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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

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      Biden Invests His Capital in Israel

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      Though the stale expression “political capital” has become a handy item in every pundit’s vocabulary, there was a time when the financial metaphor would have seemed jarring and paradoxical in the context of democracy. Its popularity today reflects a disturbing trend in the reasoning that governs democratic decision-making. The traditional focus on ensuring the general welfare and responding to the will of the people has been replaced by a process of cold calculation we associate with the world of finance and investment. Politics is no longer about governing. It is exclusively about winning elections, accumulating capital and living off the spoils of victory.

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      Living metaphors play on comparison between two disparate orders of reality. Dead metaphors fester in their own world as meaningless rhetorical artifacts. Attempting to analyze US President Joe Biden’s strategy of refusing to comment on Israel’s disproportionately violent campaign of “self-defense,” New York Times journalists Annie Karni and David E. Sanger propose this explanation: “Mr. Biden’s tactic was to avoid public condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza — or even a public call for a cease-fire — in order to build up capital with Mr. Netanyahu and then exert pressure in private when the time came.” In this case, the metaphor is so definitively dead the authors don’t bother with the epithet “political” and simply call it “capital.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Political capital:

      According to the New York Times, the advantage one hopes to obtain from offering a gift to someone known to be selfish, greedy and disrespectful

      Contextual Note

      US media have made a major effort in recent days to make sense of the strategic logic behind Biden’s behavior at the height of the crisis that some now believe has been resolved by a ceasefire. Of course, nothing at all has been resolved, even if the fireworks have come to a provisional halt. The media, as usual, focus on identifying winners and losers. They present a scorecard and retrospectively imagine the strategy that governed the play of the actors. 

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      Western media continue to view what is clearly a deep, complex and enduring historical crisis not for what it is, but as a game being played by leaders on both sides seeking to reinforce their image and consolidate political capital with their base. In this reading, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim was to cling to power after losing an election. The adversary, Hamas, reacted with the sole motivation of reaffirming its position as the most resolute defender of the Palestinian cause, all for the sake of obtaining electoral advantage both in Gaza and the West Bank. The analysis contains a grain of truth but appeared more as a random factor in a much bigger geopolitical drama than as the basis of a serious account of the events.

      What journalists call political capital today was once expressed by the notion of “goodwill,” a term borrowed from business vocabulary that includes the idea of customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty. Like so much else in the English language, goodwill itself has been transformed by the trend to financialize our thinking about everything under the sun.

      The authoritative Shorter Oxford Dictionary (SOD) gives this primary definition of goodwill: “Virtuous, pious, upright position or intention.” Investopedia begins with this definition: “Goodwill is an intangible asset that is associated with the purchase of one company by another.” The SOD does include another definition of goodwill in use as early as 1571: “the possession of a ready-formed connexion of customers” used to evaluate “the saleable value of a business.” Investopedia sees goodwill as an asset before citing its virtuous status in the eyes of customers. The SOD puts virtue first, customers second and “saleable value” (= asset) last. Goodwill began its history as a virtue and ended up as a proprietary asset.

      Historical Note

      Political capital has definitely replaced political goodwill as an operational concept in modern political thinking. Kenya may be the last English-speaking country to continue to use the metaphor of political goodwill in preference to capital. In an editorial dated May 15, 2020, the Times of San Diego referred to goodwill as something real but now associated with the historical past. “It was not so long ago that we experienced a time of goodwill in our national political life, with Jimmy Carter promising never to lie… Now all that has changed,” adding, “we have lost what had been an open window to the fresh air that characterized the late 1970s.”

      There are two related semantic principles underlying this historical shift that reveal a lot about how society itself has changed, precisely in the decade that followed Carter’s presidency. The first concerns the shift in social culture itself from an ability to focus on collective interest that has been replaced by a narcissistic obsession with individual competitive advantage. The second concerns the trend toward the financialization of all human activities and attributes.

      The 1980s witnessed the triumph of the transformative Thatcher-Reagan ideological coalition. The ideas associated with government “of the people, by the people and for the people” found themselves suddenly radically subordinated to theoretical principles purportedly derived from the logic of free market capitalism. The idea of goodwill has always had a collective connotation. It was never about an asset or property, but a state of mind shared by the public. In 2007, Robert Kuttner in The New York Times complained that George W. Bush’s warmongering “squandered the global goodwill that has long been the necessary complement to America’s military might.” Goodwill was an asset shared by the nation and its people.

      Kuttner correctly noted that Bush’s Middle East adventures both broke the solidarity of goodwill and squandered its value as a collective asset. In 2004, Chris Sullentrop, writing for Slate, noticed how, at the same time goodwill was disappearing from the media’s vocabulary, Bush himself relentlessly insisted on the idea of political capital. “Now the most common usage of ‘political capital,’” according to Sullentrop, “means the power that popularity confers on a politician, or something like that. ‘Political capital’ is shaping up to be the first buzzword of the second Bush administration.”

      Sullentrop cites multiple examples in Bush’s discourse. In 2001, the president, newly elected (by the Supreme Court), explained: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” Really? Is spending one’s public reputation — to say nothing of blood and treasure in the Middle East — a feature of presidential style? When Time magazine asked Bush, “What did you learn about being president from watching your father?” he answered, “I learned how to earn political capital and how to spend it.” There are many other examples. If for Americans “time is money,” for post-Reagan Americans, goodwill (earned or unearned) is also money.

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      In 2008, Barack Obama insisted that he was on a mission to restore America’s goodwill. But after eight years of Bush, the very idea of goodwill had lost all its ancient connotations of being “virtuous” and “upright.” It was now reduced to the simplistic idea of marketing the nation’s image to the rest of the world. By continuing most of Bush’s policies, from maintaining his tax breaks for the rich to prosecuting Bush’s wars and even expanding them to new regions, Obama’s efforts at creating goodwill could only remain superficial and cosmetic. That bothered no one in Washington, since the reigning ideology, formerly focused on seeking politically coherent solutions to complex problems, had converted to an ideology based on the newly adored laws of branding and marketing.

      Some saw Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016, built around his guiding principle, “America First,” as a shift away from even the need to spread goodwill. In reality, his hyper-narcissistic ideology was an extension of the same trend that had replaced the notion of virtuous action by that of accumulated assets.

      And what about Joe Biden’s plan to order to “build up capital with Mr. Netanyahu and then exert pressure in private when the time came”? It sounds like a joke. Playing the accomplice to someone else’s criminal actions cannot produce political capital. Al Jazeera quotes Nader Hashemi, a Middle East expert at the University of Denver: “[T]he more Israel is coddled, supported, sustained, the more belligerent and intransigent Israel becomes to making any concessions.” Bibi Netanyahu is not done with managing America’s foreign policy.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

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

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      in World Politics

      Netanyahu and Hamas Are Playing a Deadly Game

      by

      In March, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was unable to achieve a parliamentary majority in the Knesset after a fourth Israeli election in two years. As a result, he needed a national crisis to prevent the establishment of an alternative government by the opposition. Such a coalition would include right, centrist and left-wing parties, presenting a threat to Netanyahu’s premiership.

      The last crisis in 2020 was the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused opposition leader Benny Gantz to cave in and agree to form a national unity government with Netanyahu. Now, Netanyahu has a new national emergency with the conflict in Gaza. This has led Naftali Bennet, leader of the right-wing Yamina party, to abandon efforts to form an alternative government with Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid, the largest opposition in Israel. Yamina and Yesh Atid have attempted to combine with Gantz’s Blue and White, the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties, and the United Arab List to reach a 61-seat majority in the Knesset.

      The Future of Jerusalem Matters to Us All

      READ MORE

      Netanyahu may not have planned the exact scenario of the current conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza, but his policies laid the foundation for it. First, he has refused to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, Netanyahu has preferred to bolster divisions between the Palestinian factions of Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank.

      There is no chance that Netanyahu would order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to overthrow the Hamas government in Gaza. The prime minister wants the division amongst the Palestinians to continue. Netanyahu is content with having Qatar — which did not join the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in recognizing Israel in 2020 — prop up Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

      Evictions in Sheikh Jarrah

      Other Israeli decisions connected to East Jerusalem and its Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have led to the multiple crises now taking place.

      The first spark that lit the flame was the decision by Israeli police to set up barricades toward the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City. Since that is a place where many young Palestinians gather in the evening after breaking their fasts, it led to anger and protest — some violent. Kobi Shabtai, the novice police commissioner, falsely claimed this was a longstanding policy to prevent crowding. He later lifted the ban.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This was followed by clashes in East Jerusalem inside a compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif. Israeli police made another major mistake of firing stun grenades into Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is inside the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. This led to outrage amongst Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and Israeli-Arab citizens in Israel.

      The second spark was due to right-wing Israeli extremists attempting to evict Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah to make way for Jewish settlers. These Palestinian families became refugees in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and were relocated to Sheikh Jarrah in 1956 after the Jordanian government, which controlled East Jerusalem at the time, built homes for them.

      An extremely unfair law permits Israelis to try to reclaim property in East Jerusalem that was held by Jews before 1948. Yet Palestinians are not allowed to do the same with property they once owned in West Jerusalem. A hearing over the legality of the eviction attempts was due to be heard by the Israeli Supreme Court on May 10. The case has since been postponed for a month at the request of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

      With the events on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and the evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the focus is on Netanyahu. To reach a majority in the Knesset, the prime minister encouraged the newly-elected Itamar Ben-Gvir — a follower of the extreme right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane — and his Jewish Power Party to join forces with Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism, a nationalist, far-right party.

      Ben-Gvir has been accused by the Israeli police chief of supporting young, right-wing extremists who attacked Palestinians in the Old City and in Sheikh Jarrah last week. “The person who is responsible for this intifada [uprising] is Itamar Ben Gvir. It started with the Lehava protest at Damascus Gate,” Shabtai said. “It continued with provocations in Sheikh Jarrah, and now he is moving around with Lehava activists.”

      To his credit, even Netanyahu realized that the situation in Jerusalem was at risk of turning ugly. This year, just before what Israelis call the “Jerusalem Day Flag March,” marking the capture of the Old City and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinians marked Laylat al-Qadr (night of decree), one of the holiest nights in Ramadan and the Islamic calendar. On May 10, thousands of young, right-wing Israelis were scheduled to march through Damascus Gate while taunting Palestinians in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. Instead, it was rerouted via the Jaffa Gate adjacent to West Jerusalem.

      Uncertainty for Hamas

      This is where Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, comes into the picture. Hamas has been losing popularity in Gaza because of the dire conditions that Palestinian face there. In May and July, Palestinians were due to vote in legislative and presidential elections, respectively. While the elections have been postponed by President Abbas, who blamed Israel for uncertainty about whether Palestinian elections could take place in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the Hamas leadership was concerned.

      On the one hand, it was predicted that Hamas might benefit from the weakness of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. Fatah has split into three groups for the elections, with Abbas part of the main one. On the other hand, Nasser al-Qudwa’s decision to run a separate list from Fatah poses a risk to Hamas. Qudwa, a senior diplomat who was sacked by Fatah in March, is the nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Qudwa represents a group led by Marwan Barghouti, a popular Fatah leader who is currently in an Israeli prison and is dubbed “Palestine’s Nelson Mandela,” while a third Fatah list is led by Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled rival of Abbas who is originally from Gaza.

      Embed from Getty Images

      An election for the Palestinians presents uncertainty for both Fatah and Hamas. Therefore, Hamas decided to present itself as the guardian of Jerusalem and of Al-Aqsa Mosque, hoping to take advantage of Palestinian disappointment at the postponement of elections by Abbas. Hamas leaders threatened Israel by saying unless its police forces withdrew from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound and from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, they would fire rockets on Jerusalem. Most observers thought this was a bluff, since it was assumed that Hamas wouldn’t shoot missiles at Jerusalem out of fear they might hit Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

      It turns out that they weren’t bluffing. Ever since this round of deadly clashes began on May 10, Hamas militants have kept their word. A few nights ago, Hamas said it would fire rockets toward Tel Aviv in retaliation for IDF actions during the day. Minutes after midnight, the anti-missile alert sirens sounded and 2 million people in the greater Tel Aviv area headed into bomb shelters, including my family and neighbors.  

      By firing indiscriminately at a civilian population, Hamas is committing war crimes. Any government facing such a situation would feel compelled to respond. Of course, since the Israeli army is far more powerful than Hamas forces — and because Gaza is densely populated — there are many more Palestinian casualties than Israeli. At the weekend, Haaretz, an Israeli daily, published an article with the headline: “Israeli killed by rocket; IDF destroys media offices, kills families in Gaza.” The Israeli died on May 15 after a “barrage of rocket fire targeted Tel Aviv.” On the same day, Hamas said “it had fired dozens of rockets at central Israel in response to the killing of eight children and two women, all members of the same family, in a [strike] on the Al-Shate refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.” As the exchange of fire enters its second week, the death toll at the time of publishing stands at 212 in Gaza, including 61 children. In Israel, 10 people have died, including a 10-year-old Israeli-Arab girl.

      By evicting families and building settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, Israel is also committing war crimes. This includes Israeli attempts to displace Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. Israel’s disproportionate use of military force to defend itself — though justifiably — against repeated rocket fire is also problematic.

      Violence on the Street

      The worst byproduct of the current situation is perhaps the inter-communal conflict in Israel that has evolved as a result of the broader crisis. This is particularly in the mixed Jewish and Arab cities of Acre, Lod, Ramla, Jaffa and other locations such as Jerusalem.

      This is tragic given the progress that has been made in recent years with Jewish-Arab cooperation and partnership inside Israel. To tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli-Arab medical personnel have taken on a central role. In football, Israeli-Arabs have played a prominent part. In politics, the Joint List, an alliance of Arab-majority parties, recommended Gantz for the role of prime minister in 2020. Now, the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas could play a decisive role in the possible formation of an alternative Israeli government.

      All of this has been undermined in a few violent weeks. It was as if we suddenly had a throwback to the murderous intercommunal strife that occurred in 1921, 1929 and 1936 in the British Mandate of Palestine before the state of Israel was created. Fortunately, there is a strong foundation for the revival and continuation of Jewish-Arab cooperation within Israel. Young people in Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab grassroots movement, have taken to the streets in protest. Mayors of joint and neighboring municipalities have also been active in trying to heal the social wounds.

      Time for a Plan

      Israelis and Palestinians will need to find the strength as societies to deal with the current crisis and to develop paths toward internal solidarity and a cross-border resolution of the conflict. It is equally important that the international community takes an active role. World powers have played a major role in the region in modern times — from the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate of Palestine and the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution to create two states, Arab and Jewish. Now, they cannot stand aside and watch. They must play a part in defusing the current violence and creating the foundations for a more fundamental resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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      In Washington, the Biden administration, which has a lot on its plate domestically, had hoped it could ignore the Middle East conflict. That is clearly not working. US President Joe Biden has even delayed designating a new American ambassador to Israel. He has also not yet reopened a US consulate in Jerusalem to serve as an address for American communication with the Palestinians. These are two simple steps that should urgently be taken.

      In addition, the Americans can revive the role of the Middle East Quartet — which is made up of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — in seeking to advance a resolution of the conflict. The Arab world can bring back and activate the Arab Peace Initiative. Proposed by Saudi Arabia and confirmed at the Arab League’s 2002 summit in Beirut, the plan offers Israel recognition, peace and normalized relations with the Arab world, backed by all Muslim-majority countries. In exchange, a Palestinian state would be established in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the state of Israel, with small, mutually agreed-upon land swaps.

      When it comes to Jerusalem, it would perhaps be best to return to the original partition plan of 1947. According to the UN General Assembly’s decision, a Jewish state and an Arab state were to be established, while Jerusalem was to be an international city. While the situation today is completely different from that plan 74 years ago, the conflict around the Old City and the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif — which contains the sites considered holy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam — could be neutralized by making it an area shared by all peoples. Jerusalem would be what Jordan’s late King Hussein called “God’s city.” 

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

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      US poll chaos is a boon for the enemies of democracy the whole world over

      by

      Believe it or not, the world did not stop turning on its axis because of the US election and ensuing, self-indulgent disputes in the land of the free-for-all. In the age of Donald Trump, narcissism spreads like the plague.But the longer the wrangling in Washington continues, the greater the collateral damage to America’s global reputation – and to less fortunate states and peoples who rely on the US and the western allies to fly the flag for democracy and freedom.Consider, for example, the implications of the Israeli army’s operation, on US election day, to raze the homes of 74 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in the occupied West Bank village of Khirbet Humsa. The pace of West Bank demolitions has increased this year, possibly in preparation for Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley – a plan backed in principle by Trump. Appealing for international intervention, the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, claimed Israel had acted while “attention is focused on the US election”. Yet worse may be to come.Trump’s absurdly lopsided Middle East “peace plan” gave Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s rightwing leader, virtual carte blanche to expand settlements and seize Palestinian land. Joe Biden has promised to revive the two-state solution. But while the power struggle rages in Washington, analysts warn, Netanyahu may continue to arbitrarily create new “facts on the ground” – with Trump’s blessing.“Over the next 11 weeks, we are likely to see a major uptick in Israeli demolitions, evictions, settlement announcements, and perhaps even formal annexation of parts of the occupied territories, as Netanyahu and his allies in the settler movement seek to make the most of Trump’s remaining time in office,” Khaled Elgindy of Washington’s Middle East Institute predicted.The Khirbet Humsa incident gained widespread media attention. The same cannot be said of a football pitch massacre in northern Mozambique that also coincided with US polling. While Americans were counting votes, villagers in Cabo Delgado province were counting bodies after Islamic State-affiliated extremists decapitated more than 50 victims.Nearly 450,000 people have been displaced, and up to 2,000 killed, in an escalating insurgency in the mainly Muslim province where extreme poverty exists alongside valuable, western-controlled gas and mineral riches. Chinese, US and British energy companies are all involved there. Mozambique’s government has appealed for help, saying its forces cannot cope.Trump’s ‘man of the people’ myth of resisting a liberal conspiracy is the ultra-toxic element of his poisonous legacyBiden vows to maintain the fight against Isis. But it’s unclear if he is willing to look beyond Syria-Iraq and expand US involvement in the new Islamist killing grounds of the Sahel, west Africa and the Mozambique-Tanzania border.As for Trump, he claimed credit last year for “defeating 100% of the Isis caliphate”. The fool thinks it’s all over. In any case, he has shown zero interest in what he calls “shithole” African countries.Afghanistan is another conflict zone where the cost of US paralysis is counted in civilian lives. It’s a war Trump claims to be ending but which is currently escalating fast.While all eyes were supposedly on Pennsylvania, Kabul university was devastated when gunmen stormed classrooms, killing 22 students. Another four people were killed last week by a suicide bomber in Kandahar.Overall, violence has soared in recent months as the US and the Taliban (which denied responsibility for the Kabul atrocity) argue in Qatar. Trump plainly wants US troops out at any price. Biden is more circumspect about abandoning Afghanistan, but there’s little he can do right now .The Biden-Trump stand-off encourages uncertainty and instability, inhibiting the progress of international cooperation on a multitude of issues such as the climate crisis and the global pandemic. It also facilitates regression by malign actors.China’s opportunistic move to debilitate Hong Kong’s legislative assembly last week by expelling opposition politicians was a stark warning to Democrats and Republicans alike. Beijing just gave notice it will not tolerate democratic ideas, open societies and free speech, there or anywhere.China’s leaders apparently calculated, correctly, that the US was so distracted by its presidential melodrama that it would be incapable of reacting in any meaningful way.Taiwan’s people have cause to worry. The “renegade” island is next on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s reunification wish-list. Who would bet money on the US riding to Taipei’s rescue if Beijing takes aim?Much has been said about the negative domestic ramifications of Trump’s spiteful disruption of the presidential transition – his lawsuits, his refusal to share daily intelligence briefings with Biden, and his appointment of loyalists to key Pentagon posts. He hopes to turn January’s two Senate election re-runs in Georgia into a referendum – on him.But not enough attention is being paid to how this constitutional chaos affects America’s influence and leadership position in the world – or to the risk Trump might take last-minute, punitive unilateral action against, say, Iran or Venezuela. Like Xi, Vladimir Putin undoubtedly relishes US confusion. He may find ways to take advantage, as with last week’s Moscow-imposed Armenia-Azerbaijan “peace deal”. Authoritarian, ultra-nationalist and rightwing populist leaders everywhere take comfort from America’s perceived democratic nervous breakdown.This is the worst of it. By casting doubt on the election’s legitimacy, Trump nurtures and instructs anti-democratic rogues the world over. The Belarus-style myth he peddles, and will perpetuate, of a strong “man of the people” resisting a conspiracy plotted by corrupt liberal elites, is the final, toxic element of his profoundly poisonous legacy.Farmers in Palestine, fishermen in Mozambique, and students in Kabul all pay a heavy price for his unprincipled lies and puerile irresponsibility. So, too, does the cause of global democracy. More