Benjamin Netanyahu

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      Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Do You Want Power at Any Cost?

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      We Are Not One review: assured history of Israel’s place in US politics

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      We Are Not One review: assured history of Israel’s place in US politicsTo Eric Alterman, ‘Israel is a red state’ while ‘US Jewry is blue’. Like so much else, Donald Trump has disrupted that dynamic The civil war divided America’s Christians along axes of geography and theology. These days, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, soon to be prime minister again, have wrought a similar sorting. In the words of Eric Alterman, “Israel is a red state. US Jewry is blue.”DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign booksRead moreAlterman is a distinguished professor of English and journalism at the City University of New York. We Are Not One represents four decades of effort, patience and research. Sixty pages of endnotes undergird his arguments, some dating to his student days.Alterman posits that closeness between the US and Israel has oscillated over time and that younger American Jews, particularly those outside Orthodox Judaism, are now distancing themselves from the Zionist experiment. He relies, in part, on polling by Pew Research.Practically speaking, the divide may be more nuanced, with the latest shifts also reflecting a response to a rise in crime – and messaging about it. In the midterms, the Republican Lee Zeldin won 46% of Jewish voters in New York as he came close to beating the governor, Kathy Hochul. Donald Trump never surpassed 30% nationally. In 2020, he took 37% of New York’s Jewish vote.In We Are Not One, Alterman observes how unsafe streets and racial tensions helped spawn neoconservatism. It is “impossible” to separate the movement’s “origins from the revulsions caused by constant news reports of inner-city riots … and broader societal dislocations”. Between 1968 and 1972, Richard Nixon’s share of the Jewish vote doubled from 17% to 35%.One Saturday night in 1968, a crowd thronged the streets of Borough Park in Brooklyn, a predominately Jewish enclave, to cheer the vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee. Over the next four years, “law and order” found purchase. To top it off, George McGovern, the Democratic nominee, made Israel supporters nervous.The South Dakota senator’s message, “Come home America”, left them wondering if the US would be in Israel’s corner if war came again. Vietnam was a proxy for foreign policy anxieties. As a coda, Alterman recollects how Nixon nonetheless yearned to turn Jews into political foils and whipping boys. That 2016 Trump ad with a six-pointed star over a field of dollar bills? It had deep roots.Why pro-Israel lobby group Aipac is backing election deniers and extremist RepublicansRead moreAlterman also recounts how Daniel Moynihan, a Democrat, used his position as Gerald Ford’s UN ambassador to reach the Senate in 1976. With support from neoconservatives, hawkish Jews and the New York Times, he beat Bella Abzug, a leftwing lion, in the primary. Then he beat James Buckley, the Republican incumbent.Moynihan lauded Israel’s raid at Entebbe. In Alterman’s description, he appealed to “American Jews’ feelings of vulnerability and their pride and relief at Israel’s military prowess in kicking the asses” of Palestinian and German terrorists and “humiliating” Idi Amin, Uganda’s “evil dictator”.Time passes. Things remain the same. In New York, transit crime is up more than 30%. Violence against Jews is a staple, according to the NYPD.Meanwhile, on college campuses, in Alterman’s words, Israel is a “mini-America”, a useful target for faculty and students to vent against “rapaciousness on the part of the US and other western nations vis-a-vis the downtrodden of the world”.The author quotes Benzion Netanyahu, the Israeli leader’s late father: “Jewish history is in large measure a history of holocausts.” Modern insecurities spring from ancient calamities.Kanye West spews bile. Trump entertains him with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Republicans quietly squirm. Trump’s Jewish supporters grapple with cognitive dissonance and emotional vertigo. Take Mort Klein, of the hard-right Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), who makes several appearances in We Are Not One.Testifying before Congress, Klein accused the press of taking Trump’s comments on Charlottesville, where neo-Nazis marched in 2017, “completely out of context”. In 2018, after 11 worshippers were murdered at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Klein rode to the rescue again. At the ZOA dinner, he said it was “political blasphemy” to blame Trump.Last month, ZOA gave Trump its highest honor. According to Klein, the ex-president was the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House”. Then Trump met West, now known as Ye, and Fuentes, twisting Klein into a human pretzel.“Trump is not an antisemite,” he announced. “He loves Israel. He loves Jews. But he mainstreams, he legitimizes Jew hatred and Jew haters. And this scares me.”Trump reportedly kept Hitler’s speeches by his bed. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.At a recent confab of Agudath Israel of America, an ultra-Orthodox group, Rabbi Dovid Zwiebel, its executive vice-president, condemned Trump: “Yesterday’s friend can be tomorrow’s greatest enemy.” Two years earlier, though, its members clearly backed Trump over Joe Biden. Borough Park was as deep red as Lafayette, Louisiana.It all carries a whiff of deja vu. Alterman recounts how neoconservatives admonished America’s Jews against complaining of Israel’s alliance with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson: “The Christian Zionists’ devotion to ‘Greater Israel’ earned them a pass from the neocons for their occasional outbursts of antisemitism.”Trump had dinner with two avowed antisemites. Let’s call this what it is | Francine ProseRead moreTrump’s Mar-a-Lago dinner created a similar bind. David Friedman, his bankruptcy lawyer and ambassador to Israel, tweeted: “To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this … I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”Trump was not amused. On Friday, he lashed out at “Jewish Leaders”. Friedman must learn patience. ZOA may wish to rescind its award.Jason Greenblatt, a Trump Organization lawyer who moved to the White House, echoed Friedman for CNN. Days later, he spoke at a synagogue in Scarsdale, north of New York City. Greenblatt repeated the need for Trump to correct the record and urged those in attendance to politely speak up.In the next breath, he lauded his one-time boss’s achievements and character. It sure is tough to quit Trump.
      We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel is published in the US by Hachette Book Group
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      Netanyahu: Trump must ‘condemn’ antisemitism after Kanye and Fuentes dinner

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      Netanyahu: Trump must ‘condemn’ antisemitism after Kanye and Fuentes dinnerLikely future Israeli PM, who has repeatedly praised Trump, says dinner with rapper and white nationalist ‘unacceptable and wrong’ Donald Trump should be “condemning” antisemitism following his meeting with the rapper Ye and Nick Fuentes, Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.Trump had dinner with two avowed antisemites. Let’s call this what it is | Francine ProseRead moreThe former and likely future Israeli prime minister told NBC’s Meet the Press the former president’s recent dinner with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who has repeatedly made antisemitic remarks, and Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier, was “not merely unacceptable, it’s just wrong”.Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel during Trump’s time in power and is expected to return to power in the coming weeks. He has repeatedly praised Trump for his support of Israel, which included controversially recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Speaking to NBC, Netanyahu also praised Trump for formally recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move global and regional leaders said could destroy the peace process and strengthen extremists.But he criticized Trump’s November dinner with Ye and Fuentes.“On this matter, on Kanye West and that other unacceptable guest, I think it’s not merely unacceptable it’s just wrong. And I hope he sees his way to staying out of it and condemning it,” Netanyahu said.Trump met with Ye and Fuentes on 22 November at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort where he now lives. The former president has said he did not know Fuentes was attending, but has not condemned either Ye or Fuentes’ antisemitic views and statements.Asked if Trump’s apparent embrace of antisemitism would “wipe away anything good he did for Israel”, Netanyahu said: “If it’s systemic and continues, and I doubt that it will because I think he probably understands that it crosses a line.”Netanyahu won a majority in November, aided by ultra-Orthodox parties and an alliance with the far right. He is in the process of forming a government. He was previously prime minister from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021.Trump and Netanyahu were close allies but the relationship – at least from Trump’s side – has soured since he left the White House.In 2021, Trump reportedly told a reporter that Netanyahu “made a terrible mistake” in congratulating Joe Biden on his election win.“I haven’t spoken to him since,” Trump said of Netanyahu, according to Axios. “Fuck him.”Last week Netanyahu said in an interview with journalist Bari Weiss: “I condemned Kanye West’s antisemitic statements. President Trump’s decision to dine with this person I think is wrong and misplaced. He shouldn’t do that. I think he made a mistake. I hope it’s not repeated.”TopicsBenjamin NetanyahuDonald TrumpThe far rightAntisemitismUS politicsKanye WestnewsReuse this content More

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      Bibi review: Netanyahu memoir is hard-eyed – if not where Trump is concerned

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      Bibi review: Netanyahu memoir is hard-eyed – if not where Trump is concernedThe former Israeli PM is under a legal cloud but fighting for office again. His book is well-written and self-serving Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, in office three times over 15 years, as he reminds us in his memoir. These days, he leads the parliamentary opposition and is on trial for corruption and bribery. His countrymen return to the polls on 1 November, their fifth election since 2019.Netanyahu used golf metaphor to turn Trump against Palestinians, book saysRead moreIsrael’s politics are fractious and tribal. The far right grows as the left is decimated by the failed dream of the Oslo peace accords. Yet outside politics, things there are less fevered and acrid. Start-Up Nation has supplanted the kibbutz. Technology makes the desert bloom.In his memoir, Netanyahu doubles down on his embrace of the Covid vaccine and regrets easing up too early on pandemic closures, in hindsight a “cardinal mistake”. Here, the divide between Netanyahu and the other members of the populist right could not be starker. For him, modernity matters.Based on the latest polls, he has a serious shot at re-election but is not quite there. A win could mean immunity from prosecution. That decision will rest with his coalition partners – if he wins.Washington is watching, particularly if Jewish supremacists should enter the government. One seeks appointment as defense minister.“If we get a lot of mandates, we will have the legitimacy to demand significant portfolios such as the defense and the treasury,” Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionism party, declares.Bob Menendez is alarmed. He is a Democrat, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and a major supporter of Israel. He led the fight against the Iran nuclear deal. As so often in US politics, the red-blue divide is on display and Israel is there in the middle.Netanyahu wrote his memoir longhand. It is not the standard campaign autobiography. It has heft, and not just because it runs to 650 pages. Primed for debate, he conveys his point of view with plenty of notes. He paints in primary colors, not pastels. The canvas is filled with adulation, anger, frustration and dish. Bibi is substantive and barbed. It is interesting. Netanyahu has scores to settle and punches to land. At times, he equates his fate with Israel’s.Netanyahu was born in Israel but attended high school in Philadelphia and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Throughout his book, Netanyahu calls his dad, Benzion Netanyahu, “Father”. Netanyahu the elder taught at Cornell. His son respects the US but is not enamored by its culture.The civil rights movement did not leave a lasting impression. Facing electoral defeat in 2015, against the backdrop of the 50th anniversary of the Selma march, Netanyahu warned that Israel’s Arabs, who are citizens, were voting “in droves”. To many, including Barack Obama, that 11th-hour campaign siren was reminiscent of the wail of Jim Crow. In his book, Netanyahu tries to explain away the episode. He comes up woefully short.Netanyahu is a former Israeli commando but also an ambassador to the UN. He catalogs differences with Obama, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and, to a point, Donald Trump. James Baker, secretary of state to the first President Bush, barred Netanyahu from the state department. In 1996, Clinton reportedly exclaimed: “Who the fuck does he think he is? … Who’s the fucking superpower here?”Bibi recounts the episode but says his relationship with the Clintons was “civil”. He challenges Obama’s stances toward Iran and the Palestinians but stays mum about Trump aiming a tart “fuck him” his way, for congratulating President Biden.Netanyahu castigates Clinton and Obama for purported messianism and naivety but says nothing of his own bad calls. For instance, in September 2002, he testified before Congress in support of the Iraq war.“I think the choice of Iraq is a good choice, it’s the right choice,” he said, adding: “It’s not a question of whether Iraq’s regime should be taken out but when should it be taken out. It’s not a question of whether you’d like to see a regime change in Iran but how to achieve it.”The American war dead might disagree.Netanyahu laments that Obama vetoed his request that the US strike nuclear installations in Iran. He does not attempt to reconcile his demand for armed confrontation with hostility to “endless wars” on the Trumpist right.In a book published amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, Netanyahu repeatedly lauds Vladimir Putin for his intellect and toughness.“I took the measure of the man,” he claims. Once upon a time, George W Bush claimed to have looked into Putin’s soul. We know how that ended. In contrast, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and Joe Biden got the Russian leader right from the off.Netanyahu says he understands Putin’s resentments: “The opening up of Russia …revealed that Russia had fallen hopelessly behind the west.”In a recently released transcript of an off-the-record conversation between Obama and a group of reporters, the then president charged that like the world’s strongmen and their future White House fanboy, Netanyahu subscribed to “Putinism” himself.Trump a narcissist and a ‘dick’, ex-ambassador Sondland says in new bookRead more“What I worry about most is, there is a war right now of ideas, more than any hot war, and it is between Putinism – which, by the way, is subscribed to, at some level, by Erdogan or Netanyahu or Duterte and Trump – and a vision of a liberal market-based democracy.”Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has wholeheartedly embraced Putin. Reportedly, the Biden White House is “very disappointed”.Meanwhile, Trump lashes out at American Jews for not showing him the love evangelicals do: “US Jews need to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!”Don’t expect Netanyahu or Trump’s Jewish supporters to say much – if anything at all.
      Bibi: My Story is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
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      The Guardian view on moving the British embassy to Jerusalem: don’t do it | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on moving the British embassy to Jerusalem: don’t do itEditorialLiz Truss has promised a review, but relocating it would be shameful and stupid. That might not put off the prime minister – but it should Donald Trump’s relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 was incendiary. Widely criticised, including by the British government, it sparked protests and clashes in which Israeli security forces killed dozens of Palestinians. Though a superpower’s example offers cover to others, only four countries followed suit: Honduras, Guatemala, Kosovo – and Paraguay, which swiftly reversed course.Yet Liz Truss last week said that she was considering relocating the British embassy. The case against a move is logical, legal and practical as well as moral. East Jerusalem has been considered occupied territory under international law since the six-day war in 1967, and the future capital of a Palestinian state. Mr Trump’s proposals for an unworkable “peace plan” committed to Jerusalem as an “undivided” capital – Israel’s position. But British policy remains unchanged. Moving the embassy would tear up the commitment to any meaningful two-state solution. It would tacitly condone the march of illegal settlements. Palestinian doors would slam in the faces of diplomats, the British Council and others: longstanding suspicion of the UK has accelerated in recent years. Relations with other Middle East nations would suffer. All this for minimal, if any, benefit.The prime minister’s remarks came on the sidelines of the UN general assembly meeting where Yair Lapid voiced support for a two-state solution – the first Israeli prime minister to do so since 2017. This is a return to the rhetorical status quo ante, without either intention or ability to act upon his words, while the reality on the ground makes a peace deal ever more distant. There is no prospect of serious talks with Palestinians and minimal external pressure. While it may have been intended to sweeten his message on Iran, most have seen it in the context of November’s general election – Israel’s fifth in less than four years, and once again shaping up as a contest for and against former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (currently favoured by polls). The thinking is that Mr Lapid hopes to encourage voters on the left to turn out or, more likely, switch to him, keeping him at the head of the anti-Bibi bloc.It may also smooth relations with Joe Biden, who hailed his remarks, but has shown little real interest in the future of Palestinians. His administration vowed to reopen the consulate in Jerusalem, which served Palestinians, and the PLO mission in Washington; neither has happened. The president’s cursory trip to East Jerusalem and Bethlehem this summer looked like cover for his meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman.Badly failed by their own leadership too, Palestinians feel not only frustrated and angry, but betrayed. Ms Truss’s review is further confirmation that they are right. Her brief tenure has already demonstrated that a policy’s badness, stupidity and unpopularity are not obstacles to embracing it: the opportunity to “challenge conformity” – ignoring officials’ warnings – may even be a spur. This is still more likely when Palestinians, rather than her own electorate, will pay. But Britain’s historical responsibilities, as well as international law, demand that it does better. It should keep the embassy in Tel Aviv, and not add to the damage already done.TopicsIsraelOpinionMiddle East and north AfricaBenjamin NetanyahuYair LapidLiz TrussUS politicsJoe BideneditorialsReuse this content More

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      Trump risked disaster with Abbas praise in key Israel meeting, ambassador says

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      Trump risked disaster with Abbas praise in key Israel meeting, ambassador saysIn new book, David Friedman recounts private meeting with Israeli president in which Trump also knocked Netanyahu – and how he says he turned his man around Meeting then-Israeli president Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem in May 2017, Donald Trump stunned advisers by criticising the then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for being unwilling to seek peace while Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, was “desperate” for a deal.‘Apartheid state’: Israel’s fears over image in US are coming to passRead moreThe comment “knocked everyone off their chairs”, David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, writes in a new book.“Although the meeting was private and off the record, we all envisioned a headline tomorrow that Trump had praised Abbas and criticised Netanyahu – the worst possible dynamic for the president’s popularity or for the prospects of the peace process.“Fortunately, and incredibly, the event wasn’t leaked.”Friedman now describes the incident, and how he says he changed Trump’s mind, in Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East, a memoir which will be published next week by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins. The Guardian obtained a copy.Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer was a hugely controversial choice for ambassador. As well as being a hardline pro-settler rightwinger, during the 2016 campaign he called Barack Obama an antisemite and J Street, a liberal US Jewish group, “worse than kapos”, Jewish prisoners who worked as guards in Nazi concentration camps.He was confirmed as ambassador by a 52-46 Senate vote. US ambassadors to Israel are usually confirmed unanimously.In his book, he says the “worse than kapos” remark was not a political or policy mistake but a tactical one, as it gave ammunition to critics in the Senate.Describing four “murder boards”, sessions in which nominees are grilled over potential problems, he says he first said he used the controversial phrase “because I felt that J Street had betrayed the Jewish people”.That, he writes, caused a “firestorm of reaction” and he was told he could not speak that way. His settled-on answer was: “In the heat of a political campaign I allowed my rhetoric to get the best of me. I regret these comments and assure you that if confirmed, my remarks will be measured and diplomatic.”Describing his confirmation process, Friedman reproduces private conversations with Democratic senators including Kirsten Gillibrand of New York (a “bad joke”), Cory Booker of New Jersey (“delightful” in person, only, Friedman writes, to turn on him in hearings), and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader.Friedman says he had donated to Schumer and the two New Yorkers spoke amicably before Friedman made a pitch for his vote, which he said would send “a strong message of bipartisanship on Israel, which you have advocated on numerous occasions”.Schumer, he says, smiled and answered: “I’m not giving Trump the win. Sorry.”Friedman also recounts an angry meeting with Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, who he accuses of “siding with terrorists over one of America’s strongest allies”.But his description of the meeting between Trump and Rivlin and how Friedman says he turned his president round makes for more surprising reading, not least in how it appears to show how eager Trump was for a deal.Friedman describes how during Trump’s next meeting, with Netanyahu, he manoeuvred all present into viewing a “two-minute collection of Abbas’s speeches that I thought was worth watching”.The tape contained “two minutes of Abbas honouring terrorists, extolling violence, and vowing never to accept anything less than Israel’s total defeat”.“After the tape ended,” Friedman writes, “the president said, ‘Wow, is that the same guy I met in Washington last month? He seemed like such a sweet, peaceful guy.’“The tape had clearly made an impact.”Friedman writes that he was rebuked by Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first secretary of state, and HR McMaster, Trump’s second national security adviser.“They thought it was a cheap propaganda trick,” he writes. He told them, he writes, “I work for the president, and nobody else … I am going to make sure that he is well informed so that he gets Israel policy right.”Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreFriedman emphasises his role in such policy, prominently including closeness to Netanyahu; support for Israeli settlers on Palestinian land; cutting aid to Palestinians; recognising Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and moving the US embassy there; and diplomacy that led to the Abraham Accords, the normalisation of Israeli relations with four Arab countries.Aides to Trump, Steve Bannon famously among them, have often suffered from being seen to claim too much credit for his successes. Friedman is sure to repeatedly praise Trump, while bragging of how close to “the boss” he became.Nonetheless, his description of Trump’s private meeting with Rivlin – behaviour Friedman says would have been embarrassing had it been leaked – could prove embarrassing itself.Trump has been repeatedly burned by books on his time in power, even those written by loyalists like Friedman.In December, the Guardian was first to report that Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, described how the president tested positive for Covid-19 before his first debate with Joe Biden – and how the result was covered up.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpBenjamin NetanyahuIsraelMahmoud AbbasTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policy

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      Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policyBarak Ravid has written a fascinating account of four chaotic years in which some progress was nonetheless made Trump’s Peace is a blockbuster of a book. Barak Ravid captures the 45th president saying “Fuck him” to Benjamin Netanyahu and reducing American Jews to antisemitic caricatures. Imagine the Republican reaction if Barack Obama had done that. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham would plotz. But Trump? Crickets.The State of Israel vs The Jews review: fierce indictment of a rightward lurch Read moreRavid also delivers a mesmerizing tick-tock of the making of the Abraham Accords, the normalization of Israel’s relations with four non-neighboring Arab states.Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, Yousef al-Otaiba – the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US – and members of Israel’s government took the time to talk. Ravid footnotes the receipts.The result is a well-paced and engrossing read, if in Hebrew only for now. Israel-born and based, Ravid writes for Axios and Walla, an Israeli website. He knows his subject. Netanyahu is caught telling Avi Berkowitz, Kushner’s deputy and a US negotiator, not to leak to the author. Instead, Berkowitz talked on the record.Technically, the Abraham Accords are a joint declaration signed by the US, Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. Practically, the agreements represent the first major breakthrough in Middle East peace since the October 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan. Unlike the Hashemite kingdom, the UAE and Bahrain do not border Israel, are graced with petroleum reserves, and stare at Iran across the Persian Gulf.According to Ravid, the nuclear threat posed by Tehran and the unrest that followed the Arab Spring reshaped policies and thinking towards normalizing relations with Israel. The Palestinians no longer occupied center stage.Ravid reports that Netanyahu backtracked on a commitment to annex part of the West Bank after being subjected to US pressure. Apparently, the Trump administration made clear it would continue to shield Israel in the United Nations security council but would not at the International Criminal Court. Netanyahu got the message. It came down to a UAE ultimatum: settlements or peace. Netanyahu blinked.Ravid regards Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, also known as MBZ, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, as an unsung hero. He compares MBZ to Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who made peace with Israel then paid with his life.By the numbers, the Abraham Accords are yielding dividends. The UAE has announced a $10bn investment fund in key Israeli economic sectors and envisions more than $1tn in trade over a decade. Saudi Arabia looks to Bahrain as a conduit for investment in Israel and the Biden administration is “leaning” into the accords, after first hesitating.Ravid portrays Trump and Netanyahu as divisive leaders who threatened their countries’ democratic moorings. He recounts the 6 January insurrection in the US and Netanyahu’s resort to incitement. And yet, Ravid argues, fairness demands that both receive credit for this particular accomplishment.Understandably, Ravid is more ambivalent toward the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, a legacy of the Obama administration hated by Netanyahu and Trump. In Trump’s telling, his decision to pull out was not the result of Israeli urging. Rather, the deal was flawed and deserved to be scrapped.That verdict is not unanimous. Ravid quotes Udi Lavie, former deputy chief of the Mossad, who says the US withdrawal did not benefit Israel but hurt it. At the same time, Ravid observes that Netanyahu and Yossi Cohen, a former head of the Mossad, harbor no such regrets.Negotiations with the Iranian regime continue, with no tangible signs of progress. As Israel girds for possible conflict, its message is conflicted.A recent New York Times headline blared: Israeli Defense Officials Cast Doubt on Threat to Attack Iran. On the other hand, Amos Yadlin, a former air force general, told the paper his country has the capability for a successful strike.“Can the American air force can do it better? Definitely. But they don’t have the will.”Or necessarily the same strategic interests. Trump’s ascendance in 2016 was directly related to the Iraq war and its casualty count.Ravid also offers his take on Trumpworld. He stresses that Kushner was neither ideologue nor idealist. At heart he was a businessman, sympathetic to Israel but not seeing annexation as a personal cause. Nor, Ravid says, was Kushner driven by religious sentiment – as was Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state. The Messiah could wait.Nor, unlike Condi Rice, George W Bush’s secretary of state, did Kushner regard Palestinians stuck at Israeli check-points as – in Ravid’s words – “the reincarnation of Rosa Parks on a bus in Alabama”.In contrast to Kushner, David Friedman, Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and ambassador to Israel, viewed the two-state solution as an “illusion”. Before he took office, he derided Jews on the left as “worse than Kapos”. His nomination narrowly cleared the Senate.‘We are family’: the Israelis sharing life and hope with PalestiniansRead moreAs ambassador, Friedman was close to Netanyahu, sitting in on Israeli government meetings until he was tossed out by cabinet members. Ravid describes Friedman as “flesh of the settlers’ flesh”. Friedman has taken issue with portions of Ravid’s reporting – and has a book due in February.Earlier this year, Friedman told the Times he would not rule out becoming a US-Israeli dual national, but not until Trump’s plans for 2024 were known.“I’m going to stay American-only for at least four years,” he said. “I want to give myself every opportunity to return to government.”Maybe, maybe not. Trump remains on the stage, ready to kneecap any competitor for the Republican nomination. Netanyahu is standing trial on bribery and corruption charges while leading the opposition bloc in Israel’s Knesset.Paradoxically, his efforts to cling to power may be the best insurance policy for the current coalition government. One thing is certain: the two men created facts on the ground that will outlast them both.
      Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East is published in Israel by Yedioth Ahronoth Books
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      Is This the Dawn of a New Day in Israel?

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      On May 19, 1999, when Ehud Barak defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in the general election, tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to celebrate. Barak, the new prime minister, declared that it was the “dawn of a new day.” He also had plans in mind: withdraw Israeli troops stationed in Lebanon since 1982 and also try to make peace with the Syrians and Palestinians. 

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      On June 13, 2021, a new generation had a chance to celebrate in that same square as a new government took charge of Israel. Many of them participated in ongoing demonstrations against Netanyahu, the now-former prime minister, over the past year as he faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. These Israelis came to celebrate another “dawn of a new day,” though with less ambitious goals.

      The New Government

      There is nothing in the new government’s guidelines about what to do concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories or how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing to celebrate.

      Israel is embarking on a new venture, perhaps unprecedented in the annals of international political history. The country now has a right-center-left coalition government whose goal is to restore at least a semblance of sanity, democratic norms and civil discourse to a highly polarized society. In just two years, Israel has held four elections without a decisive result that ate away at the very foundations of Israeli democracy, causing a loss of faith in the electoral process.

      As prime minister for 12 years, Netanyahu became more illiberal, building alliances with other corrupt, illiberal allies such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi and Viktor Orban. In response, his opponents in Israeli society and the Knesset grew to a crescendo. There is no question that the people who took to the streets as Netanyahu’s corruption trial began earlier this year provided the tailwind for the possibility of establishing this unusual “government of change.”

      Progressive Israelis

      So, what is there to celebrate, particularly from the point of view of a progressive Israeli? The first and most important thing is that Netanyahu is gone, at least for the foreseeable future. His presence in the seat of power had dominated the Israeli discourse and body politic. Removing him from power through the ballot box has opened up space for new ideas and leaders to emerge.

      In what may potentially be a revolution in Israeli politics, an Arab party has joined the ruling coalition. The United Arab Party (UAR), led by Mansour Abbas, is a full-fledged partner in a broad group of parties in the Knesset. The more progressive Joint Arab List, led by Ayman Odeh, would have been a better fit, but Benny Gantz squandered that opportunity in 2020. Gantz, the Blue and White leader, failed to form a coalition with their support after the elections last year.

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      Still, the UAR, though an Islamist party, is not necessarily identifiable with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, despite claims in the media. Its original leader, Sheikh Abdullah Nimar Darwish, broke away from the northern branch of the movement when he decided the party should reject violence and participate in Israeli politics. He also promoted Jewish-Arab civic cooperation and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. However, it is not clear how ready the movement currently is to help promote peace talks.

      It is also important that, for the first time in 20 years, the left-wing Meretz party is in the coalition, with three ministers in the government. The party was a primary partner to the efforts of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in the 1990s, which led to the Oslo agreement breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

      Most importantly, Esawi Frej, an Arab-Israeli from the town of Kfar Kassim, is the minister for regional cooperation. Frej, a member of the Knesset for Meretz, is only the second Muslim minister in Israeli history. He may be able to use that position to try to leverage the Israeli agreements signed in 2020 with four Arab countries — coupled with the existing treaties with Egypt and Jordan — to create positive movement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

      Naftali Bennett

      When it comes to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, while he is apparently not corrupt like Netanyahu, I don’t have many expectations. It is highly doubtful that any of those celebrating in Rabin Square voted for his right-wing nationalist party, Yamina. Fortunately, Bennett will not be able to act upon any of the ideas he has previously promoted — including the annexation of Area C of the West Bank, which makes up 60% of the Palestinian territory — since Yamina holds only six out of the 61 seats in the Knesset that provided the thin majority for the new government. Though without those seats, the government could not have been formed. 

      Bennett is bound by an agreement with Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party. As the architect of the “government of change” coalition with 17 seats in the Knesset, Lapid will replace Bennett as prime minister in August 2023 in a power-sharing agreement and can veto any of the current leader’s ideas.

      My former neighbor, journalist Ran Adelist, recently wrote that he has a dream that Bennett — a religious-nationalist who lives in the suburban town of Ra’anana with his secular wife — will see the light and understand that the only rational way to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state is to accept the idea of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That view was shared by journalist Noga Tarnopolsky, who in a New York Times article described a surprising conversation she had with Bennett before he became prime minister. One can only hope.

      But perhaps there is a possibility of more than just hope. Lapid, who will be foreign minister for the first two years before becoming prime minister, spoke at a conference organized by Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.”I believe that a breakthrough on the Iranian issue depends on the Palestinian issue.  We need to work to advance a diplomatic agreement with the Palestinians, only as part of a regional discussion,” he said. “Can we separate the Iranian problem from the Palestinian problem? Without progress vis-à-vis the Palestinians, can we enlist the [support of] the Saudi public, the U.S. Congress, American Jewry, the European Union, and money from the Gulf states? Netanyahu says we can. I tell you we can’t. Most security officials say we can’t.”

      So, maybe Lapid, as foreign minister and then as prime minister, together with Frej as minister for regional cooperation and others, can initiate some moves in that direction. The US government, the EU, the Gulf states and the liberal majority of American Jewry should take notice and help initiate some much-needed progress. One thing is clear: There can be no illusions that the Palestinian question can be ignored, as was clearly demonstrated by the recent events in Jerusalem and the 11-days of fighting we just went through. 

      Although the Knesset session that confirmed the new government was a disgrace — interrupted by constant inflammatory heckling by back-benchers from Netanyahu’s Likud, the extreme-right Religious Zionist Party and the ultra-Orthodox — at least we didn’t have a Capitol Hill-style insurrection in Israel. Even Netanyahu, who vowed to do everything to overthrow the government and return to the premiership, said that the votes by members of the Knesset were counted accurately. His complaint was that his erstwhile right-wing colleagues from Yamina, the New Hope party and Yisrael Beiteinu had deceived their voters and joined together to form “a leftwing government.”  

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More