkish government declined Hamas’ request to open a representative office in Ankara. By doing so, the Turkish government gave Mahmoud Abbas legitimacy in the Islamic sphere. That comes as no surprise. Historically Turkey was also one of the countries in the world that recognized the status of the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1975.

As we stand days or hours from the establishment of Palestinian unity government, the stability of this government could function in more effective ways under Turkish sponsorship. There is a lot of sympathy in Turkey for the Palestinian street as Erdoğan has won the hearts and the minds of the Palestinians.

The Mavi Maramra incident, the crisis of the Israeli-Turkish relationship and warm hospitality that Turkey gave to ex-Palestinians prisoners that were released in the Gilad Shalit prisoners exchange deals make Turkey very popular among Palestinians.

If Turkey will be more involved in the Palestinian reconciliation process it can open a new window of opportunities in the region. The current state of Turkish-Israeli relations further hinders this position. Perhaps Turkey can play the role of mediator between Israel and Hamas. Even though Israel perceives Turkey as a dishonest broker, and as a hostile state, if Israel were to ask Turkey – which is a regional superpower – to play the role of mediator between them and the Palestinians, it could be the beginning of building a new trusting relationship between the parties.

There is a great a need for Israeli-Turkish reconciliation in these days of regional instability. Both countries are aware to the ramifications of the Syrian civil war and don’t want the violence to cross their borders. There are also new economic factors that can pave the way for renewed Israeli-Turkish relationships that will be based upon strengthened mutual interests. Israel is important for Turkey. The Turkish Industry and Business Association identified Israel as a priority investment partner. Turkey is important for Israel in terms of creating a sphere of regional stability. The discovery of the Israeli gas field and the Turkish need for this energy can boost ties between the sides and be the base for a new treaty that will combine all of the elements that were mentioned before.

The Arab Revolutions created a new Middle East and there are new challenges and opportunities. It is a time for a fresh start, for a period of hope, for a quiet and secure life. Israel and Turkey as regional powers should create a new and stable environment of peace, not only for its own citizens, but for all of the people of the era.

(originally published in The Daily Sabbah)

הפוסט Palestinian reconciliation process הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Abbas Is on His Way to the UN Again הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Israeli foreign policy experts: Palestinian reconciliation can be good for Israel הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

So what happens if negotiations actually renew and then break down again? What’s next for the Palestinian agenda?

Kerry has said that progress needs to be made by the fall, presumably to circumvent future Palestinian actions at the UN; it’s clear that one of the conditions for resuming talks was a halt in the Palestinian internationalization campaign while talks are ongoing. The common Israeli prediction is that the Palestinians could build off their 2011-2012 UN campaign and do something as drastic as going to the International Criminal Court to air their grievances. This battle of global public opinion is one of the few areas of Palestinian diplomatic strength, and a severe concern for the Israelis. Yet if that’s the next move in the eyes of the Israelis, the feeling isn’t mutual in Ramallah. Indeed, as one senior Fatah official pointed out to me, the ICC is the last organization on a list of organizations triaged in importance to the Palestinian internationalization campaign. What is more likely, then, is a renewed Palestinian diplomatic campaign at the international level, a campaign that starts with the Palestinians seeking to sign some of the less-threatening international treaties such as the UNICEF Rights of the Child. These treaties and conventions are referred to by Palestinian leaders as the “first clusters”; relatively minor organizations and treaties that escalate as the campaign continues. Becoming signatories to some of these treaties has two main benefits for the Palestinians: first, they show the Palestinian people a palpable engagement on the international level, and second, they do very little to antagonize the United States and Israel.

But where did these “clusters” and contingency plans come from? The shift in the Palestinian leadership was gradual but recent. Faced with a moribund peace process and a status quo that increasingly harmed their interests, the Palestinian leadership scrambled to find alternative tactical tracks to pursue. In 2009, this reached a head when Abbas was faced with roughly three main options: attempt to reconcile the Fatah/Hamas split, essentially condone an intifada, or go international and approach the UN. With less-than-overwhelming enthusiasm for reconciliation, and similar disdain for an intifada, Abbas was left with really only one realistic option: internationalization.

The justification, then, for this choice lay in the history of the Palestinian political movement. In interviews this past year in Ramallah, Palestinian officials were quick to align the recent international campaign with the historical movements of the Palestinians at the UN. This process, in their eyes, started in 1974, with the PLO’s release of the ten-point plan, a document that sought to reconcile the armed resistance, but also left room for political maneuverability. As the Lebanese war raged on, the local PLO leadership began to evolve, forming the institutions of a semi-state. This evolution continued in 1982, when PLO members began openly calling for the acceptance of Resolution 242, the UN resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from “lands occupied in the recent conflict.” Abbas’s own memoirs detail this evolution—as an advocate of accepting 242 in 1974, Abbas noted that by 1982 members of the PLO thought a shift towards the international community could ”break the siege [of Beirut] and preserve the PLO.”

By 1988, this evolution had reached a climax when the Palestinians issued their declaration of independence, a statement that was joined with supporting documents accepting Resolution 242 and the two-state process. Soon after, Arafat was invited to address the UN, the Palestinians’ status was upgraded to observer entity, and a few days later Arafat renounced terrorism in a teleconference. The evolution of Palestinian thought that had culminated in an international campaign was halted subsequently thereafter, as the United States and PLO began to form a tenuous, if not productive, relationship that would lead to Madrid and eventually the Oslo process. Not until this process broke down in the years following Annapolis would the Palestinians look back on their internationalization campaign. As one PA official told me, “it’s as if the stopwatch we started in 1974 and paused in 1988 was resumed in 2009.”

The beauty of the UN campaign was its flexibility. Unlike most options on the table for the Palestinians, the internationalization campaign had tremendous upside. Not only did it play to one of the last, great strengths of the Palestinian leadership, the UN, but it was able to reconcile internal Palestinian political camps, something very few policy agendas can claim in the West Bank and Gaza. For those that advocate the use of force, or at least a more stern approach to dealing with Israel, it had the advantages of appearing to antagonize Israel and the United States. For those that pledge themselves to bilateral negotiations, it had the upside of appearing to leverage the Palestinian hand, the clearest evidence of that being Kerry’s recent attempts to bring both sides to the table.

For Abbas, a man who wants to appear committed to the bilateral process, the UN campaign followed in the footsteps of his predecessor. In May of 1999, Arafat both publicly and privately mused about what to do after the five-year interim Oslo period ended. With his trademark style of pursuing multiple tracks to varying levels of effort at once, Arafat deployed two deputies, Nabil Shaath and Saeb Erekat, to lobby European countries at the UN to recognize a possible Palestinian declaration of statehood. It was a lobbying campaign that Dennis Ross countered with a campaign of his own, as described in his memoirs; Arafat was “coy” about the possible move. However, President Clinton was able to take advantage of his working relationship with Arafat and bring him back from the brink with the promise of renewed negotiations. It was a moment that undoubtedly had an impact on Abbas when he launched his UN campaign in 2011. Palestinian officials describe Abbas as a leader hoping for Obama to intervene with proposed negotiations, to bring both parties back to the table. With Obama either unwilling or unable to do so, Abbas had walked himself into a corner where the only option was to go to the UN.

If Israeli officials describe the UN campaign as unilateral because it breaks with the spirit of Oslo, and the Palestinians describe the campaign as multilateral because it engages the international community, then the truth is somewhere in between. For the Palestinian leadership, there is an emerging group of officials and policymakers calling for an integrated strategy, a usage of tactics such as ”smart resistance,” of lobbying international countries and signing on to the “clusters” of the global community. This group is not opposed to new negotiations with Israel—indeed they support it—but they have been laying the foundation for a backup plan to failed negotiations for years. If Kerry’s proposed talks do indeed break down, or if they are unable to even start, the backup plan for the Israelis is a perpetuation of the status quo. The backup plan for the Palestinians, however, is taking the conflict back to the international arena.

(originally published in the National Interest)

הפוסט Palestine’s Plan B הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

There has previously been dramatic news about Palestinian reconciliation that has not amounted to much, and the road toward a unity government may be a long one. But for supporters of the two-state solution, this recent development should be regarded as an opportunity rather than a threat.

The split between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is one of the largest obstacles to the two-state solution. Even the Israeli peace camp cannot provide a convincing explanation of how a final-status agreement can be implemented with only the West Bank on board.

This obstacle was evident during the Annapolis peace process in 2007-2008. At the time, the parties acknowledged that given the Palestinian split, the most realistic goal was merely to reach a “shelf agreement” that would not be implemented until a later stage in the process.

The situation looks similar this time around. The current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were launched with the ambitious goal of reaching a two-state solution. Alas, recent statements from Washington are introducing a much more modest goal: either a framework for a final-status agreement or an agreement to be implemented in phases.

At this year’s Saban Forum, U.S. President Barack Obama was asked whether peace is possible when the Palestinian people are not united. His response was that if “we can create a pathway to peace, even if initially it’s restricted to the West Bank,” then the Palestinians in Gaza will also want to enjoy its benefits.

הפוסט Israel Should Support Palestinian Reconciliation הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

In the wake of these elections, originally scheduled for 2011 yet postponed due to political infighting, several storylines emerged:

The Hamas-Fatah rift is widening

Hamas — which has run Gaza since it split following the last round of elections in 2006 and 2007 — officially boycotted the elections, shunning candidates from running in the West Bank and barring any polling centers in Gaza. The elections elicited a trading of barbs between the two parties, with the Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, asking to “end this disgrace.” Saeb Erekat, the long-entrenched strongman of Fatah, responded that “Hamas cannot have a veto on democracy.”

Fatah and Hamas have long made public overtures for reconciliation, meeting in Cairo in 2011 and then in Doha in April. Yet their plans for hosting these municipal elections together stalled, and the agreement broke down. Indeed, the 2010 elections were cancelled and the 2011 elections postponed due to the rift between the two parties, as the Palestinian Central Elections Committee blamed the political divide as the primary obstacle to holding the elections.

It is unlikely that Saturday’s Fatah-led elections did anything to bridge the divide between the two parties; in fact, the tone from senior officials suggest the rift will only widen. Salam Fayyad, the polarizing Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), told Ma’an News, “It’s time to get over the split. It was a complicated election but there shouldn’t be any excuses to prevent it going ahead. Hamas will be responsible politically and ethically for preventing people from voting and must be judged for that.”

Fatah’s strength is waning

Despite being the party with the most financial and political resources, Fatah did not claim the sweeping victory it had hoped for on Saturday, winning in just five of the 11 main districts. Showing the political infighting that has plagued the party for years, many cities saw former Fatah party members running independently against the party. After the polls closed, Fatah controlled the seats in cities such as Hebron, Tulkarem and Jericho, yet lost control in Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.

Fatah officials had hoped that the elections would show a unified support base in the face of its rival, Hamas, yet what appeared Saturday was a party feeling the repercussions of years of stalled peace process efforts, financial crises, and internal bickering.

High levels of apathy among Palestinians

The elections on Saturday yielded relatively low voter turnout. Despite being the first elections since 2006, where voter turnout was roughly 75 percent, these elections drew out just 54 percent, according to the Central Elections Committee. The drop in participation can be attributed to a couple of factors, most notably the well-documented disillusionment and apathy of the Palestinian voter.

Yet it’s worth noting that the drop in these numbers is comparable with the drop in U.S. voter turnout between a presidential and congressional election. In 2008, U.S. voter turnout was 57 percent, while in 2010 it fell to 38 percent. In short: Are Palestinians disillusioned and apathetic towards the democratic process? Yes. Is it normal to have a drop-off in voter turnout between presidential and municipal elections? Yes. And, coincidentally, does the PA still have a higher voter turnout than the U.S. in its elections? Yes.

In the long run, without an effective central government or any measurable progress in negotiations with the Israeli government, the Palestinian municipal elections may not have a significant impact on the political gridlock. Yet in a region currently witnessing the sometimes-violent emergence of democracies, the Palestinians are quick to note their veteran status. As vocalized by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose own term expired in 2009 with no new presidential elections in sight: “We hope we will be regarded by our brothers in Gaza and everywhere in the Arab world as the ones who first embarked upon democracy, and we continue on this path and we hope everyone will follow us.”

(originally published in The Atlantic)

הפוסט 3 Key Takeaways From This Week’s Palestinian Elections הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

Impressions from Meetings with Palestinian Officials from the West Bank, October 2011 

At the beginning of October, prior to the Gilead Shalit prisoners swap deal, representatives of Mitvim participated in meetings with a series of key Palestinian figures from Ramallah and Nablus. The meetings were conducted in cooperation with Ronnie Shaked, from Yediot Aharonot and the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute, and focused on the implications of the Palestinian UN statehood bid of September 2011. This paper summarizes the main points that were raised in the aforementioned meetings. These points do not represent official positions and should not be attributed to all Palestinians; however, they do provide a glimpse into the current state of mind of Palestinian officials from the West Bank.

Abu Mazen returned victorious from the UN, despite the Israeli perception that the Palestinians had lost at the UN. The request for UN recognition of a Palestinian state, Abu Mazen’s speech, and his willingness to confront the United States, were all perceived at the time as major events within the Palestinian national struggle. They sparked a surge in Abu Mazen’s popularity on the ground. The Palestinian Authority held celebrations in parallel to the UN General Assembly, and Abu Mazen was portrayed as a national hero.

Abu Mazen is aware of his power. Despite the continued and repeated rumors regarding retirement from the political sphere, Abu Mazen has not appointed or trained any successors and has limited the power of the younger generation. He is focused on working towards the creation of his own legacy. Abu Mazen knows that he does not have a replacement at the moment, and that his only replacement could be Hamas, which remains unwanted by the United States, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Therefore, he allows himself to adopt a “take it or I leave” approach. Abu Mazen is aware that there is no desire for Hamas to take his place and therefore, various domestic and international actors will eventually accept the policies that he chooses to pursue.

Abu Mazen creates a new ethos, one that stands for non-violence. Abu Mazen has chosen a non-violent political struggle as his strategy and has taken steps to change the ethos of Arafat’s battle. This new policy emphasizes the Palestinian intentions to end the Occupation and acquire a state within the 1967 borders, without violent confrontation with Israel. The new approach is supported by most of Fateh’s figureheads and members. The level of support it enjoys among the Palestinian people, specifically the young generation, is unclear. The choice to follow the non-violent path contributes to a positive self-image among Palestinians, some of whom have compared themselves to India and Gandhi. This approach is perceived as a step that safeguards the Palestinian national interests and increases international support for the Palestinians and their struggle. It appears that in the meantime this is just a tactic, one which has not yet uprooted the ethos of the violent struggle. If they feel helpless or if they think there is a more beneficial path, it seems that the Palestinians will be ready to change course once again. .

The Palestinians feel that they are ready for and deserve a state. Abu Mazen rehabilitated the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) – the economy, the security, and the institutions. The Palestinians feel better about themselves than they have in the past. They are on the road to progress, taking initiative and promoting actions in the international arena. The Palestinians have achieved support (Turkey provided legal advice to the PNA prior to the UN bid) and highlight their readiness for their own state. Nablus, for example, was previously marked by instability and security chaos, whereas today the situation is totally different. The city has developed immensely: economic progress, stability, and civil order. Unemployment has dropped from 65% to 11%, tourism is beginning to pick up and more tourism plans are being created, there is commercial and real estate development, restaurants are opening up, a stock exchange is operating, and more. There is security cooperation with Israel, which everyone is aware of (also in regards to Joseph’s Tomb, which was refurbished by the PNA), and that has brought to the removal of checkpoints around the city and to increased freedom of movement.

First a state, then a permanent status agreement. It seems that today’s Palestinian discourse is focused on the establishment of a state and not on the achievement of a permanent status agreement, or a peace agreement with Israel. There is a lack of faith in the ability to negotiate with the Netanyahu Government. There is an operative plan for diplomatic progress towards statehood and a belief that it will be better (for Israel as well) to negotiate a permanent status agreement on a state-to-state level. It may then be easier for the Palestinians to make compromises on sensitive issues. At the same time, there is an understanding that the parameters of a future peace agreement, based on the 1967 lines, are already more or less known, that it will be possible to eventually reach an agreement on all core issues, and that should Israel adopt a pro-peace policy that a final status agreement can be achieved also before the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Following the UN General Assembly, the Palestinians are patient and realistic. The Palestinians do not expect that a state will be established tomorrow. They understand that there is a long road ahead, and they declare that they possess a great amount of patience. They point out that several states (including Israel) have turned to the UN multiple times until they were accepted as members, and the Palestinians plan to do the same. If America will use their veto, the Palestinians plan to submit another application, and so on and so forth, until they are accepted. They believe that this is an historical process that cannot be stopped and that September 2011 marked the beginning of a new era in the Palestinian political struggle. The Palestinians believe that momentum is on their side and they are not afraid of a political confrontation with Israel or the United Sates. They plan to maintain their tactic of turning to the international community and conducting a diplomatic struggle in parallel to non-violent protests. They feel that they have nothing to lose.

An international Intifada, not a Palestinian one. The Palestinians paid a heavy toll during the second Intifada and they are not searching for another round of violence. They believe that the UN bid will benefit them far more than another Intifada and that the Israelis are afraid of a third Intifada, regardless of the fact that Palestinian leaders have discounted this possibility. In fact, no significant violent confrontations broke out in September. Instead of Palestinians launching an Intifada against Israel, the World is doing it for them. Israel finds itself increasingly isolated by the international community and is losing support among the countries of the region (Turkey and Egypt) as well as among its allies in the West.

There is no point in negotiating with Netanyahu’s Government. Two years ago, Fateh’s convention concluded that there is no possibility of reaching an agreement with the current Israeli government and that the Palestinian struggle for statehood should thus be conducted in the international arena. The Palestinians do not have any faith in Netanyahu and they view his policy proposals as a right-wing political battle with Lieberman. The Palestinians feel that there is no reason to negotiate just for the sake of negotiations. They are waiting for the Israeli Government to say what it wants and to make clear where it is heading to. It hasn’t happened yet.

There are alternatives, and they are less desirable for Israel. If no progress is made in the Palestinian bid for statehood, and if there is no progress in negotiations, then the two-state solution will become less popular among Palestinians. They have warned that Abu Mazen may decide to dismantle the PNA and promote the call for one-state. If Israel will push the Palestinians into a corner, a violent confrontation is not unlikely. It may start with demonstrations similar to those of the Arab Spring – perhaps with organized marches on Fridays towards the fence. The Palestinians feel that Israel is trying to force them into an alliance with Iran, despite the fact that the Palestinians oppose Iranian and Shi’ite attempts to meddle in the politics of the region. However, some said that if all other doors close, then the Palestinians might even decide to “deal with the devil”.

The problem is Israel, and Israel is at a disadvantage. Israel does not understand the changes that are happening around it. These changes are serving Palestinian interests, and not the Israeli ones. Israel is losing friends in the region and is no longer a central figure in determining regional processes. The question is not how much patience the Palestinians have before they turn to violence, but how much time Israel will wait before promoting a solution to the conflict. The deterioration is within Israel. Israel is changing from a liberal society to a less democratic and zealous society. It finds itself increasingly isolated internationally. Today there is no Palestinian leader that can be labeled an obstacle to peace. There is no Palestinian terror. The problem is Israel. There is terrorism from the settlers, which Israel does not control. The settlers are the ones that will destroy Israel and cause a violent explosion. The Palestinians do not understand how it is possible that Israel has refrained from halting the settler violence. Israel does not need to be afraid of a Palestinian state. It should be concerned from Iran. The solution to the Palestinian problem will first and foremost serve Israel, and will improve its regional and global standing. The establishment of a Palestinian state is in Israel’s interest, and there is a belief that about half of the Israeli public understands it, in contrast to the Israeli government’s policies.

The road to Fateh-Hamas reconciliation is still long. Some believe that the Fateh-Hamas crisis is temporary, that the reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo will soon be implemented, that democratic elections are near, and that the division between the West Bank and Gaza is not really an obstacle to peace (based on claims that Khaled Mashal respects Abu Mazen’s non-violence policy, and declared that he will accept a final status agreement brought forth by Abu Mazen). Nevertheless, there is an understanding that without including Gaza it will not be possible to implement any Israeli-Palestinian agreement, and that the true Fateh-Hamas reconciliation is still far away. The Palestinian people want Palestinian unity and it is possible that they will take to the streets to promote this desire. Abu Mazen is working to maintain Fateh’s power in Gaza, and does so through paying salaries to approximately 60,000 Gaza residents every month without them actually working. A majority of Abu Mazen’s budget is transferred to the Gaza Strip. Fateh believes that it is currently more popular in Gaza than Hamas, and would have gained a majority there should elections take place today. During Abu Mazen’s speech at the UN, Hamas did not allow rallies in support of him. They also threatened to shoot anyone that would demonstrate. Fateh instructed their supporters in Gaza to stay home. They did not want to agitate the situation.

In contrast, Hamas is perceived as being strong in the West Bank. It is allowed to act there as a political organization as long as it operates according to PNA law. Fateh does not directly oppose Hamas (Abu Mazen even met Hamas leaders from Nablus), but it does work to erode Hamas’ power. For example, all of Hamas’ welfare institutions in the West Bank were transferred to the PNA, which currently provides the West Bank residents’ social needs. Fateh has a dilemma in the West Bank, which impacts their ability to gain popularity over Hamas. Fateh veterans that used to be among Israel’s “most wanted” and were responsible for many terror attacks, are now looked at by the younger generation as corrupt officials that drive luxury cars and enjoy VIP permits to enter Israel. The youth are not aware of the militant past of these people, and the Fateh veterans cannot boast about their past because it will not be accepted by the Israelis with whom they cooperate today.

הפוסט Continuing on the Path to Statehood: The Palestinians Following their Septmember 2011 UN Bid הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.