Tag: Bibi Netanyahu

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Touting Jewish ghettos – Moronic or malevolent?

Given the resistance to removing hundreds of thousands of Jews from their ancient homeland in Judea-Samaria, an egregious idea is emerging: Instead of evacuation, abandonment

 

The settlements would remain Israeli enclaves inside a Palestinian state. This will enable the establishment of an independent Palestinian state without dismantling Israeli settlements and evacuating their residents…The idea is to prevent the need to evacuate about 100,000 Jewish settlers who will remain beyond the settlement blocs which will be transferred to Israel in exchange for Israeli territories which will be given to the Palestinian state… free access to these enclaves through the territory of the independent Palestinian state will be guaranteed. – Gideon Biger, “Israeli Enclaves in Palestine…”, Jerusalem Post August 15, 2017

 

The notion of abandoning Jews anywhere to the mercies of hostile regimes strikes me as frankly immoral. The idea that Jews living (with the full approval, I might add, of successive Israeli governments) in Judea and Samaria, should be somehow consigned to the whims of a Palestinian state, suffused with anti-Jewish racism, strikes me as frankly obscene.- Geoffrey Alderman,  “Plan for settlers that’s naive and dumb”, The Jewish Chronicle, January 3, 2014.

 

Just when you thought the political debate in Israel could not get any crazier—it does.

 

A cavalcade of craziness

 

The last two and a half decades, have seen the emergence of several wildly delusional proposals for dealing with the “Palestinian problem”—from both sides of the political spectrum.

 

Thus, for example, on the Left, the dominant paradigm has been support for the antithesis of all the values the Left professes to ascribe to i.e. the endorsement of a giant Gaza-like entity  on the eastern approaches of  Tel Aviv,  (mis)governed by a misogynistic, homophobic, Islamist tyranny—a.k.a. the two-state principle.

 

On the Right, proposals range from formulas for the Lebanonization of Israel (via annexation of all of Judea-Samaria, without any clear idea of how to contend with the Arab population resident there), to those for the Balkanization of Israel (via annexation of parts Judea-Samaria, leaving the recalcitrant Arab population largely encapsulated in scattered, disconnected enclaves).

 

Lately, these calamitous prescriptions have been embellished by similarly unhinged appendages—such as the suggestion to provide the terror-regime in Gaza with a port, despite the fact that, in times of non-belligerence, the modern port of Ashdod, barely 20 miles to the north, can supply all of Gaza’s needs—and in times of  belligerence, Israel has a keen interest in denying Gaza any port services!

 

In my column last week, I discussed the harebrained scheme to convert Judea-Samaria into a mega-South Lebanon by unilaterally removing the Jewish civilian presence there, but leaving the IDF deployed in a territory over which Israel eschews any claims to sovereignty—thereby, in effect, replicating the conditions that prevailed in the “security zone’ in South Lebanon, which precipitated the 2000 IDF unilateral withdrawal—with undignified haste.  

 

A real doozy

 

This of course is not an exhaustive list of all the inane initiatives that have been inserted into the political debate in Israel.

 

Only last week, an additional idea surfaced—or rather, resurfaced.  

 

It was a real doozy.

 

It  was the suggestion that, sometime somehow in the future,  it would be not only  possible politically, but acceptable morally, to leave (read “abandon”) Jewish communities across the  pre-1967 Green Line as enclaves, within  some future  Palestinian state, with no territorial contiguity with “mainland” Israel.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the proposal first emerged several years ago. It was articulated in an article published by the well-endowed Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), entitled Jewish Enclaves in a Palestinian State.  It was authored by Gideon Biger, professor emeritus in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Geography and Human Environment and Gilead Sher, a senior research fellow at INSS and head of its Center for Applied Negotiations, who formerly served as Head of Bureau and Policy Coordinator for Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Chief negotiator in talks with the Palestinians (1999-2001).

 

In it, they acknowledge: “…the evacuation of tens of thousands from their homes and their settlements, including forcible evacuation of those who refuse to leave at the behest of the government, is a difficult task for the country, and could potentially result in bloodshed and civil war.”

 

Accordingly they suggest: Thus there is a need to examine other, less conventional ideas that could reduce the number of Israelis living beyond the final borders of the State of Israel who will need to be evacuated, including the idea of retaining Jewish settlements as enclaves within the borders of a Palestinian state”.

 

Doozy (cont.)

 

An article, published several months later by Prof. Alexander Yakobson, a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, entitled “How to deflate the settlements as an issue” expressed similarly egregious sentiments.

 

In it Yakobson writes: “…the number of settlers there is far higher than on previous occasions when Israel evacuated settlements in Sinai and in Gaza. Many believe that we are fast approaching – if we have not already passed – the point of no return, when the two-state solution becomes infeasible…”

 

Yakobson stoutly rebuffs any such pessimism regarding the prospects of two-statism.  According to his vision: “…if we are talking about real peace, why can’t there be a Jewish minority in a Palestinian state? The future peace …should recognize the right of those Jews who will find themselves on the Palestinian side of the border to continue living there … as a minority under Palestinian sovereignty”.

 

This is a question that is both callous and cynical—and one for which Yakobson himself provided the answer, admitting: “…It is true that precedents for Jews living under Arab sovereignty, in the decades since Israel’s independence, are not encouraging: No Jewish community has been able to survive anywhere in the Arab world.”

 

This somber assessment of the ramifications of leaving Jews in a Palestinian state is shared by Biger et Sher, who, perversely, raise the prospect of precisely such a policy: “…there is a decided possibility of friction and clashes between the enclaves and their Palestinian surroundings, which could develop into a state of high intensity open conflict. Many experts believe that from political, security, and practical aspects, the idea is not at all feasible, even in a state of full peace.”

 

Reckless endangerment or depraved indifference?

 

In past columns, I have harshly criticized both Biger et Sher (see Infuriating, Insidious, Immoral) and Yakobson (see Mainstreaming Treason?)

 

Indeed, given the fact that they all seem entirely aware of the probable gory consequences of their proposal, it is difficult to repudiate the charge that it reflects features very reminiscent of the offences of “reckless endangerment” and/or “depraved indifference.

 

Without engaging in scholarly debate regarding the legalistic differences between the two concepts, it would, in informed layman’s terms, be true to say, that the defining characteristic common to both these terms is that they each entail conduct exhibiting a clear disregard for the foreseeable consequences of the act involved—wfhich creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to others. Significantly, the focus in these offenses is on the risk created by such conduct, not the actual injuries resulting.

So clearly, whatever the sentiments in the hearts of the enclave-enthusiasts, their proposal to abandon Jews living across the pre-1967 Green Line to Palestinian jurisdiction, in effect, comprises a call for conduct that displays stark disregard for foreseeable consequences of the measures involved, thus creating a substantial risk of serious injury to others.

So, reckless endangerment or depraved indifference?

 

As this is so glaringly apparent, one might have expected such proposals—or any like-minded derivatives—would have been long removed from the public discourse—once and for all.  

 

Sadly, however, as we shall see, this is not the case.

 

Inverting Zionism?

 

Clearly, the proposal to abandon Jews to alien sovereignty comprises a grotesque inversion of the Zionist ethos, which always strove to achieve the opposite – bringing Jews to live under Jewish sovereignty.

 

Perhaps it was the uneasy recognition of this that has led to a recent revision of this pernicious and perilous proposal.

 

In an opinion piece last week, Biger once again referred to the idea, claiming that Netanyahu had raised the possibility with the Trump administration, stipulating that any Jewish communities left behind would—even if territorially detached—remain under Israeli sovereignty.

 

He notes: “A similar proposal has been raised in the past in discussions with the Obama administration. Later Netanyahu abolished the idea knowing that it would face right-wing opposition.”  

 

Biger’s contention is corroborated by a Haaretz report, according to which Netanyahu did indeed discuss the “enclave option”. The report claims: “…Netanyahu brought up with U.S. officials the ‘Belgian-Dutch model,’ in which settlements that won’t be annexed will remain as Israeli enclaves”.  

 

Astonishingly, Haaretz sees this willingness to abandon Jews as a “hardening” of Israeli positions, stating: “This is a harsher position than the one he [Netanyahu] presented Obama, when he suggested that settlers who wished to stay in their homes would do so under Palestinian jurisdiction”.

 

Reinstate ghettos-win a Nobel prize?

 

Despite all its fatal flaws, Biger still seems to cling to it with enthusiasm, claiming that it will obviate “the need to evacuate about 100,000 Jewish settlers” in the event of any agreement with the Palestinians.

 

In an attempt to establish the plausibility of this macabre proposal, Biger, who is credited with being, “an expert in international borders”, rattles off a list of locations on the globe where such enclave arrangements exist—each example conspicuous by its irrelevance to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in general and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in particular.

 

Indeed, it is difficult to grasp how Biger—or any other enclave-enthusiast—envisages how such isolated entities could be sustained over time—much less develop and prosper.

 

Clearly, any infrastructure systems serving them—such as power and water conveyance—would have to pass through Palestinian territory, leaving them hopelessly exposed to repeated disruption by the myriad of hostile elements among the local population.  

Moreover given the fierce and unequivocal rejection by the Palestinian leadership of any notion of residual Jewish settlers remaining within the confines of some future Palestinian state, Biger’s prognosis that such enclaves “will remain under Israeli sovereignty and their residents will remain Israeli citizens in all respects….free access to these enclaves through the territory of the independent Palestinian state will be guaranteed”, seems wildly detached from any foreseeable reality.

 

No less risible is Biger’s whimsical question with which he concludes his article: “Will Netanyahu’s proposal to Trump be fulfilled and give Netanyahu and Trump the Nobel Peace Prize.  But on second thoughts, given the identities (and deeds) of several previous laureates, who knows…

 

Unsustainable sovereignty: Blueprint for bloodshed

 

Little analytical acumen is required to foresee the gruesome consequences that will evolve should this iniquitous idea be implemented. It is almost inevitable that the envisaged enclaves will be unwelcome in their hostile surroundings—and soon become a focus of friction.

 

There is no doubt that huge resources will have to be devoted to sustain such Jewish enclaves, preserve their security and the safety of the inhabitants.  It is unlikely that they will be afforded sufficient areas to sustain much local employment, not to mention future development and expansion. Residents will require constant and heavy military escort whenever they wish to avail themselves of the promised “free access”, to and from the enclaves. Every social outing or trip to work will become a perilous adventure.

 

Soon, calls within “Israel proper” will begin to clamor to curtail the expenditure on such futile entities and divert resources to other goals. The government will come under relentless and growing pressure to cut back on outlays devoted to the preservation of these enclaves, which will be left to wither and expire. Their inhabitants will be left to fend for themselves, literally risking being torn limb from limb—or to return, destitute, to “Israel proper”…

 

Abandonment- not evacuation


The emerging threat to the Jewish communities today is less government-coerced evacuation and more government-initiated abandonment.

 

So, although the device of “enclaves” is presented as a measure to preserve Jewish presence in Judea-Samaria, in reality it is little more than a pretext to dismantle it, in stages, and circumvent the inevitable resistance to proactive evacuation, and the national trauma that will entail.

 

Accordingly, it must be exposed for what it really is—and nipped in the bud before it can gather any significant momentum.  

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Is Putin Ready to Throw Iran Under the Bus?

The announcement that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Russia’s President Putin are set to meet this Wednesday the 23rd of August in the Russian resort city of Sochi doesn’t seem to stand out as significant.  Afterall, the two men meet every few months to prevent any friction between their countries.

So what makes this meeting so different?

In the span of time between the their last face to face meeting, President Donald Trump acquiesced to allow Russian armed observers to man the borders of Israel and Jordan.  This was under the guise of ensuring a ceasefire between the Syrian regime and rebel forces. Although there were some rocky first moments, the plan has brought a modicum of quiet to the areas in question.

The challenge for Israel has been what the Syrian Regime and Iran are using the “ceasefire” for. It has become clear that Iran and Syria are seeking near control of the Golan border area.  This they have accomplished by way of their Russian allies.

What’s Next for Iran and Russia?

The prevailing assumption has been that Putin would give Iran enough of a leash to clear out the rebels in Syria, but not enough for either Iran or Syria to be dominant in the Levant without the go ahead from Russia.  While it is important to understand that any overt alliance puts Israel’s security at risk, the now quarterly meetings between Bibi and Putin mitigated much of this. Of course, all of this depends on Putin holding Iran and Syria back from placing game changing forces on the Syrian side of the Golan.

Iran and Russia have a working understanding that Iran can do what is necessary to clear the rebels and ISIS out, but given Putin and Bibi’s deconfliction understandings anything else would be deemed an abrogation of the working agreement between Tehran and Moscow.  The ceasefire agreement between Trump and Putin made during the G20 Summit is a good test of this.  For the first time Russia would open a corridor for Iranian troops to move right up to the Golan, yet the actual movement of those troops negates the deconfliction strategy with Israel.

Up until now Russia has allowed the IAF to strike where it needs to against Iran. More than that, sources tell us that Putin even relays targeting information personally to Bibi.  Iran and Syria maybe allowed utilize the ceasefire to move troops to the Golan, but if the past is any kind of predictor then they are on their own.

While most pundits believe these sorts of actions will eventually spell the end of the Iranian-Russian Alliance this is more of the same for Putin.  He relishes in playing multiple sides of each other in order to effectively control the situation.

Reaffirming the Deconfliction Understandings and More…

Bibi’s trip to Moscow is more about reaffirming the deconlfiction understandings in light of the new reality of Russia’s troops now manning the Golan border. Russia has no interest in allowing Iran to attack Israel, which would fully destabilize the region.  Putin wants recognition by Israel that Russia is the new player in the Levant and that it Israel will have to reevaluate how it relates to the fast changing Middle East.

Putin will keep allowing Israel to attack Iranian and Syrian targets. In Putin’s grand strategy this keeps the region in balance while he continues to take more and more control.

As America continues to minimize its overt involvement in the Middle East, the vacuum created is leading to a new order with its strings more or less being pulled by Moscow.

Israel’s goal is to hold onto to its security independence while treading carefully though a new Middle East.

 

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NETANYAHU’S GREAT CHALLENGE

What can Netanyahu do to mitigate the impact of the probes on his ability to do his job?

Over the weekend, it was reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports legislation that would change the procedure for declaring war. The bill, supported by the government as well as by Netanyahu’s opponent and former finance minister Yair Lapid, involves implementing lessons learned from past experiences.

Under the suggested law, the government will provide the security cabinet with blanket authority to authorize military operations at the beginning of its tenure. By limiting the number of people involved in decision making regarding actual operations, leaks can be minimized and the element of surprise can be protected.

Given the wide support the bill enjoys, and its substance, the media could have been expected to cover the move in a sober-minded way.

But alas, there was no chance of that happening amid the media circus surrounding the criminal probes of Netanyahu. The desultory probes were recently fortified by the deal Netanyahu’s former chief of staff Ari Harow cut with the prosecution to incriminate his former boss in exchange for leniency in the ongoing corruption probe of Harow’s alleged influence peddling.

Now, with Netanyahu’s sworn enemies in the media and the political Left braying for his immediate resignation, the war powers bill, like everything else he is likely to initiate in the coming months and years, is being reported as nothing more than an attempt to change the subject.

None of the probes are expected to conclude any time soon. Legal experts assess they will stretch well into 2019. This means Netanyahu will be under a cloud of suspicion at least until the end of his current term of office. And that is not good for the country.

So what can Netanyahu do to mitigate the impact of the probes on his ability to do his job? The answer is complicated. On the one hand, it is fairly clear that he won’t be able to do anything to end the probes and not because he is accused of doing terrible things. To the contrary, he is accused of doing ridiculously stupid and harmless things.

The police are conducting two investigations of the prime minister. In the first, they are investigating whether he received too many gifts from his friends. Specifically, they want to know if he received too many cigars from his friend Arnon Milchen and whether he received other presents from other friends.

The second probe relates to a deal he discussed but never made with his arch-nemesis Yediot Aharonot publisher Arnon Mozes under which Mozes would give less hostile coverage of Netanyahu and in exchange, Netanyahu would get Yediot’s pro-Netanyahu competitor Israel Hayom to cut back its circulation. In the event, the talks went nowhere. In 2014 Netanyahu broke up his government and went to early elections in 2015 to prevent a bill – supported by 24 lawmakers in a preliminary vote – which would have bankrupted Israel Hayom from moving forward.

The 24 lawmakers that supported the bill received terrific coverage in Yediot. But none of them – including former justice minister Tzipi Livni – are under investigation. The police’s lack of interest in Livni is particularly notable. She advanced the bill despite the fact that then attorney general Yehuda Weinstein determined it was unconstitutional. She based her decision on a legal opinion produced for her by Yediot’s attorney.

FINALLY, THE third investigation doesn’t involve Netanyahu at all. Instead his attorney, confidante and cousin David Shimron is under investigation. And according to investigative reporter Yoav Yitzhak, the probe unraveled this week when the state’s witness was shown to have lied either to police investigators or to his own attorneys about Shimron’s role in brokering a deal for Israel to buy new submarines from Germany.

Netanyahu supported the purchase, indeed, he touted it. His media foes allege that he only supported the purchase, which was opposed by the Defense Ministry, because Shimron was involved.

This allegation itself makes clear the absurdity of the probe.

If the investigation goes forward despite the collapse of the investigation, and Netanyahu is implicated, there is simply no way to prove that he supported the deal for corrupt reasons when he insists that he supported it because he believes Israel needs a modernized submarine fleet.

In other words, the third investigation is incapable of implicating Netanyahu regardless of its relative merits.

It is important to understand the inherent weakness of the probes because it shows us two important things. First, the investigators and the prosecutors do not care what the public thinks of their investigations. In a damning interview with the online Hebrew-language journal Mida last week, former police investigator chief superintendent Boaz Gutman confirmed the long alleged claim that police and prosecutors are motivated to investigate right-wing politicians rather than left-wing politicians because they want the Left restored to power.

As far as police investigators and prosecutors are concerned, it is they, rather than the public, that should decide who gets to lead Israel.

And this brings us to the second aspect we need to understand about the weakness of the probes. To date, politicized investigators and prosecutors have felt comfortable probing and indicting politicians for political reasons because since 1993, the mere act of indicting a politician has been the professional equivalent of a felony conviction.

In 1993, the activist Supreme Court ruled that then interior minister Arye Deri had to resign due to his recent indictment on corruption charges. The ruling, which had no basis in law, has since enjoyed the status of law. Politicians, who are later exonerated of all criminal charges, have repeatedly been forced from office, their reputations in tatters.

The power to remove politicians from office simply by indicting them gives the prosecution absolute power over the political system. The fear of indictment, perhaps more than anything else, has been sufficient to stop every significant attempt to pass laws to reform the unchecked legal system.

In recent weeks, coalition chairman MK David Bitan has told the media that Netanyahu has pledged not to resign if indicted in light of the trivial nature of the probes. Netanyahu’s ability to remain in his position, in opposition to the non-binding norm dictated by the Supreme Court in 1993, will be a function of the public’s view of him and of the investigations against him. And if Netanyahu is strong enough to stay, then his intention not to fold will have a salutary impact on the fairness of the investigations against him.

If the prosecutors realize they will have to win a case against a sitting prime minister rather than one they have already forced from office in disgrace, their decision about whether or not to indict Netanyahu will be based far more on the investigations’ findings and far less on their political views than in the past.

Although prosecutors do not care what the public thinks of them, they do care what their colleagues think of them. And if they indict a sitting prime minister and then fail to convict him while he is still in office and popular, their colleagues will not think well of them.

So it all boils down to governing. But how should Netanyahu govern? If Netanyahu follows the lead set by prime minister Ariel Sharon when he and his sons were under investigation, and abandons his political base to appease the Left, he will harm his chances of remaining in power. Netanyahu will become as unpopular as Ehud Olmert was when he was indicted. He will not avoid indictment. And he will not be reelected.

If on the other hand Netanyahu is loyal to his voters and implements the Right’s policy on Judea and Samaria – namely, applying Israeli law to Area C of Judea and Samaria in anticipation of the era that will begin when 82-year-old PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas dies – then he will not only be able to stay in office if indicted, he will win the next elections even if he is still enmeshed in criminal probes.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

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Losing and Winning the Temple Mount

Israel ceded the Temple Mount to terrorists last week. But with a clear goal, we can get it back in short order and keep it perpetually for the good of all humanity.

Last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet caved in to the demands of the PLO and its partners in Hamas, the Islamic Movement, Jordan, Iran and Turkey by agreeing to remove metal detectors and other security screening equipment from the Temple Mount. The equipment was installed last month in response to Palestinian incitement and acts of jihadist violence against Israelis, including the murder of two policemen, at Judaism’s holiest site.

After polls showed 77% of Israelis felt he and his cabinet members capitulated to terrorism, Netanyahu issued a statement thanking US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and Trump’s senior negotiator Jason Greenblatt for their help in resolving the crisis.

The underlying message of Netanyahu’s statement was that he and his ministers folded like a cheap suit to our enemies’ demands, effectively ceding Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount to our enemies because Kushner and Greenblatt pressured them to do so.

But then this week, a congressional intern did us the favor of surreptitiously recording and leaking remarks Kushner made on the issue in off-record remarks to interns at the White House. Kushner’s remarks, which came in response to a question about his role in mediating the Palestinian conflict with Israel, were fairly detailed.

Regarding the Temple Mount crisis, Kushner justified Israel’s decision to place metal detectors at the entrance of the Temple Mount. In his words, following the murder of the policemen by terrorists armed with guns smuggled onto the Mount, “putting up metal detectors on the Temple Mount… is not an irrational thing to do.”

Kushner also emphasized several times the central role that Palestinian incitement played in fomenting the violence on the Temple Mount. He drew the logical conclusion that the same incitement which fomented the violence on the Temple Mount led to the massacre of the Saloman family in their home in Halamish two weeks ago.

Unlike all previous US mediators, Kushner didn’t blame “both sides” for causing the violence. He placed the blame squarely on the Palestinians who incited and committed murder.

In speaking this way, Kushner made clear that he isn’t the type of person who will apply bone-breaking pressure on Israel to capitulate to the demands of terrorist murderers. Certainly Netanyahu and his ministers are strong enough to withstand whatever pressure Kushner and Greenblatt may have brought to bear on them last week.

Indeed, as one administration official put it, “The idea that the same Netanyahu who withstood eight years of unrelenting pressure from the Obama administration crumpled under pressure from Kushner and Greenblatt is simply ridiculous.”

So if it wasn’t American pressure that convinced Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and their colleagues in the security cabinet to crumple, why did they do it?

All of their instincts were pointing them down the opposite path.

From a security standpoint, you don’t need to be a genius to understand that you don’t respond to an enemy on offense by surrendering your defenses.

More generally, Netanyahu and his ministers all know that just as releasing terrorists from prison guarantees more dead Israelis, so capitulating to the demands of terrorists ensures more dead Israelis.

But if the decision was wrong from a security standpoint, it was downright crazy from a political perspective. Among the 77% of Israelis who said the decision amounted to capitulation were doubtlessly 100% of Likud and Yisrael Beytenu voters and 85% of Kulanu voters. (Bayit Yehudi voters at least knew their cabinet representatives, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, voted against the measure.)

According to the media, the cabinet was intimidated into surrendering by a doomsday scenario presented by the IDF and Shin Bet representatives at the cabinet meeting. Channel 2 reported that the IDF and Shin Bet warned the politicians that failure to capitulate would result in a security nightmare, whose details they laid out in a frightening PowerPoint slide.

The Palestinians would start a new terrorist war, they said.

Fatah’s Tanzim terrorists, who have been inactive in recent years, would renew their attacks, they warned.

The Palestinians would undermine Israel’s capacity to fight Hezbollah effectively in Lebanon, they insisted.

And finally, if Israel failed to capitulate, a “rare unity” of forces in the Islamic world stretching from Turkey to Iran would emerge, they hectored.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but all of these doomsday admonitions are debatable.

Take the issue of the “rare unity” from Iran to Turkey.

Since the Turks tried to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza seven years ago, unity has been the rule not the exception in Turkish-Iranian relations. Both supported the Muslim Brotherhood in the so-called Arab Spring. Both supported Hamas in its 2014 war against Israel from Gaza. And today, both support Qatar against the Saudi- and Egyptian-led bloc of Sunni Arab states.

As for the Sunni Arabs, last week, the Saudis took the stunning step of siding with Israel on the metal detectors. The Saudis noted supportively that they installed metal detectors in Mecca and Medina.

As to the rest of the scenarios the security chiefs raised, they may or may not be true. But what is certainly true is that it isn’t the job of the security community to tell Israel’s leaders they have no choice but to surrender to aggression. It is their duty to formulate plans for defeating the aggressors, period.

And incidentally, ahead of Tisha Be’av, which fell this year on Monday night/Tuesday, unlike the IDF and the Shin Bet, the police did just that. Whereas the Shin Bet wanted to prohibit Jews from visiting the Temple Mount on the day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the police recognized it was its job to enable Jews to visit.

Rather than join the Shin Bet in recommending that Jews be barred from visiting the Temple Mount, the police provided the requisite protection and enabled more than 1,200 Jews to visit the site without incident.

The fact that Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich provided security when Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman said it couldn’t be done makes it hard to avoid the impression that the warnings the IDF and Shin Bet chiefs issued the security cabinet last week stemmed less from professional considerations than from ideological or political agendas.

This impression is strengthened when last week’s horror scenarios are seen in the context of the security establishment’s long history of blocking the implementation of government policies it was its duty to facilitate.

For instance, in 2010 and 2012, the commanders of the IDF and the Mossad reportedly refused to carry out Netanyahu’s order to prepare their forces to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.

And then-Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon’s move to blame Netanyahu when the Palestinians unleashed a terrorist offensive in 1996 after Netanyahu’s first government opened a second entrance to the tunnels below the Western Wall is etched in collective memory.

But for all their institutional and personal drawbacks, there is a limit to the amount of blame you can place on Israel’s security leadership for the cabinet’s decision to surrender to terrorists last week. After all, while it is true the IDF and Shin Bet commanders crossed the line, Netanyahu and his ministers let them cross it.

If Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman wanted to, they could easily have blunted the security brass’s push for capitulation. They certainly could have publicly criticized them for their defeatism rather than insinuate that the Americans made them capitulate.

So why haven’t Netanyahu and Liberman called them to order? Why doesn’t Netanyahu – at a minimum – publicly criticize his generals for their insubordination and contrast their spinelessness with Alsheich’s professional competence and determination? 

The answer is discouraging. Netanyahu allows himself and his cabinet members to be bullied by his generals because he doesn’t have a policy for securing Israeli sovereignty and advancing Israel’s national interests at the Temple Mount. Without a positive goal, he is reduced to treading water with the hope of keeping a lid on Muslim jihadists. And so his “policy” of bowing to his politically subversive generals bears a disquieting resemblance to George Orwell’s quip, “The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”

Perhaps the depressing aspect of all of this is that it isn’t hard to figure out what a reasonable, constructive policy would be for the Temple Mount.

As a liberal democracy, Israel has an interest, indeed a duty, to ensure that the holy site is open to all religions and that everyone has the right to freely worship on the Temple Mount. Given the fact that the Temple Mount is the holiest place in the world for Jews, Israel has a vital interest in securing its sovereign control over the area.

To secure its sovereignty and advance its clear interest in facilitating religious freedom for all, Israel’s policy goal is straightforward. The government should enable all faiths to worship freely at the site.

To secure this end, the government should announce its goal and make a good-faith effort to involve all relevant groups and governments, including the Palestinian Authority, Christian authorities, Jewish authorities, the Jordanian regime and others in achieving it. The government should also state outright that if the Palestinians opt instead to incite and commit acts of violence and terrorism from the Temple Mount, Israel will secure its goal and enable Jews and Christians to worship at the holy site unilaterally.

To date, the Temple Mount has been the Palestinians’ ace in the hole. They recycle the blood libel that Jews are endangering al-Aksa every time they feel they are losing ground in their never-ending war against Israel. And Israel inevitably capitulates.

But if Israel announces its policy is to secure religious freedom for all on the Temple Mount and makes a good-faith effort to advance it in conjunction with the Palestinians and all other relevant groups, it will set the conditions for taking that ace away.

If after it begins good-faith efforts to collectively advance the liberal, democratic goal of ensuring religious freedom for all at the holy site, the Palestinians again turn to violence, then the Islamic world, or parts of it, will be in a position to blame them when Israel unilaterally enables Jews and Christians to pray on the Temple Mount parallel to Muslim worshipers.

If Netanyahu and his ministers make this their goal then the IDF and the Shin Bet won’t be able to intimidate them into capitulation next time around. Instead, the leaders of the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Foreign Ministry will all know their jobs and know that if they fail to perform they will be replaced.

Israel ceded the Temple Mount to terrorists last week. But with a clear goal, we can get it back in short order and keep it perpetually for the good of all humanity.

Originally Published in the Jersualem Post.

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Is Oren Hazan Set to be the Next Israeli Prime Minister?

MK Oren Hazan, known for his bellicose nationalist views as well as a number of Knesset investigations was called back from a duel with his Jordanian counterpart Yahya Al-Saud  on the Allenby Bridge today. Prime Minister Netanyahu put cold water on the high stakes rumble that was set to disrupt and reignite the already heated situation between Israel and Jordan.

The Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu’s chief of staff Yoav Horovitz had called Hazan and implored him not to go to the meeting. Hazan complied with the request.

“I came today ready for a meeting of peace but when the prime minister asks, I respect his request,” he told Israel Radio from the border.

From the beginning Al-Saud had called upon Hazan to meet him for the duel.

“The shoe of any Palestinian child is more honorable than this villain and his entity [country],” Saud said of Hazan, according to Jordanian reports, “and the shoe of any Arab and Muslim is better than him and his rogue entity, which has no origin and no religion.”

Despite the fizzled end to the high stakes fight, there is current underneath the whole incident. Hazan will most likely never be Prime Minister, but he has his pulse on the great majority of Israel. It is this silent majority that swept Bibi and Likud back into power when no one thought they had a chance and it is this silent majority that is tired of the back tracking on security and national pride that seems to have guided Netanyahu’s decision on removing the security measures on the Temple Mount.

The street in Israel is highly unpredictable. Yet, there are some aspects to it that a guy like Oren Hazan gets. Israelis like the “gever,” the real man.  Hazan may be unfitting to be Prime Minister, but he revealed something basic that Bibi Netanyahu is increasingly showing to have lost and that is a connection to real people on the street. Great rhetoric only goes so far in Israel. In times of confusion Israelis want action and that is what Hazan promises.

Bibi Netanyahu has succeeded in holding onto the reigns of power for a long time in Israel, but great speeches, political brinkmanship, and a great economy only work if you show that you get the common person.  The nation senses security is fragile.  They sense Israel’s national pride is being picked apart by half-nations.  In those moments economy does not matter, because one’s basic assumptions about life are called into question. Netanyahu is losing his base and that means his inevitability is no longer guaranteed.

As stated Hazan won’t become Prime Minister, but someone else who gets the street and can be appealing to a majority of Israelis will and when they do they should thank Oren Hazan for piercing a hole in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s armor.