Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Naftali Bennett

Showing posts with label Naftali Bennett. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 05, 2023

Despite BBC blood libel, combatants under 18 are legitimate targets in international law

Here is a blood libel from the BBC.

In response to Naftali Bennett saying that every single person killed in Jenin was a terrorist, the presenter said, as a fact, "Terrorists but children. The Israeli forces are happy to kill children."

Bennett's answer was good, but here is another case where news interviewers are either ignorant or willfully twisting international law.

Child combatants are still combatants under international law. No matter whether they were forcibly recruited, whether they are under 14, whether they are girls - once someone is shooting at a soldier they are legitimate targets, according to every article I can find on the subject.

In 2000, a group of child soldiers in Sierra Leone known (in the West) as the "West Side Boys" captured a patrol of British soldiers from the Royal Irish Regiment along with their Sierra Leone Army liaison officer. Several of the British soldiers were held for two weeks before the British Army decided to free them in an operation that killed between 25 and 150 of the West Side Boys.

Was the deliberate, planned killing of those children a war crime? Of course not.

Absolutely no international law scholar disputes that the British Army had the right to free their fellow soldiers because they were held by combatants under 18. And no BBC reporter responded to the event by saying on the air, "The British Army is happy to kill children."

No, only Jews are routinely accused of relishing the murder of children. The accusation is centuries old and it is as popular today in England as it was in 1144 when Jews were accused of happily murdering William of Norwich.

Unlike the West Side Boys, who were obviously children, the two "children" killed by the IDF in Jenin were heavily armed, fully grown near-adults. One was a member of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Of course soldiers in the middle of an operation are not expected to question the ages of those who are shooting at them to determine whether they've celebrated their 18th birthday yet. The idea is absurd to the extreme. International conventions do not distinguish between child combatants and adult combatants - anyone engaging in hostilities is a legitimate military target.

The BBC presenter is knowingly twisting the facts in ways that cannot be interpreted as anything but malicious. She says, " The UN has defined them as children and we know that four people between the ages of 16 and 18 have been killed in this targeted attack let's not forget it's a targeted attack."

Yes, the UN defines anyone under 18 as children. But the UN doesn't say that armed 16 year olds are not combatants.

And suddenly she switches from the UN definition of children to including 18 year old adults as "children," too, contradicting her own definition of children in the very same breath! Her desire to paint Israel as evil causes her to expand the definition of children to make it look like Israel "targeted" four children.

If you think that blood libels went out of fashion in recent decades, here is an example of how they are just as malicious today as they were in the Middle Ages.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Why has the media give Yair Lapid a pass when he was more aggressive against Palestinians than Bennett or Netanyahu?

For the past two months, the media has been churning out article after article on how the incoming Netanyahu government will be extremist, a disaster for Palestinians and Israelis alike. In an unprecedented move, US President Joe Biden gave a public warning to the incoming government that he will oppose policies that the US feels are against the two state solution.

For a six months, Israel has been led by a centrist politician, Yair Lapid. By nearly all measures, Lapid was more aggressive against Palestinians than his two predecessors, Naftali Bennett and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The six months of Bennett and of Lapid this year makes it fairly easy to compare the two.

According to the UN's OCHA, when Lapid entered office, Israel had killed 60 Palestinians in operations in the West Bank in 2022 under Bennett. Since then, 86 more were killed. Compare with all of 2020, under Netanyahu, when the number killed was 24.

Under Bennett, about 340 Palestinian structures were destroyed this year. Under Lapid, about it was about 550. Combined, this is a modest increase over the total in 2020.

Under Bennett, there were about 1620 search and arrest operations in the West Bank this year. Under Lapid, the number was over 1800. (The total number is roughly the same as under Netanyahu in 2020.)

Lapid the centrist has been clearly more aggressive than the "settler" Bennett and the "fascist" Netanyahu.

While there may be good reasons for Israeli actions under Lapid, and it is entirely possible that under Bennett or Netanyahu the numbers for past six months would have been similar, with the data we have, Lapid has been given an enormous pass by the media, which has chosen to ignore his decision-making role in Israel's moves to root out terrorists.

Which is the point. The media does not report on objective reality: they report on the things that fit their preconceived narratives, and downplay or ignore those that do not. Netanyahu has been considered personally responsible for IDF actions under his leadership, while Lapid was not. Netanyahu is regarded as an aggressive warmonger, Lapid is not. The reporting follows the bias, not the reality.

The media and NGOs will publish and trumpet the statistics that fit the story they want to tell - and bury those that contradict it.

And similarly, even though it is not a fair comparison, the number of Israelis killed this year in attacks under the Bennett/Lapid governments is 24. In 2020, under Netanyahu, the number was 3. There are many factors in statistics like that, but Netanyahu is rarely credited in the media with reducing terror attacks in Israel which steadily decreased from 2015 to 2020.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/27 Links: Israel does not need anyone’s permission to exist; The FBI should investigate the attack on US citizen in Jerusalem bombing; How Israel lets the Palestinians get free power while taking over land

From Ian:

Israel does not need anyone’s permission to exist

This November, Iraq is hosting a celebration to honor 90 years since the British gave it independence. Iraq will be joined by Jordan, which will mark 76 years since the British Mandate for Transjordan ended. In attendance at these ceremonies will be United Nations officials. A keynote speech will be delivered by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who will reflect on Britain’s role in the creation of two major Arab countries.

Except this won’t happen.

After World War I, the League of Nations created five mandates in the Middle East: Syria, Transjordan, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Lebanon. All those mandates, with the exception of Palestine, became sovereign nation states, retaining the borders identified by the League of Nations. Not one of them had ever before held sovereignty over that territory. The Jews alone had once maintained a sovereign kingdom in the Levant.

Yet the only country still celebrating its right to exist by genuflecting before the world is Israel, which hosts annual celebrations of the 1947 U.N. Resolution 181 that partitioned British Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

This year is no different. For example, in Los Angeles, the Consul General of Israel is organizing a 75th anniversary celebration of the event. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

Resolution 181 is now a staple in Jewish and Israel education in the Diaspora. When I attended Jewish day school, our teachers, with pride and tears in their eyes, would show us film of the outburst of applause and standing ovation as the U.N. consecrated the Jewish people’s right to their historic and ancestral homeland.

No one can deny that Resolution 181 was historic and significant. Israeli-American philosopher and computer scientist Judea Pearl called it “the encounter between the Jewish people and history.” But this mythology of the resolution has contributed to the Jewish people’s recurrent need for external recognition.

Seventeenth-century French philosopher Rene Descartes’ emblematic declaration, “I think, therefore I am,” was a pivotal moment in our understanding of the nature of knowledge, forging a philosophical connection between self-awareness and existence. Sadly, for the Jews, Descartes’ exultant affirmation reads more like, “The non-Jews think, therefore we are.”

This concept has long been applied to Israel, whose legitimacy is constantly in question, and to the Jew, who during his 2,000-year exile from the Land of Israel was considered a nuisance and later a pariah. The “Jewish Question” was, at its core, the non-Jewish world’s attempt to grapple with the existence of the Jew. During the French revolution, non-Jews gave an answer to this question: To the Jew as a citizen, everything; to the Jews as a nation, nothing. Tragically, many Jews embraced this form of partial acceptance.

a re-enactment of the vote, videos and testimonies from the period, school choirs and more. I will provide A Witness's Reflections.

For background, see
The Forgotten Miracle: Nov. 29, 1947 https://t.co/f394qsFFdJ
— Judea Pearl (@yudapearl) November 22, 2022

The FBI should investigate the attack on US citizen in Jerusalem bombing

US law does not restrict the pursuit of terrorists who harm Americans overseas only to those who kill Americans. It also includes anybody who “attempts to kill” a US citizen (18 US Code 2332).

Palestinian Arab terrorists have murdered 146 American citizens, and wounded 204 more, since 1968. Yet, not one of those killers has ever been handed over to the United States for prosecution.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to discuss this matter with senior officials of multiple administrations, Republicans as well as Democrats. The excuses I have heard as to why they don’t pursue Palestinian Arab killers of Americans have ranged from evasive to downright disingenuous.

For example, they have claimed that the US “can’t find” the suspects, even when they are hiding in plain sight, by serving openly in the Palestinian security forces or – in the case of Sbarro pizzeria killer Ahlam Tamimi – hosting a radio show in Amman, Jordan.

US officials also have claimed that nothing can be done because America does not have an extradition treaty with the Palestinian Authority – even though the US frequently arranges for the transfer of criminal suspects from countries with whom it does not have formal treaties.

In fact, the real reason that the FBI is not investigating the latest attempt to murder an American citizen in Israel is the same reason it has never pursued any of the other Palestinian terrorists who have killed or injured Americans: because it would interfere with the administration’s goal of maintaining friendly relations with the Palestinian Authority in order to bring about the creation of a Palestinian state.

The PA will resist any request to hand over killers of Americans, since it regards the killers as heroes. For the United States to pursue justice, it would have to be willing to confront the PA, including putting political and financial pressure on the PA leadership. That would interfere with the Biden administration’s warm relationship with the PA.

And so, justice is sacrificed in order to avoid angering the PA. That’s why the FBI will investigate the accidental death of an Arab-American in Israel who placed herself in a dangerous situation, but not the deliberate murder and attempted murder of Jewish Americans in Israel. That’s why terrorists will be extradited and transferred to the US from around the world – but not if they are Palestinian Arab killers of Americans. And this outrageous double standard will continue until American Jewish leaders make it clear to the Biden administration that they will no longer stand for it.

The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.

Canadian lawmaker vows to defend Israel, Jews

She’s a Jamaican-born lawyer who immigrated to Canada with her family at age five. She made history by becoming the first woman of color to run for the Conservative Party leadership in Canada and is well-known for tweaking the establishment view with her unabashedly socially conservative opinions. And she’s also a staunch supporter of the State of Israel.

Meet Canadian MP Leslyn Lewis, the new chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Israel Allies Caucus, a cross-party faith-based parliamentary lobby that seeks to strengthen the bonds between the two nations.

“The existence of Israel is at the cornerstone of our faith as Christians,” Lewis, who represents Haldimand—Norfolk in southern Ontario, says in a telephone interview with JNS from Ottawa. “As both Canadians and Christians we stand in support of the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Lewis sees a direct link between the increasing levels of antisemitism both in Canada and around the globe and the narrative coming out of the BDS movement that seeks to delegitimize and demonize Israel, conceding that it is becoming increasingly challenging to reach the hearts and minds of the next generation at a time when pro-Israel students are being silenced and demonized on university campuses.

“Young people are more focused on things that pull at their heart-strings—so when you throw out words like racism and Apartheid of course their view is ‘I want to fight against that,’ ” she said. “When they tie it in with racism, it becomes very visceral. As a person of color I can see it.”

Palestinians preparing to declare war on Jerusalem Day next Sunday

Palestinians are gathering excuses to attack Israel next Sunday, Jerusalem Day.

Ma'an is not affiliated with any terror organization. Yet even that news outlet is saying that there is no reasonable alternative to attacking Israeli Jews next Sunday with rockets, terrorism or both.

Last year's Jerusalem Day was marked with Hamas rockets towards Jerusalem - endangering the very holy places that Muslims claim are so important to them. To Palestinians, the war was a net positive because it showed that they could still affect Israel and stop Jews from celebrating the reunification of Jerusalem.

They don't look at a war that killed hundreds and that destroyed part of Gaza as a loss - to them, it was a victory, and Hamas rode a wave of popularity for months afterwards, as it took on the mantle of "defender of Al Quds and Al Aqsa."

All the Palestinians need is an excuse to repeat their purported victory. And they are collecting them.

1.) The march itself, which is an unacceptable provocation to the feelings of millions of Muslims.

2.) A court decision, not being enforced by Israeli police, allowing Jews to pray aloud on the Temple Mount.

3.) Jews continuing to visit and silently pray at the holy site, as they have done for years now.

4.) "Price tag" attacks by far right settlers, even though they are denounced by almost all Jews.

5.) Naftali Bennett not even mentioning Palestinians at his UN speech last September, which they find disrespectful.

6.) Israel rooting out terror cells in Jenin.

7.) The death of Shireen Abu Akleh.

8.) Israeli police attacking people trying to take her body on a different route at her funeral.

9.) The US taking Kahana Chai off the list of terrorist organizations.

None of these are remotely a reason to start attacking Jewish civilians. But in the Palestinian honor/shame system, not attacking Jews is being framed as unacceptable and shameful.

The editorial ends with not a threat but a virtual promise:

The statement of the Palestinian Authority and the statement of the Kingdom of Jordan to hold the occupation responsible for the upcoming religious war represents more than a warning of what will happen.

The question is no longer if a new battle will take place next Sunday. Rather, the more accurate question: What is the miracle that can prevent the occurrence of such a battle?

Palestinians are being primed in all their media for a war.

Israel needs to plan accordingly. And it should say, in no uncertain terms, that while the accusations against Israel are false and exaggerated, anyone who starts a war on May 29 will not be pleased with the outcome.

And it needs to publicize and translate the threats today, not next week.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Is the US Holding Israel’s Iron Dome Hostage to an Iran Nuke Deal? (Guest post by Dave Bender)

Is the US Holding Israel’s Iron Dome Hostage to an Iran Nuke Deal?

While President Biden, Senate, and Congress slow-walk and bicker over replenishing Jerusalem's dwindling defensive missile shield supplies, PM Bennett says his country won't be bound to any rickety renewed nuke deal - nor stand idly by to Iran's increasingly genocidal threats

By Dave Bender, northern Israel

Administration and Capitol political horse-traders and ideologues are holding hostage the lives of some two million Israelis -- specifically the Gaza Envelope and northern border areas. Their domestic foot-dragging endangers Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Bedouin citizens, alike.

This, while P5+1 group (US, UK, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the EU) reps wrangle with Iran in Vienna through - so far - no less than eight contentious sessions over terms of restarting the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

But Jerusalem doesn’t trust the Viennese diplomatic waltz nor Iranian double-crossing promises; they’re preoccupied with Tehran’s ruling and military leaders’ incessant, bellicose threats to “turn Tel Aviv and Haifa into dust,” “wipe Israel off the map,” and taking note of videos of simulated strikes against Israel’s cities, military targets, and reputed nuclear facilities.

“...the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere,” the Tehran Times histrionically boasted in a December 2021 front-page article, entitled, “Just One Wrong Move.” https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/tehran-times-publishes-targets-iran-will-attack-in-israel-688785

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, told the Knesset parliament’s crucial Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee that, “Israel is not a party to the agreements,” and warned that the Jewish State “is not bound to what will be written in the agreements if they are signed,” according to a JNS report. https://www.jns.org/bennett-sends-message-to-iran-vienna-talks-wont-tie-israels-hands/

And so, Israel is “investing in security rearmament,” to the tune of an immense NIS 60 billion ($19.2 billion) due to what Bennett called an “[Iranian] octopus that constantly threatens Israel.”

Military analyst Seth Frantzman at The Jerusalem Post breaks down the tentacled threat matrix:

“Both Hamas and Hezbollah maintain large stockpiles of ballistic rockets, in addition to mortars, anti-tank missiles, and other munitions. While Hamas does have Iranian-made weaponry, a significant amount of its arsenal has historically been indigenously made, as a result of the ongoing blockade against the Gaza Strip. Hamas has produced several types of rockets, notably the Qassam series. Hezbollah’s stockpile has in the past consisted of former Soviet models, including Grads and Katyushas, but, like Hamas, now has Iranian-made heavy and long-distance rockets like the Fajr series.

“Estimates of Hezbollah rocket stockpiles vary from 150,000-200,000, while Hamas’ is estimated to be around 10,000.” https://www.jpost.com/tags/rocket-attack-on-israel

Additionally, the Alma Research and Education Center, reports that Iran has deployed a wide array of “medium-range and long-range surface-to-surface missiles inside fortified shafts,” at a site near Palmyra, in eastern Syria. https://israel-alma.org/research/

“The missiles we mentioned above can threaten almost the entire territory of the State of Israel: Northern Israel (distance of about 186 miles, about 300 kilometers, from Mount Muhammad Ben Ali by air), Haifa area (distance of about 223 miles, about 360 kilometers), Tel Aviv area (distance of about 261 miles, about 420 kilometers) and even threaten the area of the city of Beer Sheva and south of it.”

But while last summer's unfulfilled promises to resupply crucial defensive measures remains a vital concern to Israelis, the regional conflagration the delay could yet ignite apparently remains - seriously and serially - misjudged and maybe even selectively ignored by the US Administration and its cohorts.

The May conflict with Gaza saw over four thousand rockets fired at metropolitan areas, and some 16 Hamas-Hezbollah rockets fired south out of southern Lebanon into civilian areas later in the year, with the Iron Dome successfully downing some 90 percent of them.

However, 12 Israeli civilians and an IDF soldier were killed, and over 300 wounded, and millions of dollars in economic damage was sustained in the 11-day operation, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Palestinian/Pages/Operation-Guardian-of-the-Walls-10-May-2021.aspx

In Gaza, the IDF said some 460 misfired rockets fell short within the coastal enclave, killing and maiming an unclear number of reported non-combatants. Hamas-affiliated medical officials reported some 260 deaths to the UN and Human Rights Watch, although Israeli researchers say almost 50 percent of them were affiliated with terror groups.

So without freeing up funding (which is invested in American jobs to design and construct the strictly defensive interceptors), recalcitrant US lawmakers need to plainly know: your foot-dragging is likely to get many more people killed.

We in Israel see you and we hear you, and the results, if not intent, of your deeds - and misdeeds - are clear to us:

If the State of Israel is hit in any future conflict by volleys of even more thousands of incoming rockets or payload-carrying UAVs and cannot respond sufficiently due to a lack of Tamir interceptors, the government and IDF will have no other choice but to respond with far more kinetic firepower than anything seen so far - and at targets very near and very far - in order to suppress and stop the deadly salvos aimed at heavily-populated civilian areas and strategic facilities.

And even at that, despite the “standalone measure that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,“ but still withheld in the Senate, rebuilding the supply of interceptors takes time, due to the relatively slow manufacturing process, with cost (and likely Covid) being an inhibitor.

On the other hand, Hamas and PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] use less sophisticated - but no less deadly - rockets that are manufactured quickly, at a much lower cost.

In order to stop them before they are even launched, the sanctimonious caterwauling over previous IDF pinpoint strikes on terror targets on and cross-border will be deafened into silence by the unleashed fury out of Zion.

Speaking as a nearly-two-decade IDF artillery NCO and infantry grunt (St.Sgt.- ret.) who served in and around Gaza, and as a two-decade reporter in Israel please understand: the howling existential threats uttered by Iranian-financed, trained, and led regional proxies and their determination to eradicate us will not deter us, but the countdown to the next steel rainstorm is ticking very loudly in our ears these days.

So forgive us for being distracted by the growing chorus calling for our demise; beyond the virtuous, virtual moral Disneyland of “knowing what's best for us" hectoring, "America first!" jingoism, and unrequited "tough love" missives penned from six thousand miles away - we’ll bleed real blood and treasure due to those withheld projectiles.

And so, in order to defend our families and the sole Jewish homeland against sworn foes bent on our collective destruction - despite an unspoken defensive arms embargo - don’t be too surprised by the justified ferocity and extent of Israel’s response.

And our lack of apology for stopping our would-be killers and their murderous plans.

---

Dave Bender is a US-born, four-decade Israeli immigrant and self-described, two-decade “ever-recovering reporter,” in Israel, and was an award-winning reporter at two NPR affiliates in the States. Since then, he’s developed a photography/videography career and would, mostly, just as soon be beekeeping with his wife, and enjoying his kids and grandkids.

The Fat Lady Sang: Naftali Bennett’s String of Broken Promises (Judean Rose)

Naftali Bennett is the new prime minister of Israel, an honor to be sure. But many of us are devastated by his assumption to the throne. It’s not only that Bennett lacks the polish and statesmanship of Netanyahu, it’s the way he seized power.

Israel is a true democracy, pretty much split down the middle in terms of right and left. We comprise a plurality of views. And that is precisely why we kept having election after election (after election after election). It is so darned difficult to settle an election when half the population feels one way, and the other half feels the other way. But even right and left are fragmented into itsy bitsy parties. Except for Netanyahu’s Likud, which received the most significant block of votes.

An election was always going to be decided by forming a coalition, because without 61 seats, you can’t make a government, and Likud had only 30. The only thing to do then is to make a match between a large party, the next largest party (Lapid’s Yesh Atid), and a few lesser parties. It was either that or cobbling together lots of teeny tiny little parties to make a larger whole of a coalition that would be so fragmented in its views that it would always be doomed to failure and not represent anyone at all.

The latter is exactly the track Naftali Bennett chose in his rise to power. He glued together teensy little parties that the majority of Israelis did not vote for, and then put them all together in a basket and presented us with a government that doesn’t represent the majority of Israelis, or even the largest sector of Israelis represented in the election, those who voted for Likud, the party of Netanyahu.

Alas, the majority was still not enough to keep Bibi in power. With only 30 mandates, he was short by more than one half of the 61 mandates he needed to remain on Balfour St.

To the hopeful, it looks as though Bennett achieved an amazing feat of unity, by crafting a government composed of every part of society: right, left, Arabs and Jews, gay, straight, people of color or with disabilities—this government has it all. Those with hope see this new government as all of the people getting together to make real change and compromise: an inclusive government. But the rest of us see it as chicanery, a coup to unseat Netanyahu, a group of tiny parties of few votes so hungry for power that they would and did play dirty.

Bennett swore up and down he would not be in a government with the people with whom he is now in a government. Bennett’s party received just 7 mandates. Netanyahu’s party had 30. Is it any wonder that Netanyahu feels he was done dirty by Bennett?

Also: you don’t have to love Netanyahu to know that this is not the time to have a changing of the guard, with Iran weeks away from the bomb and a president hostile to Israel in the White House. Netanyahu is a seasoned statesman. Bennett lacks stature, presence. Maybe that’s why the people did not choose him. He got in through deception, alone.

The night that the new government passed its final parliamentary vote, I slept badly, and had nightmares. I am afraid of this government, afraid of the Biden Administration, and terrified of Iran. The situation feels out of control.

No. I did not love Netanyahu—he made promises to the right and never kept them—but that is who needs to be prime minister right now. In Israel we have two groups of voters: Only Bibi, and Only NOT Bibi. Now we have the Only NOT Bibi government in power, and consider this: four times the number of people who voted for Bennett, did not want him in power.

Of those who did vote for Bennett, many feel betrayed. I know because I live in a town where he is very popular, and he mentioned us in his first speech as prime minister in a nod to that support. I polled my friends and many said they feel betrayed by him for sitting with Lapid, the Left, and with Ra”am (the Arab party.) A minority of my Bennett-voting friends are taking a wait-and-see attitude. They are not yet ready to give up on their romance with Naftali.

Those outside of Israel often find it difficult to understand our political climate. The following segment of Guy Zohar’s M’HaTzad HaSheini [From The Other Side] of June 1, 2021, from Israel’s Channel 11 Kan News, is enlightening, but in Hebrew only. The clip details the promises that Bennett has made and broken.

I endeavored to make a rough translation (apologies in advance for my shortcomings as a Hebrew-English translator) of the 4-minute segment to help my non-Israeli readers understand why there is such a lack of trust in Naftali Bennett. It boils down to this: every politician breaks promises, but Bennett went beyond the pale, abusing his voters’ trust, and taking advantage of the kinks in our electoral system. This makes it all the more clear that we have a desperate need for electoral reform in Israel, something to which Netanyahu alluded in his bitter parting speech.

נפתלי בנט הודיע שבכוונתו לפעול כדי להקים ממשלה עם יאיר לפיד, ועם השמאל. ברוטציה. רק עם שישה מנדטים. טוב אתם מבינים מה צריך לעשות, כן?#מהצד_השני עם @guyzo pic.twitter.com/5ZEW7f4W9v
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) June 1, 2021

Guy Zohar: We have to take a breath, it just doesn’t come easy for us.

Naftali Bennett: I inform you today, that my intention is to work with all my strength toward the creation of a national unity government, together with my friend Yair Lapid.

Guy Zohar: We have no choice. You understand now what we have to do, don’t you?

Host: You will sit under him if he is prime minister?

Naftali Bennett: No!

Host: Will you make a rotation [agreement]?

Naftali Bennett: Not in rotation. Not in mutation. [waves hand]

Guy Zohar: Ouch. No one says he didn’t learn from Netanyahu.

Naftali Bennett: Forever and without any preconditions, I will not lend my hand to the establishment of a government with Yair Lapid.

Guy Zohar: Ouch.

Naftali Bennett: I won’t permit Yair Lapid to be prime minister, not even in rotation.

Guy Zohar: It hurts us more than it hurts you. And it gets worse.

*ding*

Naftali Bennett: We won’t form a government that elevates the Left. Because I’m Right. What I’m going to do is to establish a national government, that is to say not to transfer administration to the Left, because most of the nation, 80 mandates, are on the right, at today’s count.

Host: Lapid is the Left?

Naftali Bennett: Lapid, yes.

*ding*

Naftali Bennett: I commit before you that no matter what, I will not sit [in government] with or give my hand that *ding* Yair Lapid will be prime minister of Israel. And of course, I will not flip Lapid *ding* to become prime minister, not by rotation, and not without rotation [waves hand], because I am a man of the right.

Guy Zohar: And it doesn’t end here. Come let’s return to the speech in which Naftali Bennett declared his intention to—yes—establish a unity government with Yair Lapid.

Naftali Bennett: This is a government that will not be against any sector or any group.

Guy Zohar: But . . . just before the elections, you said that . . .

Naftali Bennett: Yair Lapid caused polarization in the last decade, truly terrible, in the Israeli community. I don’t think this should be the character that the nation of Israel today needs as its prime minister.

Guy Zohar: Back to this week’s speech. (Hoo-wa!)

Naftali Bennett: Know that the Left makes here difficult compromises in granting me the position of prime minister.

Guy Zohar: Wait! You prime minister?? YOU prime minister??? But you only have 6 mandates [out of the necessary 61 minimum needed to form a government]!

Naftali Bennett: I hope and believe that the public will give me the strength *ding* with 15 mandates I won’t be prime minister. Twenty? Yes. And I am the insurance policy for a right-wing government that will care about you.

Host: The public gives you a small number of mandates, nine mandates in the latest polls.

Naftali Bennett: Excuse me. Today I am already at 11. *ding* And if I reach 15 we will have established here a government. I need just a few more mandates to generate a change in leadership. Impossible with ten mandates to do this. 15 mandates, we can come and change the leadership in real fashion.

Host: You are the spoonful that tips the scales. You can be prime minister.

Naftali Bennett: But not with *ding* ten mandates.

Host: With ten mandates!

Naftali Bennett: That’s not democratic. You need more.

Guy Zohar: Yes. Now, let’s return to the speech that’s fresh. What does it mean that the left makes compromises?

Naftali Bennett: Know that the Left makes compromises that are not easy.

Guy Zohar: Does this mean that you are going to sit with the Labor Party?

Host: The Labor Party with seven mandates is a sort of partner?

Naftali Bennett: No. With them, they’re not in favor of a Jewish and Democratic state.

Guy Zohar: Do you mean to say that you will sit with Meretz?

Host: We’re ready to come to an agreement on this that you will not sit with Meretz?

Naftali Bennett: Right. You know why? Because they support The Hague.

Guy Zohar: What about Ra”am’s [refers to the Arab party] abstention or support?

Naftali Bennett: Listen, it’s an unbelievable thing, also this. Look how Netanyahu embraced Ra”am in this way. It’s a disgrace. I’ll explain why. Ra”am is the Islamic Movement’s party in Israel, in fact the Israeli branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is who the prime minister is ready to embrace—those who contribute to the murder of our soldiers.

Guy Zohar: Okay. There’s one thing you have to credit him, that this also Bennett said before the elections.

Naftali Bennett: *Ding* We won’t go to a fifth election. I won’t drag the State of Israel to a fifth election. This would be a crime! Vote for the right, letter Bet, it’s a kind of insurance policy that 1. We’ll establish a government.

Guy Zohar: Here it is. Everything’s okay. There were a few promises. They were all contradicted. But hey! You have to choose "1."

01/08 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan; Pres. Trump: No Lives Lost; Iran ‘Appears To Be Standing Down’; Court Upholds Anti-BDS Law in State of Arizona

From Ian:

Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan

Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, he vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.

“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing...It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.

His remarks came as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.

“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its anchoring in legal documents from the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.

“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land. We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise the right,” Netanyahu explained.

PM Netanyahu: "Israel is Completely Beside the United States"

Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for authorizing the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Quds force. In his speech at a summit in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Soleimani was behind deaths of "countless" innocents and sowed "fear, and misery, and anguish" -- and was planning to do even worse.

Pompeo 'disavows' Carter-era anti-settlement policy

The US rejects a 1978 memo determining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a video statement to the Kohelet Forum’s conference on his settlement policy.

Pompeo said the US is “disavowing the deeply flawed" the Carter-era memorandum, written by then-State Department Legal Adviser Herbert Hansell, which called all Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be illegal.

This goes a step further than Pompeo’s statement in November that the US “no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law.”

“It’s important to speak the truth that the facts lead us to, and that is what we have done,” Pompeo said in his video message. “We are recognizing that settlements do not inherently violate international law.”

As such, he added, the US is returning to a more “balanced” policy, “advancing the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Forum said: “For decades, the obscure Carter-era memo was used as justification for anti-Israel policies...Secretary Pompeo’s statement makes clear the US’s wholesale rejection of the legal theory that holds that international law restricts Israeli Jews from moving into areas from which Jordan had ethnically cleansed them in 1949.”

Celebrating “Pompeo Doctrine” on legality of Israeli settlements with Psagot ⁦@SecPompeo⁩ wine at ⁦@KoheletForum⁩ conference, with ⁦@IsraeliPM⁩ ⁦@USAmbIsrael⁩ ⁦@AmbDermer⁩. pic.twitter.com/RhdxPNRcic
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) January 8, 2020

Bennett: Area C of West Bank belongs to us, we’re waging a battle for it

Israel is waging a “real battle” against the Palestinians for control of Area C of the West Bank, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday, as he declared “officially" that the territory belongs to Israel.

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another,” Bennett told the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.

Bennett, who heads the New Right party, added that he intended to make that demand part of his coalition agreement to enter the new government after the elections.

The second goal, Bennett said, was to ensure through the promotion of settlement construction to ensure that within a decade a million Jews will live in Judea and Samaria.

In the interim, Bennett said, “We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the Land of Israel and the future of Area C. It started a month ago and I am announcing it here today.”

Bennett and Bibi the Pwn Master (Judean Rose)

Avi Ohayon / GPO Israel

MK Naftali Bennett threatened that his party, Bayit Yehudi, would leave the coalition if he were not appointed Defense Minister in Avigdor Liberman’s stead, after Liberman resigned. Liberman resigned because his hands were tied in making decisions about how to respond to the barrage of missiles from Gaza, or so he implied. Which begs the question: if Liberman’s hands were tied, why wouldn’t Bennett be equally held back from responding to Gaza according to his druthers, were he appointed defense minister?

The fact is that an Israeli defense minister can be overruled by a sitting prime minister. Which would not be at all unusual or out of line. Most appointments by a prime minister are relegated to silent positions and prevented from forming their own policies. So no matter how much Bennett promises to finish off Hamas for good, the promise remains an empty one. Even if Bibi were to appoint him defense minister, Bennett wouldn’t have carte blanche to make military decisions on his own. The prime minister always has the final say.

Bennett knows this very well.

Being defense minister in Israel, is in some respects like being the vice president of America. A vice president has no real power. It’s more of a stepping stone to an even higher office, the presidency.

Bennett had an opportunity handed to him with Liberman’s resignation: demand the defense ministry and use it as a stepping stone to become prime minister. If the prime minister refuses to appoint him, he can threaten to leave the coalition and bring down the government. Either way, Bennett and his party stood to gain. Bayit Yehudi would have gained from early elections. Bennett’s own star would have risen further, had this been the case, especially with Bibi embroiled in legal troubles and with the threat of war on multiple fronts.

While both Bibi and Bennett are war heroes, Bibi has come to seem more statesmanlike, while the younger Bennett retains a sort of military aura. We can see Bennett as a warrior, so that he comes off as a man of action, while Bibi is more Churchillian: great at making memorable speeches. Many of the people of Sderot and Southern Israel see Bennett as their possible savior, but it’s all a mirage. It’s all appearances.

Bennett could not actually do anything he promises to do as defense minister, because Bibi would stop him. He probably wouldn’t do any better as prime minister. It’s one thing to make promises of what one would do as defense minister or prime minister, quite another to actually carry them out. No doubt Bennett’s hand would be stayed by the same concerns that now give Netanyahu pause. Things like, for instance, Iran. The threat from Hezbollah in the North. The fact that the army doesn’t have adequate skilled manpower to handle several fronts at once.

Netanyahu works the Middle East like a giant chess board and he is a master. Bennett is very smart and has accomplished a great deal in his lifetime. He was a star in the military, in business, and in politics. Still, no one should be fooled that Bennett’s braggadocio that he knows better than Bibi—knows how to take care of Gaza—is at all meaningful. There is absolutely no reason to think that Bennett is “our only chance,” as one Southern Israeli said to me. He’s not in the driver seat and wouldn’t be in it even if he were defense minister.

As prime minister, he’d be liable to do exactly what Netanyahu is now doing. Or worse, he’d rush headlong into something we can’t handle. No one wants to see that happen. Except maybe Hamas.

In the end, Bennett backed down and didn’t have Bayit Yehudi leave the coalition. This was the intelligent move to make, especially after Bibi’s press conference the night before. Bibi made it clear that Bennett’s machinations were only grandstanding for political gain. He also made it clear that there are things we don’t know and that these games just get in the way of the real work ahead of us.

Elections are costly in terms of both money and manpower. They take the focus away from the actual running of the country. Bringing the government down at a time when there are multiple military threats is a recipe for chaos and disaster.

Had Bennett gone ahead and brought the government down, he would have looked shallow and narcissistic. It would have looked like he was exploiting a military situation for personal political gain. Which was exactly what he was doing. That is why, in the end, Bennett was smart to cut his losses and stand down.

He figured it out, as Bibi knew he would: Bennett got pwned by Bibi, the Pwn Master.

via GIPHY

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