News from February 3 to February 9

Israeli election update, peace plan update, and honorable mentions

Hey everyone. As always, feel free to reach out with comments, questions, and concerns at newsofthejews@gmail.com

Also, don’t forget to vote in the World Zionist Congress elections! You can do so here.

Israeli election update:

Does Israel have a government yet? No.

What’s going on? The last few weeks have featured Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continually trying to one-up each other to make themselves look better for the voters. Now that the elections are about three weeks away, Gantz and Netanyahu are trying to score as many political points as possible. Let’s recap:

Netanyahu takes credit for getting Gantz invited to the White House to meet with President Trump.

Gantz wiggles out of the “trap” by meeting with Trump separately.

Gantz flies back to Israel immediately after his meeting with President Trump to be present for Netanyahu’s immunity hearings.

Netanyahu withdraws his immunity request so that he would not have to face negative coverage from the hearings.

Netanyahu spontaneously flies to Russia and secures the release of Naama Issachar, an Israeli woman who had been imprisoned on questionable charges.

Reports leak suggesting Netanyahu was working with the United States to allow Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel, to move to Israel. 

Netanyahu flies to Uganda and has a bilateral meeting with the leader of Israel’s longtime enemy Sudan, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Wait, what? Why was Netanyahu meeting with the Sudanese? Netanyahu reportedly met with al-Burhan to lay the groundwork for a normalization of relations. His motivation is two-fold. For one, as Israel’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu has consistently tried to deepen ties with Arab countries to put pressure on Iran. Sudan follows Oman, Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabi in developing a strategic relationship with Israel. Netanyahu also wants Sudan to allow Israeli planes to fly in its airspace because it would significantly shorten the trip between Israel and Latin America. In exchange, al-Burhan reportedly asked Netanyahu to speak with the American government and convince it to remove Sudan from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. 

The meeting is significant because Sudan has historically been a major Israeli adversary. Sudan used to be an essential corridor for Iranian weapons to enter Gaza and was the host of the 1967 Khartoum Conference, which is famous for producing the Arab League’s Three-No’s resolution (no peace, no recognition, and no negotiations). Now, ten months removed from the ousting of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir, the new Sudanese leader is backing diplomacy with Israel. It will take time to see if the new Israel-Sudanese relationship develops into anything beyond amicable statements. After all, the relationships with Oman, Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia are still cool and fragile.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Al Jazeera via AP

Anything else? Another potentially interesting storyline from the past week is that an app used by Likud leaked Israel’s entire voter registry. According to Haaretz, that includes “full names, identification numbers, gender and current address of all citizens in Israel’s voter registry, and also private phone numbers of some of them. In total, the personal details of 6,453,254 Israeli citizens were exposed.” Yikes. Between the Iowa Caucus and this leak, it’s been a tough week for voting technology.

Further reading:  https://www.timesofisrael.com/sudanese-leader-says-he-felt-comfortable-with-netanyahu-during-meeting/ (TOI)

Peace plan update:

What’s the latest? On Saturday, Netanyahu announced that Israel and the United States had begun drafting a precise map of the West Bank territory that Israel will annex. As you may recall, the Trump Administration’s Middle East peace plan calls for Israel to absorb around 30% of the West Bank. Now, since both Likud and its main opposition, Blue and White, support the peace plan, Netanyahu intends to unilaterally annex the pieces of the West Bank that the Trump Administration has indicated will become part of Israel.

Netanyahu’s announcement comes after a disagreement between the United States and Israel over when Israel would proceed with the annexation. After the peace plan was announced, Netanyahu said that he wanted to begin the process of annexing the land, but the United States warned Israel that it should wait until after the March elections. Yesterday, American Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said in a tweet that unilateral action not approved by the United States “endangers” the plan and jeopardizes American recognition. 

What does this mean? It doesn’t mean too much. Ultimately, no annexation will happen for at least a few months because it will take time to draft detailed maps. Since Netanyahu and Gantz committed to carrying out the peace plan after the elections, it does not represent a significant development for executing the plan. However, it is a noteworthy development for the Israeli election. To form a government, Gantz will likely have to include the Arab List in his coalition. Since the Arab List is unlikely to join a government that will carry out the peace plan, Netanyahu can raise doubts among right-wing voters that Gantz will actually follow through with his peace plan-related promises. Moreover, by initiating the annexation, Netanyahu can claim that he is the only candidate who will complete the annexation because he has already started it.

Further reading: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians/israel-drawing-up-map-for-west-bank-annexations-netanyahu-idUSKBN2020RA (Reuters)

Honorable Mentions:

Yeshiva University’s basketball team entered the Division III top 25 rankings for the first time in school history. The Maccabees are currently ranked #24 in the nation. 

Israel reportedly received an Omani proposal for secret talks between Israel and Iran in 2013. While some security officials believed the proposal was genuine, other high-ranking members of the security apparatus thought it was a way to give the United States cover for its secret negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu ultimately chose not to pursue the talks.

The Jewish presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg (Michael Bennet and Tom Steyer are also half-Jewish) both spoke about their Judaism this week. Sanders said that being Jewish was one of two factors that informed his worldview. Meanwhile, referring to Sanders, Bloomberg said, “I know I’m not the only Jewish candidate running for president. But I am the only one that doesn’t want to turn America into a Kibbutz.”

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