Netanyahu’s survival depends on his next move
Israel’s War with the USA: The End of Netanyahu’s New Government and the Case for a New High-Power Judiciary
Netanyahu responded with a statement late on Tuesday evening, in which he noted Biden’s “longstanding commitment to Israel” but added: “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
“If he had to sell to the public a financial program or a peace-plan, he would be able to do so with passion and in great detail. But a judicial reform isn’t something he’s truly interested in. He assumed that it would be a technicality and that it would be passed through the Knesset.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader and former premier, said Wednesday that Netanyahu’s efforts have “ruined” the relationship. “For decades Israel was the USA’s closest ally. The most extreme government in the country’s history ruined that in three months,” Lapid tweeted.
A coalition Knesset member told me that Netanyahu was respected by most of his career, but that he did not feel a need to confront the Supreme Court. He was forced out of office when he failed to win fourconsecutive elections after he was indicted, but that change was only recently. He is back with a vengeance, and he has allowed his friends to go all out against the Supreme Court.
The winter session has ended and there were no laws passed. The first three months of Netanyahu’s new government were wasted on a policy he now appears to be abandoning.
Bringing the baby to the table: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to explain Israel’s domestic crisis and the Biblical story of the Judgement of Solomon
The Florida governor will visit Jerusalem next month, a visit that will inject the likely Republican presidential contender into Israel’s national tumult and its increasingly fraught relationship with the US.
“At a time of unnecessarily strained relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Florida serves as a bridge between the American and Israeli people,” DeSantis told the Jerusalem Post, which announced details of his planned keynote address at an April 27 event.
“We are in the middle of an important debate, we will overcome it,” Netanyahu said in a statement to staff on Tuesday after announcing that the legislation will be paused until after Passover.
“You are going to Passover, on the eve of Seder you will sit with the families. You can fight a little, not too much, and still come to an agreement. He said the goal was to reach agreements between you and us.
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When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his decision to delay a controversial plan to weaken the country’s judiciary on Monday, he invoked the biblical story of the Judgement of Solomon, where the king had to rule between two women, both claiming to be the mother of a child. The woman who protested the decision to cut the child in two was determined to be the real mother.
The prime minister was given the opportunity to make his speech as both sides of the debate gathered in the same place for the first time in weeks after right-wing politicians called for them to come out.
Both sides of the dispute claim love for the baby, Netanyahu said. The tension is building between the two camps, between the two parts of the people and I am aware of the desire of many citizens to relieve this tension.
Aviv Bushinsky, a former media adviser for Netanyahu who was in office for nine years, said the timing of the address was likely intentional and that it would give Netanyahu a good backdrop for his speech.
“He is playing the game,” said Gideon Rahat, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There is no certainty in Israel, and I am not sure he is not happy with this, because you can never know what will happen.
Bushinsky says that if it was up to Netanyahu he would have pumped the brakes on the judicial overhaul a long time ago, as it wasn’t one of the main leadership goals declared at the start of his sixth term as prime minister.
The survival of his coalition depends on it. But now, analysts say he’s backed into a corner between appeasing protesters and keeping his government intact.
The Jewish Power party knew about the agreement to establish a National Guard before Netanyahu announced the delay. Some on social media speculated that Ben Gvir, who has a extremist past, was being allowed to set up his own militia.
Diana Buttu, a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, told CNN on Tuesday that putting Ben Gvir in charge of the National Guard is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Ben Gvir was quick to address the concerns about the new body. He said in the statement that no private army and no militias were involved.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Wiggle Room: Security Threats and the Phenomenology of Reform in the Light of a Security Crisis
Analysts say that the prime minister has very few options. Protesters and strikes would return if he voted with his coalition in favor of the reform. If he pulls the brakes, his coalition could collapse.
The only wiggle room the Israeli leader has, analysts say, is if negotiators reach a moderated judicial overhaul plan bill over the Knesset’s recess period, which ends April 30, and where concessions to his right-wing coalition members need not be too extreme.
“I think Netanyahu will try to run away from this thing, hoping that things will gradually ease,” said Bushinsky, noting that the ministers who had threatened to resign should the bill not advance have all remained in their posts.
Analysts think that if the country were to once again unite and have a public rally behind the government, it could be a potential security threat from neighboring countries or conflict with the Palestinians.
A security crisis would reorient the government’s attention, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, whether it arises from conflict with the Palestinians, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon or others.
Palestinians are watching the process with unease amid fears that they will pay the price of Netanyahu’s concessions to right-wing coalition members with a history of anti-Palestinian rhetoric.
The recess period will yield no consensus or moderation in Netanyahu’s position, but not everyone is positive about how the leader will act.
“I have not detected any indication that tells me that the prime minister is actually entering into the negotiations with a keen interest in achieving consensus … including comprises on core aspects of the judicial overhaul,” said Plesner.
Netanyahu has a losing situation in which parts of his radical coalition of far-right and ultra- religious parties are still threatening to leave if he doesn’t suppress the Supreme Court. He knows that if he attempts to pass the legislation again in the next Knesset session, he will be inviting even more chaos.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to join the South Asian Cooperation Organization (SCO) despite US security fears and a controversial TV show ‘London Class’
Riyadh has decided to join the SCO as it builds a long- term partnership with China despite US security fears, according to a report. Saudi Arabia has approved a memorandum on granting the kingdom the status of a dialog partner in the SCO, state news agency SPA said.
The body was formed in 2001 by Russia, China, and former Soviet states of Central Asia in order to counterbalance Western influence in the region. The SCO is a political and security union of countries spanning much of Eurasia. Iran also signed documents for full membership last year. There will be a joint counter-terrorism exercise in Russia in August.
She said Saudi interest in the East is due to the fact that the kingdom doesn’t like “policy that interfere with their internal affairs,” a phrase that China holds sacred.
Why it matters: There is a thriving market for captagon in the Gulf, and United Nations and Western anti-narcotics drug officials say Syria, shattered by a decade of civil war, has become the region’s main production site for a multibillion-dollar drug trade that also exports to Europe.
Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco will acquire a 10% stake in China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical in a strategic deal worth $3.6 billion that would significantly expand its presence in China.
The series, “London Class,” is produced by the Saudi state-backed media conglomerate MBC group and depicts Iraqi women working as maids for Kuwaiti women and being accused of theft.
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Information has however said the show has nothing to do with the country and was not shown on any platform there, according to Arabic media.
The show was written by Kuwaiti writer Heba Hamada and directed by Egyptian Mohamed Bakir. In an instagram post, he said Iraq is the mother of civilization and all Arabs lean on it.
Mustafa Jabbar Sanad, a member of parliament in Iraq, accused the show of “erasing the value of well-known Iraqi talents … to distort the image of the Iraqi people as a whole, not just women.”
A similar show called “Cairo Class” was criticized because of its portrayal of Egypt and caused a lot of tension between Kuwait and Egypt. That show is being aired on Netflix.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/middleeast/netanyahu-options-israel-mime-intl/index.html
What Did Israel Tell Us About Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi-American War? Comments on a Likud Minister in the Knesset
The question of honor, particularly that of Iraqi women, has long been a sensitive issue in Kuwaiti-Iraqi relations. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had accused Kuwait of insulting his country’s women, citing it as a reason for his invasion of the country in 1990.
“How could Saddam be tried over Kuwait that said it will reduce Iraqi women to 10-dinar prostitutes?” he asked, referring to himself. Saddam claimed that Hussein helped to revive Iraq’s historical rights over the dogs.
Editor’s Note: Anshel Pfeffer (@anshelpfeffer) is a writer for Ha’aretz and the Israel correspondent of The Economist. He is the author of “Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu.” This is his own opinion, so it does not correspond to the views expressed here. CNN has more opinion.
I had never heard a word of criticism from this particular Likud minister on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Our conversations were always filled with praise, even when their leader had been exposed in some of his worst moments. But no more.
Should there be even the slightest doubt, the minister assured me they were in total agreement with the policies themselves — which amounts to a series of laws aimed at weakening Israel’s Supreme Court and removing its powers to hold the government to account.
Our conversation took place six weeks ago, half-way through the Knesset, Israel parliament’s winter session. The laws were supposed to be passed by the end of the session. By then it was already clear to the minister and other senior figures that they were in deep trouble.
Netanyahu is the only Israeli politician to ever win six elections and come back two times from the wilderness of opposition, but how did he get it so wrong? Why did he not anticipate the huge backlash from the Israeli public, particularly the non- political tech sector and reserve officers? He assumed that the legislation would be meekly accepted, and that the checks and balances would be stripped from Israel’s democracy.
Israel descended into chaos this week with Netanyahu firing his own defense minister and trade unions and employers announcing a general strike, which Netanyahu called for a timeout for true dialogue.
His most steadfast supporters are having a hard time explaining. The prime minister’s strengths were being excused by one senior politburo member. “Netanyahu sees his mission as prime minister as taking care of Israel’s big issues. He has always looked at security, diplomacy and economics. The politician said Constitutional Affairs didn’t seem to be important to him. The explanation goes along with it.
David Ben-Gurion: 30 Years of Israel’s Prime Minister and a Mistake by the Experts in the Likud Era
When he came back to office after just a sixth election victory he was no longer willing to listen to the few pragmatic voices who remain in his inner circle.
He was elected Likud leader for the first time 30 years ago. His time as prime minister totals 15 and a half years, more even than Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion. He attributes Israel’s economic growth to the country’s burgeoning foreign relations, recent diplomatic agreements with Arab countries and its recovery from the Covid-19 outbreak.
He believes that everything that happened to Israel in the last decades was down to his stewardship, and that whenever the experts disagreed with him, he was right. So who is anyone to tell him now that he’s making a big mistake?
