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Friday, February 17, 2023

02/17 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: How Biden subverts Israeli democracy; Col. Richard Kemp: Israel - Don’t give your enemies more ammo!; When Netanyahu Spoke to Congress

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: How Biden subverts Israeli democracy
The Movement for Quality Government (MQG) in Israel is the far-left organization at the epicenter of the Israeli left’s war against the Netanyahu government. MQG began its current campaign of delegitimization, subversion and demonization immediately after the Netanyahu government was sworn into office on Dec. 29. The next day, MQG petitioned the Supreme Court to prevent Shas leader Aryeh Deri from serving as a minister in the government.

There was no legal basis for the petition. But that didn’t bother the lawyers at MQG.

In its petition, MQG claimed that the terms of a plea deal Deri reached with the State Prosecution last year on tax reporting errors barred him from serving as a minister. Never mind that nothing in the plea deal stipulated anything of the sort or that 400,000 Israeli voters cast their ballots for Shas with the full expectation that Deri would serve as a senior minister.

Like MQG, the Supreme Court justices didn’t bother giving a legal basis for their decision to act on MQG’s petition and bar Deri from serving as a cabinet minister. The justices said Deri’s appointment was “unreasonable,” and with a stroke of a pen, the court retroactively disenfranchised Shas voters.

Building on its success, late last month MQG submitted a new petition asking the justices to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As in the case of Deri, MQG’s petition is based on a political rather than a legal argument. MQG argues that as a criminal defendant, Netanyahu is unfit to serve. The premier, MQG insists, is acting with a conflict of interest by overseeing judicial reforms while on trial. And as a result, the justices should declare him unfit and remove him from office.

Never mind that the justices have a conflict of interest since it is their powers the government’s proposed reforms would check. Never mind that in a bid to prevent politicized judges and prosecutors from overturning the will of the voters, the law explicitly permits prime ministers to serve not only while standing trial, but even if convicted. And never mind that the charges against Netanyahu have fallen apart in Jerusalem District Court.
Col. Richard Kemp: Israel - Don’t give your enemies more ammo!
After a recent visit to Israel both of us, we're deeply concerned by the unprecedented degree of tension and sheer animosity permeating the political arena.

As friends of Israel rather than Israeli citizens, we do not seek to intervene on any partisan basis, but to sound the alarm about the very real potential for Israel’s enemies to exploit the current rhetoric and do harm to the country as a whole.

Political polarization and confrontation are nothing new to us since they are trends now rooted in our own countries and across the Western world, from the U.S. to Italy. But our experience fighting successive attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel shows us that this country simply cannot afford the level of domestic political tensions that other democracies can go through. Israel has proven itself time and again to be the most resilient country in the world when it comes to physical warfare. But it is also subject to the most insidious political warfare — continuously under attack by international institutions such as the UN, EU and International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as a range of foreign governments, human rights bodies, academia and much of the world’s media.

It is in this realm that the current discourse and strife will be most damaging. For Israel to be strong, to prosper, to be a force for good in the region and the world, and to fend off incessant political warfare campaigns, it needs to be united in the basic questions, despite all the disagreements that may reasonably emerge around specific proposals and policies. That national unity is being eroded by the tone and conduct of the debate on reforms to the judiciary presented by the coalition government.

We have heard Israeli voices telling us that what is at stake is the survival of democracy in the country, if not dead already. We have been told that it is better not to make even a single concession than to try to reach an agreement. Such extremist attitudes are far from producing a better reform and come dangerously close to emboldening and even inciting Israel’s many international enemies.

Declaring democracy dead has consequences that go well beyond domestic politics. Over the years, both of us have been fighting all attempts made by Palestinian groups to indict Israeli soldiers and political leaders at the ICC, every effort made by the institutionally anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council to condemn Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense, and successive campaigns by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as well as international bodies to wreck Israel’s economy.
Ruthie Blum: Israel’s vilified majority isn’t swayed by the protests
What do all the protesters have in common? They all dream of an Israel without Netanyahu
WHICH BRINGS us to what the protesters “of all stripes” really have in common, and it has nothing to do with the redistribution of power between the judicial and legislative branches of government. No, the shared vision of an otherwise disparate bunch of politicians, academics, artists, hi-tech entrepreneurs and physicians is an Israel without Netanyahu.

Some of the above groups and individuals are totally secular; others observant. Some consider themselves Zionists; others wouldn’t deign to hang an Israeli flag on Independence Day, but agree to carry one during demonstrations for show. Some identify as liberal; others as conservative. Some are city-dwellers; others live on kibbutzim or suburbs. Some are straight; others gay. Some are married; others single. Some are army officers; others view the IDF as a symbol of Israel’s “evil occupation.”

The diversity is genuine. The depiction of the disgruntled hordes as “Israelis from all walks of life,” thus, is accurate.

The disingenuousness lies in the contention that the hysteria exhibited by those citizens reflects a seismic shift in Election Day sentiment. The truth is that few, if any, of those taking to the streets and pounding the pavement outside the Knesset voted for Netanyahu’s Likud or its coalition partners.

In contrast, many among the angry throngs have been longtime “anybody but Bibi” activists horrified that their hopes to be rid of Netanyahu, specifically, and the religious Right, in general, were dashed. They’d been under the impression that the fifth round of elections was going to mimic the previous four.

And though they didn’t wish for another impasse, they thought it might force Netanyahu to vacate his seat, or that his party would push him aside. They certainly didn’t anticipate that their worst nightmare was about to materialize.

STILL, IT wasn’t judicial reform that they harped on; it was Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Laser-beam focus on the two religious right-wingers was so constant that they became household names around the globe. Warnings poured in from world capitals that there would be no contact whatsoever with the dangerous duo.

The “homophobe” Avi Maoz then became a cause for frenzy. His highlighted infamy placed the imagined trampling of LGBTQ rights front and center. Again, judicial reform was barely mentioned.

Once those specks of dust had settled, the defeated camp turned its attention to Levin. Doing so infused energy, as well as cash, into the protest movement. It also riled up the international and American-Jewish communities, much to the delight of Israel’s enemies.

Unfortunately for Lapid, it hasn’t had the same effect on the fractured back benches of parliament. No wonder he’s so often AWOL from the plenum.

Meanwhile, the Right is busy working for the vilified “majority” that handed it the reins. No surveys about societal strife can obfuscate that fact.


UN draft resolution on Israeli settlements 'unhelpful' - US
State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Thursday that a United Nations draft resolution that would call on Israel to immediately and completely cease settlement activities is “unhelpful,” adding that the administration doesn't “view the UN as the most practical or useful forum for discussing this issue.”

During the State Department’s daily briefing, Patel said that the US remains “focused on supporting the conditions necessary to advance the prospects for a negotiated two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians.”

The administration's belief, he said, was that this is “the only path to a sustainable end to the conflict, and we continue to engage with all parties on this.”

“The introduction of this resolution is unhelpful in supporting the conditions necessary to advance negotiations for a two-state solution,” said Patel. “We are aware of the introduction, and we’re coordinating closely with our partners in New York on next steps.” State Dept. stops short of confirming US is prepared to veto resolution

Asked if it meant that the US is ready to veto the resolution, Patel replied that he didn’t want to get ahead of the process. “We are coordinating closely with our partners in New York and are assessing our next steps,” he said. “But when I say that it is unhelpful, we have been clear as it relates to both the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

“Our view is that the introduction of this resolution was unhelpful in supporting the conditions necessary to advance negotiations of a two‑state solution, just like we believe that the news out of Israel on Sunday was unhelpful and something that would further incite tensions as well,” he continued. “And our viewpoint has always been that both sides should avoid taking steps that [sic] puts us further away from a two-state solution and further incites tensions, which these are the kinds of actions that do that.”
U.S. in tough spot as Israel and Palestinian mission face off at UN
With the UN Security Council preparing to vote on a harsh resolution against Israel, the U.S. is put in a tough spot.

Former ambassador Danny Ayalon weighs in on what the options are for the U.S., and security analyst Mohammed Najib explains how far the Palestinians are willing to go at the United Nations.




Bibi’s Typist
Scores of crucial decisions are described in the book, including the 1996 declaration before a joint session in Congress to forgo civilian foreign aid, the decision to overhaul Israel’s semi-socialist economy into a free market one in 2003, the 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza, the mistaken “Shalit swap” in 2011, and the decision to present before Congress the case against a dangerous Iranian nuclear deal sponsored by Barack Obama.

These were controversial decisions that entailed taking significant political risks for what Netanyahu viewed as vital national interests. He put Israel’s interests above his political ones. If those decisions would turn sour, he would lose at the ballot box. That was something he was willing to do, and in fact did in 2006, when his economic reforms had an adverse effect on many of his constituents. In the long run those reforms helped transform Israel into a global power.

One decision was different.

It entailed significant personal risk.

Shortly after his corruption trial commenced, Netanyahu was offered a plea bargain. The case would be closed, and the 72-year-old leader would be spared lengthy and costly litigation. But he would also need to admit to certain charges and leave political life for years.

He could’ve taken the deal. He would be a free man who could easily make millions, and as the longest serving Israeli prime minister—one who forged four historic peace agreements and brought his people unprecedented power and prosperity—his legacy was secure. He had little more to prove.

The deal, however, was unacceptable to him. He heard out the lawyers, a friend and adviser or two, but first and foremost he listened to his family.

The plea bargain was taken off the table and Netanyahu went all in.

As the state witnesses came to the stand the case began to crumble. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested into Netanyahu’s investigation and prosecution, most of the public stopped buying into the allegations and the slanderous stories leaked to nightly newscasts.

Netanyahu is no Mother Teressa, but he is not corrupt.

The book came out in mid-October 2022. It was read by thousands of Israelis and is believed by political pundits to have had an “October effect” on the elections.

On Nov. 1, 2022, Israelis went to the polls and gave Netanyahu a vote of confidence and a landslide victory. Two months later, Netanyahu was sworn in as prime minister and formed a government for the sixth time.
When Netanyahu Spoke to Congress
Dermer said the environment changed dramatically once Israel’s arguments had been made publicly by the prime minister to Congress. Several senators switched their positions; only 42 eventually supported the Iran Deal; and the Arab states took notice—increasing their ties with Israel after seeing it stand up for itself as America was preparing to stand down. Dermer said that Netanyahu’s speech “gave [the Arabs] a great deal of confidence that Israel was willing to be a reliable actor, independent of what U.S. policy would be in the region.” He went on: “And I can tell you that one of the leaders who made peace [in the 2020 Abraham Accords] contacted the prime minister right after that speech.” Dermer said of the speech that it “accelerated the ties that were happening beneath the surface between Israel and the Arab states…. I think it changed the trajectory.”

President Obama made the Iran Deal an “executive agreement,” avoiding the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds Senate vote for a treaty but enabling President Trump to withdraw from it at will. Trump did so after Israel, in a daring operation, extracted a massive tranche of Iranian nuclear files—55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs hidden in a dilapidated warehouse in Tehran—and provided them to the United States. The files demonstrated that Iran had a long-standing plan to develop nuclear weapons even while denying it and had hidden nuclear facilities from IAEA inspections.

As a candidate, Joe Biden pledged to reenter the Iran Deal, as a “platform” to negotiate a “longer and stronger agreement”—an implicit admission that the JCPOA was too short and too weak. When Biden became president, Iran rejected any longer or stronger provisions, raised significant new issues, insisted on additional sanctions relief, limited IAEA inspections further, used long hiatuses to extend the negotiations, and twice rejected fully negotiated texts—first in March 2022 and again in September 2022. In the meantime, Iran was enriching uranium well beyond the JCPOA limits—doing what it would be able to do, in any event, after the “sunsets” in the JCPOA.

In December 2021, a “senior State Department official” had told reporters that Iran’s plan was “to use the talks as a cover, as a front, for continued buildup of their nuclear program.” At the beginning of 2022, the chief deputy to the chief American negotiator resigned, reportedly to protest excessive concessions that the administration was offering Iran to secure a new deal.

At the end of 2022, with no new deal despite two years of negotiations (in which Iran refused to meet directly with U.S. negotiators despite American requests to do so), and with a widespread citizen revolt in Iran and an expanding Iranian military alliance with Russia, the U.S. finally called a halt. The U.S. chief negotiator said, “We can’t sort of keep going back and then being played.”

President Biden said the negotiations were “dead,” but that he could not announce the fact—perhaps because the administration still hoped to conclude a deal eventually, or perhaps because it would be evident after such an announcement that it had no Plan B.

In December 2022, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) issued an authoritative analysis, titled “Iran Building Nuclear Weapons.” It concluded that “a revived [JCPOA] deal” would “at first complicate Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons…but by allowing a buildup to a large enrichment capacity and ultimately no caps on enrichment level, Iran would again be able to quickly breakout and build nuclear weapons.” It effectively confirmed what Netanyahu had told Congress in 2015 was the essence of the impending JCPOA.

As he prepared to become prime minister again, Netanyahu was asked by Jewish Insider in December 2022 what he would convey to Congress if he could give a fourth address. He answered that his message would be “peace through strength, prosperity through free markets, and the alliance of the like-minded states to assure our place and our permanence, to the extent anybody could do that, in history. That’s really something that unites us across nations, across oceans, and across time.”


Hungary Demands Biden Admin Apologise for ‘False’ Story About Holocaust Memorial Vandalism
The Hungarian government has demanded an apology from the Joe Biden administration for spreading a “false” story about a Holocaust memorial being vandalised.

Speaking at what was described as a ‘High-Level Side Event on Globalizing Efforts to Combat Antisemitism’ by the United States Mission to the United Nations earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield had alleged that, alongside a Jewish grave site being vandalised with a swastika, a Russian missile striking a Ukrainian synagogue, and “someone with hate in their heart” throwing a Molotov cocktail at an American synagogue in New Jersey, a “Holocaust memorial was vandalised in Hungary.”

Western officials and commentators have often suggested that Hungary is a hive of anti-Semitism, particularly when the government has criticised the by-his-own-account atheist plutocrat George Soros, despite the Israeli government coming to Budapest’s defence — but this latest accusation has caused particular outrage because the event described by the U.S. ambassador apparently never took place.

State Secretary Zoltán Kovács, a key representative of the Hungarian government to the outside world, wrote that “representatives of Hungary stood puzzled by Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield’s claims, as no such act of vandalism had occurred in Hungary for years.”

“In fact, Hungary is one of the safest countries for Jewish people in Europe, with Jewish communities experiencing a ‘renaissance’ for more than a decade now,” he suggested.


Checkpoint guards thwart weapons smuggling to Palestinian Authority
Guards of the Defense Ministry's checkpoints authority thwarted an attempt to smuggle weapons to the Palestinian Authority on Friday morning, according to the Defense Ministry's spokesperson.

The suspects were stopped at the Richan Checkpoint and taken in for further questioning. The weapons were confiscated.


Lebanese banks under attack as economy crumbles



Overnight protests rock Tehran, other Iranian cities, online videos show
Protests rocked Iran again overnight after a seeming slowdown in recent weeks, with marchers calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, online video posts purportedly showed on Friday.

The marches in numerous cities including Tehran that began on Thursday evening and went on into the night marked 40 days since the execution of two protesters last month.

Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini were hanged on Jan. 8. Two others were executed in December.

Widespread protests in Iran
The protests that have swept across Iran began last September after the death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini for flouting the hijab policy, which requires women to entirely cover their hair and bodies.

Videos on Friday showed overnight demonstrations in several neighborhoods in Tehran as well as in the cities of Karaj, Isfahan, Qazvin, Rasht, Arak, Mashhad, Sanandaj, Qorveh, and Izeh in Khuzestan province.

An online video purportedly from the holy Shi'ite city of Mashhad in the northeast showed protesters chanting: "My martyred brother, we shall avenge your blood.”

Reuters could not verify the videos.

The long wave of unrest has posed one of the strongest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. In demonstrations of protest, women have waved and burned their scarves or cut their hair in defiance of the hijab rules.

While the unrest appeared to have tapered off in recent weeks, likely because of the executions or the brutal crackdown, acts of civil disobedience have continued unabated.
Gallant to West: Urgent to extend expiring embargo on Iran weapons sales
It is crucial that the West extend the existing arms embargo on Iranian weapons sales past late 2023 when it is due to expire, said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Friday.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Gallant said that, as things stand, "Iran has become a global exporter of deadly weapons and has contacts for weapons sales in not less than 50 countries across the globe."

He continued saying, "Iran provides drones with a 1,000 kilometer range, to eastern European countries like Belarus, and in the past has done this in South America, for Venezuela."

"The world must unite and take urgent and rapid steps to stop Iranian weapons sales, and to establish an effective deterrent and punitive mechanism," regarding such sales.

He added that the world must act before the current weapons embargo on the Islamic Republic expires in late 2023 and that combining Tehran's nuclear threat with the weapons sales could lead to an even greater disaster.

What if Iran gets a nuclear weapon?
The defense minister said that the West must "use all necessary means, and I emphasize, all necessary means - to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities."
Biden Admin Violating Law by Withholding Report on Iran's Military, Lawmaker Alleges
The Biden administration is illegally withholding from Congress intelligence information about Iran's latest military capabilities, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.) warned in a Thursday letter.

The New York congresswoman informed Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines that the administration was required to provide a report on Iran to Congress nearly eight months ago. "In clear violation of the law, you still have not filed this critical report with the House Foreign Affairs Committee," Tenney wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "It is vital that Congress finally receives this report—even if it is 233 days late—so we can better counteract the threats posed by Iran and Iranian-backed groups, as well as their ongoing actions in the region."

As part of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress ordered the DNI to provide Congress with a report on "the advancements in the military capabilities of Iran, especially regarding the capabilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian-backed groups, including Hezbollah and the Houthis," according to Tenney. The annual defense spending bill was signed into law on Dec. 27, 2021, and gave the Biden administration 180 days to provide the report. That deadline passed on June 25.

The DNI's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The report, Tenney says, is vital to Congress's oversight work and efforts to sanction Tehran's growing military industry, which is providing lethal drone technology to Russia in its war on Ukraine. Critics say the Biden administration is reluctant to disclose new developments in Iran, which would likely fuel calls for increased sanctions against the Iranian regime and torpedo the administration's efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
Defense Minister Gallant: Iran in talks to sell advanced weapons to 50-plus countries
Iran is currently engaged in negotiations to sell dozens of countries advanced weapons ahead of the upcoming expiration of a U.N. arms embargo on the Islamic Republic, Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said on Friday at the annual Munich Security Conference.

“Iran is no longer a ‘local supplier’ serving proxies in the Middle East. It is a ‘multinational corporation,’ a global exporter of advanced weapons,” said Gallant. “From Belarus in Eastern Europe to Venezuela in South America—we have seen Iran delivering UAVs with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers. In fact, Iran is currently holding discussions to sell advanced weapons … to no less than 50 different countries.”

Gallant called on world powers to take concrete steps to prevent the proliferation of Iranian arms once the U.N. arms embargo expires on Oct. 18 in accordance with the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from which the United States withdrew in May 2018.

The embargo was established by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which formally codified the nuclear pact. It bans Tehran from exporting ballistic missiles and drones with a range of more than 300 kilometers and a payload of more than 500 kilograms until October 2023.

“Time is running out while an evil regime traffics weapons. The international community must create an effective alternative to the dying embargo, a practical mechanism of deterrence and consequences,” said the defense minister.


Exiled Iran chess player doesn't regret removing hijab as women targeted





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