Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

Hadar Susskind  

All participants are rolling in but it takes a moment. So we're gonna just give it that moment and you can smile at Lior. And he will hopefully smile and wave back. There we go. Oh, I see Maxxe is coming on. Great. We'll give this one more minute and go ahead and get started. We've got a lot of people joining which is great. Needless to say, there's a lot to talk about. It's quite a time. You know, people like to throw around words like historic and unprecedented but I think if you're going to use them this is a pretty good time to do it. So once again, I will just say hello, welcome, everybody. I am Hadar Susskind, the President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now. Thrilled to have our guests Lior here today who I will introduce a little bit more in a minute or two, and then we'll jump in. We're just going to give this until two minutes after as folks continue to roll in and get into the Zoom. And then we will start closely, because as Lior knows, and certainly Maxxe knows I like to try to start on time the best we can. All right. So I think that finishes my filibuster for the afternoon. So here we go. First of all, I will again and for the last time, at least for the moment say hello, welcome. Thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it. It is a busy day. I know everybody's got a lot going on. So thank you for taking your time to be with us. I'm Hadar Susskind, the president of Americans for Peace Now I am thrilled to have you all with us. Where do we even start with this? I mean there's just there's so much that is going on. And there is for good and for bad so much that has been written in so many discussions about what the government is calling the judicial reform. What most people I think in the country are referring to is the judicial judicial revolution, perhaps the judicial coup and before we get in, I just want to remind everybody we are going to record this webinar and we will share it with all of you who have registered so you will be able to see it you will be able to share it with friends. We're going to hear from our guest and then after that we will open it for questions as always. I asked you to use the Q&A function to put your questions in and we will read them off to Lior and get to as many as we possibly can. If there are questions that we don't have a chance to get to we will try to answer them after or share them with Lior to do so. And I think that is it for our logistics. So with that I'm finally going to say welcome to my guests hello to Lior Amihai. Lior, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting him yet is the new executive director of our sister organization Shalom Achshav, Peace Now in Israel. He's got a long history with the group and we are we are glad to have him back. But he is a veteran activist and leader on the Israeli scene. And there's really nobody better that we could be with today to ask, you know, the baseline question like Lior, what's going on? Tell us what's happening. With that, please take it away.

 

Lior Amihai  

Thank you Hadar. And thank you APN for organizing this and for inviting me. It's very exciting, very exciting times here in Israel, and more than happy to share with you any thoughts and stuff that we're working on or you're seeing here from Israel. So a lot of a lot of things going on. Where do you want me to start?

 

Hadar Susskind  

I think why don't you give us the update? You know, everyone on this call has been following I think understands in general has been watching the protests. But you know what's happened these last few days with the pause? You know, the pause that Netanyahu has now taken the agreement, the compromise with Ben Gvir, tell us you know, what's going on with that and what do you think it's going to mean for the continuation of the protest movement?

 

Lior Amihai  

Okay, so great questions, and I don't have the answer to them. I try to figure it out. What I can say is the following one that since the government so what happened since the government sort of was formed, and the initiation of the judicial changes in the regime change in Israel, we saw something that was unbelievable, because the way government or the way the regime in Israel, the democratic regime in Israel is that the government has a lot of power and the government basically is a coalition government, so it has power over Parliament, and can do basically whatever it wants, because parliament is a very weak proponent of Israeli democratic system. And once you have a government and you have a majority in parliament, and really you can do anything you want, except for if the government does things that the Supreme Court in Israel, which is a very conservative Supreme Court, you know, it's not really a liberal one but very conservative in many issues, and very supportive of the government. You can do whatever you want the Supreme Court in Israel says that it's unconstitutional, or something that's completely out of lines, in the human rights terms or something around these things and rarely happens, and why this is so unprecedented what's happening is because since the government started charging with changes to the system in Israel in order to have absolute power, over whatever they do, and really to move us into a non-democracy to a dictatorship in many ways, we saw the civil unrest we saw that all groups in Israel, apart from I would argue, one, or a couple, but basically one group of people, all of the groups inside Israel all the elites, from the military, to the economic, to the education, to the judicial, to the civil society. We all the groups inside Israel, feminist groups, Mizrahi groups, really all society were opposing what the government was trying to do. And eventually, eventually leading the government to pause and say, Wait, we're holding this for the time being. It's still a threat we can continue with this right after Passover once were return from a break that the Parliament had, we will return to this, but we are willing to discuss this and we've managed to stop it. Now. I'll just say that people like me, like many others are very skeptical, and think that the government still intends to continue with their plans to really damage Israel's democracy. Nevertheless, in technical terms, we could have done it now. It didn't because of all this massive pressure that the Israeli society sort of impose leading to the last demonstration that happened what day was it? Sunday, Monday, Sunday night. Was it Monday? Huge protests that came after the Prime Minister declared that he will fire the minister of defense after the minister of defense, sort of from Netanyahu's party, you know, said that this is a danger to Israel security. And this is unprecedented on so many levels because, on the one hand, the Prime Minister declared that he will fire the defense minister for you know, saying the dangers to Israel's securities, so being professional. On the other hand, it was also unprecedented because think of people like us from the liberal camp. We immediately went to protest over a firing of a minister of defense and a firing of a minister of defense from the Likud party and we were opposing this. It's really hard to grasp all of it together. And nevertheless, this is sort of like the last sort of thing that would cause everybody to group people just think this is unbelievable at times in general. And now we're entering a time where we don't know where it will lead. There are negotiations now and the President of Israel who is a more symbolic sort of figures taking ownership over the negotiations over this and we will see where where they will head once once Parliament resumes and will be any consequences from these negotiations.

 

Hadar Susskind  

Thank you. So you know, one of the pieces I want to make sure we get to it's really I think it's how we titled this webinar. We started with you know, Israelis are out in the street challenging, you know, democratia, people are, people who've never been mobilized like this before are coming out. You know, many of them for different reasons, I think, overwhelmingly the broadest responses that, you know, for many Jewish Israelis, they're feeling their rights threatened, either for the first time or in a different way. But there is a strong and important anti-occupation block and you and Shalom Achshav have been key leaders of that and, you know, for u, for me, I'd say it's very clear when you look at this that, you know, there are lots of bad things that would happen if this moves forward. Right. You know, various government parties want to impose gender segregation on public transportation, they want to outlaw pride parades and legalize, you know, anti-LGBT discrimination on religious grounds. They wanna do all kinds of bad things. But at the heart and soul the core of this is about the occupation and about the fact that as you know, as illiberal as it's been at times, it is the court that to date has stopped this government and Bibi in previous incarnations, from going ahead with annexation, it's the court that has the power to say to them, "No, you can't just declare our eternal, you know, sovereignty over everything, by the way without extending citizenship." You know, so talk a little bit about about that question about you know, do you think that that's right that the issues of occupation are at the core? Now, I'm not talking about the core of the protests, I'm talking about the core of the action by the government.

 

Lior Amihai  

So I think that this is tricky, and I think the answer could be simple and could be complex, and I'll try to give what I think, is a more nuanced sort of answer to this. What is very clear is that there are four forces that are pushing the government to in their attempt to change the regime in Israel. And one of them were ultra Orthodox who wanted basically not to serve the Israeli military by law, and they wanted discrimination on several levels like discrimination between women and men in the public fear which the court has prevented them to do. The others was is Netanyahu who for his personal sake, wants to you know, he's under trial he wants to remain out of trial and it's his personal sort of wishes. 

 

Hadar Susskind  

A 'stay out of jail' card. 

 

Lior Amihai  

Exactly. Thank you. And then you have you have the people who are pushing in from the Likud. So the Minister of Justice in Israel who has an ideology of changing the Supreme Court, doesn't believe in the judicial system in Israel, thinks it's too powerful, wants to give the parliament the power over the judicial, but there's an ideological element to this. And finally, the fourth group, which interests me the most interest the peace camp the most, or the National Religious, the settler movement. Which he referred to in your sort of remarks, who really want what you sort of hinted or stated they want to go full on with annexation. And the Supreme Court in Israel is, it's hard to say that it's preventing them to do so. You could say that it's restricting them to some degree, but largely speaking, a very small one. And so there are some specific things that they couldn't do because of the Supreme Court, but they're very small. And in the broader picture, you know, one from our point of view would ask, you know, why are they even going there. They can do basically what they want. They can't do 100% of what they want, they can do 95% But nevertheless, it's what's the settler sort of ideology is, and this is sort of the bigger picture is that the Supreme Court is not a factor here. They want the whole land of Israel, for the Jewish people without rights to the Palestinians. And then you don't need a liberal institution that prevents them from going full on with their ideology. Now, on the other hand, so that's very clear why they would push for this and but on the other hand, their main ambitions in this government is to promote this agenda, and they're succeeding so far. And while the demonstrators, the large majority of the demonstrations are demonstrating against what they fear for their sacred rights, so that will restrict the Jewish rights within Israel. Since policies and practices in regards to occupation have so far continued smoothly. They have advanced over 7000 housing units and settlements throughout the entire West Bank. They have declared to legalize 15 outposts to take an illegal settlement, which is settlements illegal in the international law but then you have the outputs which are also illegal according to Israeli law. They declare that they will retroactively legalize 15 of them, which is both recognizing 15 new settlements and it will become a big settlements. They have changed the law that regarded the disengaging, Israel disengagement in the Gaza Strip in 2005 but they also disengaged from the north part of the West Bank. And when the Israeli parliament legislated now was a law to say, well, you know, the part of the north of the West Bank, we're canceling that we're going to build up settlements now in the north part of the West Bank as well. And if you'd want, they can refer to that or expand on that later because it was significant news that they managed to do we also got attention by the US administration. And now recently, they also transferred powers to Smotrich who is the Minister of Finance, who, if you've been following the news in the US couple of weeks ago did not meet with anyone from the Biden administration. A has very poor English which got a lot of people mocking him, but nevertheless is one of the more clever and ideological individuals in regard to building settlements and the annexation policies. And he also took upon himself and received a ministerial position within the Ministry of Defense. And that position granted him a lot of powers that was never given before to anyone outside of the Ministry of Defense, and that's, that's and I can give examples but one of the things that he's doing for example, he got authority over the civil administration, so the body that's responsible for the settlers, so legislation will be under for the settlements or the settlers will be underneath, is now under his supervision. The advancements of settlements is solely under his supervision. So a lot of things are going on, actually, in regards to this. That the settlers are succeeding and receiving and managing to achieve, nevertheless, was just going a little bit under the radar. So maybe I'll pause here.

 

Hadar Susskind

Yeah, one of the things I do want to come back to is the disengagement that you talked about, and you find it that you know, it's gotten interest in the US. It's gotten interest in the US, not only because we and others and folks in the administration care, but because that was a negotiated, signed agreement with the United States. That wasn't just something that the Israeli government decided to do. That was an agreement with then President Bush. And so in going back on that agreement, you know, that's another in terms of the interactions minimal though they've been recently between Netanyahu and Biden. You know, that's, that's another sort of strike that the Biden administration saw as far as it is clearly going back on this agreement. You know, do you think, again, that the people protesting around this and people engaging the protest around this are, you know, are a small part, but when it comes back to that disengagement law, and it comes to the bigger questions of what you're trying to, you know, of what the government's trying to do? How central do you think that is?

 

Lior Amihai  

I think that, again, there's the four forces that are pushing for their interests. And the I think the most strongest voice right now is Netanyahu and the ideological forces within Likud because the settler movement, they want this because we feel a Supreme Court as a burden. But they also understand that power for them is much more important because they can still succeed in most of what they want with the current legal system in Israel. So for them, if you look at like the balance of power for them, is they really want to maintain power in order that they can promote annexation, and set their policies over the West Bank. And I want to say something about the demonstrations because what the government is doing right now or their attempt to change the judicial system inside Israel is huge. You can't underestimate it. It's severe. It's really to make Israel into a dictatorship is to dismiss completely the Israeli Supreme Court. What they want to do is they want to promote the you know, the big government, who not only has power over the parliament but will also have the power over the judges. And it's and they can do then whatever they want any imaginary law they want to become the government could decide to do and they could do from extending elections or once every 10 years or to dismiss or cancel Palestinian Arab parties within Israeli parliament, to anything you can want to imagine. If they would have success if they will be successful in what they're doing. Now, the positive thing about this is really what we saw all the groups really managed to do you know, in a way it's a very optimistic moment because you're saying no, look, the Israel society gets it and are opposing it and they won't succeed if they'll do any of these harmful legislation. Then, you know, there'll be a general strike, the military will collapse, the high tech in Israel would strike. They won't succeed to do this. Now, it turned out another positive thing is, is that the public that's demonstrating so this liberal camp all of a sudden grouped in it started demonstrating against this. And naturally, they also started demonstrating against the national religious leadership against Smotrich, against Ben Gvir, against the settler movement. They started saying, "Look, you know, what you're doing in the occupied territories. We don't want it inside Israel. We're not willing for this inside Israel. You know, all your Messianic sort of beliefs, don't impose it on us. We're not willing for this to do." At some point a couple of weeks ago, there was a real pogrom in Huwara, a Palestinian village, almost city in the occupied territories in north part of the West Bank, overrun by the Israeli settlers. Horrifying, you know, burning houses, burning of cars in the middle of the night. There's severe settler violence of throwing stones and the Israeli were demonstrating all of a sudden started shouting at the police, "Where were you at Huwara? Why weren't you defending the Palestinians at Huwara? Why weren't you preventing the settlers, the violent settlers from doing this program?" And this was a natural sort of evolution of the demonstrations, and so on the one hand is a very optimistic that you're seeing that a lot of the values that are liberal camp, the Jewish liberal was demonstrating right now, all of a sudden are saying look, if there's, you want values for women's rights and we want those for gay rights, and we want values for education, and what values for people with disabilities. And we also want, you also need to grant the values to all people under the Israeli regime, so to Palestinians as well. So that's the optimistic side. The negative side is that this is still there. There's still a difference and the connection is still not there completely. And there's still a huge gap that we need to sort of fill in in order to make these connected with Palestinian rights and under the occupied territories.

 

Hadar Susskind  

Yeah, so that leads actually right into some of the questions that have been asked. You know, some of it is about whether I'm trying to bring together a few of the questions, you know, whether you think that they're that the protests have served to help build awareness, like you're talking about more broadly and you know, and I'll tag on you know, what are you and Shalom Achshav and our other colleagues in the field you know, what are you thinking about what you're trying to do to capture that momentum and to bring people along the spectrum, right from just standing up to protest for their own rights? And when we see the same spectrum here, you know, to understanding the importance of as you're saying, you know, human rights for all, including Palestinians, in both Israeli citizens, but also in the West Bank. And I'm just going to throw in a second question so you can take them all together. There's that piece, but also a couple of questions here about, you know, what I refer to as the compromise between Bibi and Ben Gvir, and what exactly is the compromise and particularly the element of you know, it's now been announced that there's going to be created an 1800 person militia that is going to apparently report to Ben Gvir. So can you talk a little bit about what what your understanding is of what that is and what it might do, why he's doing that.

 

Lior Amihai  

So in regards to your first question, this is a really interesting point of time to be at Peace Now and to be at a sort of that pro-peace sort of can be anti-occupation camp, because we're trying to figure it out, because on the one hand, we are seeing the liberal camp inside Israel is regrouped. It's understanding that the national religious leadership, is leading Israel to a place that they don't want to be that they don't share the same values with them, that it's dangerous. You have people who are you know, from the from the heart of the military leadership, saying that the settlers are leading us to an apartheid state, unprecedented remarks against them. So this is really a moment that people are understanding this are understanding that their agenda in regards to the occupation is not something that Israelis from the liberal camp want. And yet on the other hand, they still perceive the two state solution is something that is not relevant, that necessarily connected, the occupation is still something afar that they want all they want is to go back to the place and right before the government was formed and started the division. There's still a lot of things that there are contradictions in what's happening right now. On the one hand, there's a moment on the one hand, there's political education that's that's unwrapping, and on the other hand, there are still many gaps and not everything has been connected, for example, the Palestinian flag. If you go to the demonstrations, which are really hopeful and optimistic, and so many levels and you still don't see Palestinian factor, and if you will see a Palestinian flag that will mostly be either where we demonstrated the pro-peace, anti-occupation groups or it will be it would cause frustration for the majority of others. So if you go to the heart of the demonstration, people will be frustrated to why we bring the Palestinian flag here. What does this have to do with the judicial changes that the government is doing? You're just sort of hugging on or jumping onto this demonstration, nothing to do with this. So there's still a lot of work to do and what we're trying to do is really figure it out. How do we make this really pivotal point in time and to capture it and to utilize it to the best of our sort of needs, because one must ask this liberal camp so it's leader so Lapid and Gantz and Labor and all others. So imagine a hypothetical question imagine that we completely went to prevent the government from initiated from succeeding in the judicial changes. What's the future of the state of Israel? What is the future if you if you continue with the settlements, with the Palestinians being under occupation without a two state solution? Is this a democracy is this where you want to be? This is what we intend or we wish for our children and cetera. So that's sort of the big challenge that we have. Now in regards to Ben Gvir. I must say that I still don't know we're still learning like we just said it's coming out really right now. It hasn't been approved yet. There's more a lot more question marks than things that are clear in what Ben Gvir is going to receive. I want to be skeptical because he was given this promise before. Now it's signed in a paper so maybe it's more than he was given this, but what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't necessarily mean, there's still a lot of things that could happen that he will actually not receive it. And then the negative side if he'll received and what we fear is that it will happen is really to create a police unit under Ben Gvir which is unbelievable. It's it's almost unheard of.

 

Hadar Susskind  

It's terrifying, frankly.

 

Lior Amihai  

It's terrifying to have like an authoritative unit directly under him. Similar to the police. It's like you'll have two different police functions. One more independent and the other, under Ben Gvir. I must tell you that I don't know I don't it's hard for me at this point to say that I believe that he will go forward with this. But who knows things are really changing rapidly, like fast and things are things that we couldn't believe a couple of weeks ago did eventually happen. So we don't know. But so this could potentially be a big danger. On the other hand, it could also you know, completely like we could forget about a couple of weeks and I don't know where this will end up.

 

Hadar Susskind  

So you know, you mentioned I mean, we're talking about the compromise there. And you mentioned President Hertzog his efforts to bring the different sides together. So first of all, you know, I just want to throw out I mean, it's interesting because when you say bring the sides together, it's not two sides, right. You've got Bibi and the government. You've then got the political opposition led, as you said, by Lapid and Gantz maybe they invite the Labour Party. That's not the protesters who are of course, not being invited to sit at the president's home. But given given that the protesters are not being invited, we still got what I think is a very smart question, which is what sort of compromise do you think could possibly be achieved in Hertzog talks? And specifically, this is Marty Bresler, one of our board members, asking what would you, Shalom Achshav, accept as a compromise?

 

Lior Amihai  

Look, it's hard. It's hard for me to say and I think nobody knows because this is really a trap that there's so many forces at play that again because there are four forces, four major forces from the government side it's pushing that has an interest in this you can't possibly win three of them so you can get the ultra orthodox perhaps to compromise. The President already suggested a compromise, that by law, we will enable discrimination that ultra Orthodox by law will not serve this will be like, you know, we're legalizing the fact that ultra Orthodox, which a large population in Israeli society produces it will not serve in the military. And we will just sort of live with this. You know, will legalize an illegal situation of discrimination. You could possibly win the idealogics from the Likud by that just not giving them what they want. So they will lose they're weak under Netanyahu. And if Netanyahu retreats from this, then they'll back down and support him. Largely that's so we think, but possibly not but maybe this can be a scenario and then the national religious, the Zionist nationalist sort of settlers, nationalist parties, who as I said, they want they don't want the Supreme Court but they can live with it as long as they're in power, they can do 99% of what they want anyways. So you will give them promises. You allow them settler construction, you allow them to create an apartheid system in the West Bank. Supreme Court rarely interrupts anyways, so they'll get what they want. They'll stay in power. Then the big question is Netanyahu because he wants the out of jail card, and he needs to retract democracy in order to receive it. So will they find a compromise that will get Netanyahu out of jail. Hard to believe, at this point, really hard to believe. And I think for those who enter from a political camp that are now negotiating, they do understand that they can't accept things that will you know, that are red lines in the sense of the democratic system inside of Israel. So you can't allow the government to choose the judges, for example. You can't dismiss the legal advisors opinion. So one of the things that we want to do is to say that legal opinions are you know, are just recommendations and you don't have to abide by. In Israel, the legal advisors of the ministries, you know, they're the group that interprets to the Minister, what the law is, and if they say this is illegal you can't promote it. And they say its's just the recommendation, and you can, so these are different nuances. And so they're saying something that's very clear even to the political system, that political opposition inside Israel, what are red lines of a democracy, and I think they won't go as far. The difference between I think them and the protesters is that one, the political sort of opposition is much more you know, they have, like a statesmanship role they have to show that they're more serious, they're more mature, and if the President is invited in to negotiate that he must be there. And the protesters on the other hand, they're saying, "Uh uh no, we know Netanyahu, we know that he fools everybody. He gets what he wants anyways, and he'll just trick you and you'll get them into trouble." They'll start you know, fighting with each other and it'll sort of blame game they'll recruit one person within. So they don't they don't need that they don't need to stay loyal to sort of the President and to be in that sense, it could be they can call it for what it is, and on the other hand, they also have the leverage to sort of talk about things that might seem less significant than the broader picture, which are still very significant. For example, they were criticized, we were criticizing the politicians for going to the negotiations while giving Ben Gvir, this sort of little police unit, right. And so they don't have to stick to sort of a president. They're they're much more independent in their costs. And this is often something that was very interesting throughout this period. Is that the demonstrators really was an effective group without politicians. The people who were leading the demonstrations were not the politicians in any way politicians were dreaming of the speaking demonstration. There were really the second actors in this play so I think that's sort of the differences. And but largely speaking, we don't know a key point that I will be looking at right now that I'm sort of very curious about is how Saturday night will be. Will the general public not go to protests or will we go and protest? And there are a lot of things coming into this is the general public in Israel, the liberal camp has gone to protest now for 12 straight weeks in figures that are unprecedented, will they say okay, let's give it a chance. At the end of the day, the government did not promote the judicial changes. Let's you know, we received 90% of all we want it, or will they go with leadership with the protests and say, we don't trust Netanyahu unless they back down on some of the things that think that they already did, unless they promised to hold it all together. So we'll be smarter on Saturday night and we'll see where it ends up.

 

Hadar Susskind  

So this is a terrible thing to do to you because no one can know the answer. But what do you think will happened Saturday night? Do you think there'll be big numbers? Somewhere in between? What do you think?

 

Lior Amihai  

So again, I don't know. I think, there's a lot of unrest and a lot of things could change until then. So for example, Netanyahu hasn't fired the Minister of Defense quite yet. So if he does fire him this could cause people to say okay, he's still promoting this agenda, we'll go protest. If he backs down and the minister fo defense returns, maybe there'll be an atmosphere that's more tolerant to the negotiations and less people will demonstrate. The other thing that I think is, is will also test the demonstrators leadership on this because there have been so many groups that were leading the demonstrations. And then we'll see how they're still confident to protest. So on the one hand, they're very powerful. They're really I don't know, dozens of groups united and they have organized themselves but they're still going to demonstrations, but then we'll see really who has the edge. Is it the demonstrators leadership? Will they manage to organize the people who come demonstrate? Or is the public at large, still very independent, and will sort of be will say, "Okay, this is the moment to rest. We have to you know, we'll see what the government is once the Government continues, then we'll come and protest again." Now, to be fair, I think it doesn't really matter. Because I think that even if the public doesn't come and demonstrate right now, massive numbers as it did, that people who are demonstrating, has been educated so they know what's going on. They get it. Once the government will continue to do its initiatives to damage Israel, they'll come and protest in large numbers immediately. So I think it's good that they'll be some protests to maintain the atmosphere but once the government will continue, and I can, you know, I can commit to this, I believe that the figures will come you know, in big numbers as they did until now.

 

Hadar Susskind  

So we've got a couple of different questions that sort of come off of that the what's next and of course, part of what's next, hopefully, eventually right goes to the political side. So you know, one of the questions that came in here is, you know, are protesters, opposition leaders, is anybody out there you know, explicitly calling for new elections early elections, obviously? And do you think that that's where this is headed? And then along with that, you know, I'm sure you've seen I'm sure many people on this call have seen, you know, some of the polls that have come out recently that show that if there were an election today, which of course there isn't, so it's worth what it's worth, but you know, that Likud has gone way down that Benny Gantz's party has taken the lead in so to speak, and Lapid's party has grown and that, you know, as things stand right now, you would have the capability if you count the parties currently in the opposition, they would be the majority. So what do you think? What's the discussion, I would say? And you know, where do you see that going?

 

Lior Amihai  

Really, I don't know. I think the key person here is of course, Netanyahu because again from work, the way I see things I think the ultra Orthodox could get what they want most of it. The National Religious can get what they want most of it, and the Likud is just so weak in comparison to Netanyahu, their leader, that he can shut them down but then he doesn't get what he wants, which is an out of jail card. So how does he maneuver this? How does he canceled his trials and maintain Prime Minister because no one in his coalition wants election because the ultra Orthodox wants to be in parliament, in government, and National Religious wants to be in government and Likud want to be in government, because it's a lot of power. It's a lot of influence. It's a lot of budget. It's you know, they can dictate policy at the end of the day, but accept Netanyahu who doesn't get his out of jail card and the opposition, of course, they want to tackle Netanyahu and they want elections more powerful than in the polls, etc, etc. But on the other hand, they also understand that they can't sort of make it about Netanyahu and they have to make it about his policies. And if they're smart, and they get it, then they also understand that because of Netanyahu they have, that in order for Netanyahu to get out of jail card must continue this pause. So for them it's not a tackle to they don't want to tackle Netanyahu directly. They want to tackle his policies because they know that it unites together it's exactly the same agenda. And then they are perceived as more sort of, you know, more about the content and that it's not a personal thing. Now it's more about his policies, etc. But again, we don't know where this will go and how this would end up. In the politics is so unpredictable here and nobody could have imagined this. So it's really hard to tell. Yeah.

 

Hadar Susskind  

I mean, I realized as I was asking that it's obviously incredibly important because that's ultimately what the change is going to be but it's also pretty impossible to answer so thank you.

 

Lior Amihai  

I just want to say that two things, like on the one hand, I think the optimist side is to see how the Israeli liberal camp in Israel regrouped and how much power it can do even though we don't have any power in politics. We have so much power over the politics once we regroup with everybody all the various groups in Israel groups on this and that's one thing on the other hand is still to see how far the occupation, the two-state solution is from this camp's agenda. They get some of it but a lot of it is still there's a lot of blind spots, still. And the third thing that I would say is also look at the small, smaller thing they are still very dramatic, the fact that they approved 7000-7200 housing units, the fact that they you know, cancel the disengagement for the north part of the West Bank, the fact that Smotrich has now authority over this is like really an annexation move an unparallel annexation decision that the government made which went really almost under the radar, and it's unheard of, you know, now, you know what I'll try to explain the fact that, you know, that Israel is occupying the occupied territories. So Israel is not sovereign over the occupied territories in legal terms. There is a military, the Israeli military is responsible in the shoes of a sovereign that's running the occupied territories, running the Palestinians. Now, what they did by this book is to give Smotrich, to get a minister, so they took parts from the military regime, and then made it civilian. So now there is the settlers are connected. Really you can't, it's hard to argue in any legal terms that there aren't two different legal regimes, you know, could have argued this before, but now it's also legally speaking.

 

Hadar Susskind  

Sorry for the interruption but just to be clear, when you have you know, two different legal regimes under the same power under international law that has a name, it is called apartheid. So whether we any of us choose to use that word or not, or whatever people may think about that, that unequivocally fits the the international legal definition. 

 

Lior Amihai  

And I must say, I know apartheid resonates with different people on different levels and also has a symbolic people feel about it different things but really, we I think that if you want to understand what's happening is that people from the mainstream of Israel people from the military, to the heart of the military, people get it. People are not hesitant to say that the national religious leadership of politics of a national religious in Israel, this is what they want, this is what they aim. And frankly, this is the practice what we have in the occupied territories today is exactly this. It's a territory with two different legal systems and the purpose of maintaining it this way to get one group ours over the other to discriminate in a systematic way. This is what they want. Now for for us, for the liberal camp inside Israel, our sort of assumption is that our camp on the one hand, doesn't care, doesn't live under occupation, therefore doesn't feel the urgency to end the occupation. On the other hand, they don't care about the settlements either. So this is allowing the settlers who sort of came into power to do that what's important for them to make this policy and the majority of Israel public is accepting of it is sympathetic toward it doesn't mind it so much. An odd sort of challenges is, how can we make the liberal camp in Israel understand that it's so harmful for the Palestinians first and foremost, but also for Israel and for the sake of Israelis and our future?

 

Hadar Susskind  

So I have two different questions that I want to ask you. I'm just looking at the time I want to get to more of these. So one, you know, we got a question from somebody who wrote that, you know, she had been there in Israel during the cottage cheese demonstrations a few years ago, and that there was a lot of conversation, a lot of discussion about, you know, making the occupation and issues around the occupation, you know, central part of that, and there were, you know, and it was part of some of the protests, but then basically, as soon as those protests stopped, obviously, the occupation part was was out of the conversation. Do you think any of what you've been talking about now makes this different and can we can we hope for better sort of coming out of this? And then the second question that's come up from a couple different pieces is, you know, can you talk about the participation or lack of participation from non-Jewish Israelis in the protest movement? And then there were actually specific questions somebody wanted to know whether it have been any protests in any you know, Arab cities and towns. Again, we're talking, you know, within Israel proper, not in the occupied territories, and whether there's been any protests or any support from settlers.

 

Lior Amihai  

Okay, so in regards to the cottage cheese protest, which was almost 12 years ago. I think, look, there are many differences. One, I think, is that the majorities in Israel feel this is an existential threat. The protests at that time was perceived by many people in Israel as that the privileged are demonstrating because of their economic status was sort of in decline. So the children of the rich in different words, were protesting because they can't live to the standards that their parents lived in and in the heart of the protest was from the center of Tel Aviv was from the mainstream. It would try to socialize it, but this was sort of the leadership. This was before it was about this, and it ended. It was huge. It was sincere, it was genuine. It was about real issues, and they made a lot of success in educating the public at the time, but it also ended once you know, the government sort of made a compromising committee and here it's an existential threat. It doesn't seem that the government is able to pursue its ambitions that public will stand fiercely and they won't let it happen. If they do it, they won't follow, the military will collapse, the economy will collapse, education system won't continue, they won't be able to do this. This has been a major difference. A second difference, I think, is that the demonstrators are seeing sort of forces that are pushing this. They are now angry at the ultra Orthodox leadership, not at the ultra Orthodox but at leadership. If you want to make policy, then you can't be privileged, and again the politics and not the people. They understand that the ultra Orthodox are one of the weaker populations in Israel but their leadership is problematic and also with the National Religious, they're saying look, we and they're getting up they're pushing for this. So this is also a change in the game. They're seeing the forces that are pushing this and at the time it was a bit different with just like Netanyahu and what they were promoting in the economic sphere alone. So this is this is I think, one of the major differences. In regards to the Palestinians citizens of Israel. I must say that they don't feel the part of the demonstration for two reasons. One is that you have to be frank and the the Supreme Court was not, you know, it helped Palestinians citizens of Israel in many, many issues, but in many issues is didn't, and discrimination against Palestinians citizens in Israel exists today, despite Israeli democracy, and you know, Palestinians are lower class in Israel. In essence, you know, they have their education is less good. Their economy is less good. Their places they live is poor. In so many different ways, there's so much discrimination inside Israel, that they just don't feel that Supreme Court is theirs. It's not it's not as urgent to them as if you're for the liberal Jewish camp in Israel. And the second is that you also have to be frank that the liberal camp in Israel is failing in addressing Palestinian issues, Palestinian citizen of Israel issues as well. They are preventing in many degrees Palestinians to participate in speakers demonstrations, and to state their authentic agenda. So you don't hear issues about the occupation. You don't hear issues about discrimination, the Nation State law, for example. It's accepted by the majority of demonstrators. The liberal camp in Israel is still very, very blind to the discrimination against Palestinians in Israel. And even when you see the the political parties, they're not including the Palestinian Arab parties, in their discussions they're not taking them seriously. They're thinking of them as a political actor that could help them or could not in toppling down Netanyahu but it's not a sincere equal sort of participants in the political game. So this is I think where Palestinians citizens of Israel stand, by the way you don't see demonstrations of Palestinians, maybe in the margin, but I don't see any. You do see some intellectuals. They will suffer Israel becomes a full dictatorship, they will suffer first and foremost. You do see some intellectuals say you know, Palestinians should participate and this will harm them as well. But again, it's in the margins, in the fringe. It's not really in the streets, not in Palestinian towns, nor within the large demonstrations. You don't see many participants. Now regarding to the settlers. I think you do see some I think that one of the things that are happening is that a lot of right wing in Israel is getting it. And I think more interesting that for example, yesterday you had a right wing demonstration in support of the judicial changes. Now what happened was that the Israeli government and Netanyahu what they wanted this started calling out all its supporters. But those who demonstrated was two groups, one group was what we call the La Familia group. It's like a violent group, a very small group, I must say in figures, but violent citizens who are supporters of Netanyahu, who are on the fringe and the margins of society that had been neglected Israeli society that has been dismissed by Israeli society. They've become very violent, and they don't see themselves as part of society. And this is one this is a very small minority within the demonstrators and the right wing demonstrations. And 95% of the right wing demonstrations are settlers. You know, I must say, I don't think there is such a thing as right wing demonstrations in Israel. There's the ultra orthodox who demonstrate with regard to their sectarian sort of issues, and then the settlers. The other people who describe as right wing don't go protest in Israel. They're either in power or they don't have anything and it's the settlers who are organized who have money and are financed in groups, they know how to get protesters to protest. And from my sort of, take on yesterday's demonstration, it was majority of settlers from from the settlements who came on buses financed and organized very well to demonstrate. And my prediction is, if we'll start seeing right wing demonstrations, it will actually be settler demonstrations, who because they're very organized.

 

Hadar Susskind  

All right, one one more question. I want to get in before we bring on Jim, our board chair also. You know, we of course here have been doing what we do and working around this and working with many of our colleagues everything from organizing protests to greet Smotrich when he came to town. To you know, engaging with our elected officials here. There's been a lot written about Biden's conversation with Netanyahu, you know, other pieces. Do you think the the US response to this is resonating with Netanyahu with Israeli political leaders and I said the US response I would include in that, obviously, the administration and you know, congressional efforts that are going on, but also the many Jewish organizations including ones who, frankly have never done anything approaching this before, who have spoken out against what they're doing on the judicial revolution and against this process?

 

Lior Amihai  

Look, in this way and I don't know if I'll answered your question, but I think that, yes, the US administration and Biden has a huge role that will affect policy that there's a few things that could actually influence the Netanyahu and the US and the treatment by the US in a relationship with the US is one of them. I do think that yes, the US is doing, you know the fact that they haven't invited Netanyahu quite yet was very powerful and the mainstream media got a lot of attention and how the fact that they didn't meet with Smotrich was very powerful in the way that the Israeli public got it. Nobody's meeting these people. These are really crazy people. They're not legitimate. So this a lot of resonance inside the Israeli public sector and then US administration didn't meet with Smotrich and not inviting quite yet. And I think that the way the US responded, following the legislation of the cancellation disengagement in the north of the West Bank was very powerful and resonated a lot in the Israeli public and nevertheless, I do think that it's still in a very symbolic level and has no influence on policy or doesn't have much influence on policy quite yet. And what I mean by this is that it seems that the international community in the US still doesn't have like a mistake. You know, they have courtesy everybody wants to maintain good relations with Israel shared value, the only democracy in parentheses in the Middle East, our closest friends. But the stakes are not very clear what they are. They seem to be only in the condemnation, right. So you summon the ambassador, that's unheard of. The last thing that happened was, what more than a decade ago.

 

Hadar Susskind  

Three decades ago.

 

Lior Amihai  

Three decades ago, so it's really it's hard. It is important, but it's still in the symbolic field. It doesn't have too much leverage in regards to actual policy. And if you look at that move of Israeli policy, it's a one stream movement in regards to the occupied territories and investment in a two state solution. So now the advanced 7000 units now they approved 15 outpost. Now, the administration is angry. They'll wait four months, five months and they'll do the approval of another 3000, another 5000, another 8000. And in Israel is sort of maneuvering around condemnations, where there really isn't an actual stake saying, Okay, enough is enough. You can't do this. So this is a large portion of the relationship.

 

Hadar Susskind  

Needless to say, there is a lot of conversation that we and others are having here in Washington with the White House and State Department and Congress along those exact lines. With that I would like to welcome to the conversation our board chair Jim Klutznick. Hello, Jim.

 

Jim Klutznick  

Thank you, Hadar. Hello Lior, good to see you. After being in Israel, just a few weeks ago. I'd like to pick up sort of where you are leading off with the pushing the United States because Americans for Peace Now is an American organization in conjunction with Shalom Achshav, you, and Israel, which I think gives us sort of a unique perspective also. I think the history of America in this whole situation I want to just get to that issue is is to try to make peace as we worked assiduously to do that with many Israeli prime ministers starting with a primary peace agreement with Egypt and with Likud from the time it took over. Also it's worked with Israel. And I think looking generally to the idea that it really takes two sovereign people living side by side, called nation, called confederation, called you know, one state whatever it is, it's peace. And but it's recognizing the the rights of the Palestinians of sovereignty. I think, quite frankly, from everything I've been reading, and what I've heard today as well, you're really in an existential fight between Israelis at this point. The Palestinians have assiduously sort of whether they're living in Israel or in the occupied territories have not entered into this fight. This is I think, between our sort of liberal secular  religious side of whether they are secular or religious on one side, and the right wing side of the country, the the ultra Orthodox, the Likud party, particularly, which I think is the one who's sort of termed Israel, generally to the right wing since it became in power in '77 for the first time and, and is held most of those positions, Prime Minister positions during that time. And the other side of it is, not only has there not been any reconciliation between the left and right wing of Israel the right wing is growing much quicker, greater birth rate and whatnot. And I think this is this is really a do or die situation for for you guys on that side who we support. And I think I'm hoping America understands it in that regard, particularly our government, and certainly we as an American organization prior to trying to convince our government, be it in the legislative side or in the administrative side of, of the validity of the Oslo Accords, the concept of the Oslo Accords having to two states and I hope and I just encourage, and I know we will continue to do that here our government to deal as they are doing apparently at this point, understanding that this is not a usual situation. And the last thing I want to talk about is Netanyahu. He's not to be trusted. He's got, as you talked about in monopoly, a 'get out of jail free' card as his main interest in this whole thing and it just seems to me that for one man's one persons, whether it's man or woman, but particularly in this case, a man who is proven time and again, that his self interest is is more important than that of, of the State of Israel, and I think you are in an existential situation at this point. I hope these these these kinds of demonstrations that are going on, will only grow in numbers and stand up against this. I just I feel that certainly what we're going to be pushing for I shouldn't say we aren't just the chair. I'm now I'm now speaking as a member of the board and chair just as a coordinator anyhow, that's not the point. I believe our board is generally in this direction. And if there's some disagreement, it's they'll have a right to speak up and we'll we'll work that out between us. But our relationship between APN and Shalom Achshav is rock solid. We're with you, 100% on all of this and just want to let you know. Please take it back to our friends.

 

Lior Amihai  

I want to say two things please. And then one I want to say thank you and you can't understand how much your support is meaningful for us as a movement in Israel and for our people who support us. It really enables us to build a lot of the things that we're doing right now is due to your support, and, and right now, now's the time for action, but also for thinking to analyze and what we're doing now is on one hand participating. We're also trying to observe and strategically take, make use of this sort of pivotal points in order to utilize it for for our interests to understand as you said, this is actually not just a game between the Israelis and the political camp. Actually, this is a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. And this is an existential threat to Israel. And Palestinian lives matter and Israelis can't be occupiers. And there's so many different things that we have to really make we have to sort of take the fruits from this because there is political education that's happening and we want to sort of figure out how do we make it. The second thing that I want you to note, and maybe I should have said this earlier, is that, you know, the Israeli public at large, was very critical on us when we were supported by you guys, or when we were giving support we're getting support from European countries or when they see it as an intervention in many ways due to really propaganda against human rights against these NGOs etc. by right wing groups. Now you see that demonstrators they demonstrate in front of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, in front of the German Embassy in Tel Aviv, in front of the French Embassy in Tel Aviv, or the UK embassy into the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, saying we want you to intervene. Netanyahu is taking us to a place where we won't be a democracy, please intervene, please use your power to intervene so there's really a cry from the Israelis and the liberal camp in Israel, to the US to Biden to the entire world to come intervene because this is really a real danger to Israeli citizens so they feel what you feel.

 

Hadar Susskind  

Lior, thank you so much.

 

Jim Klutznick  

Let me just say one thing in regard there. I appreciate those, those words. And I think that at this point, the best thing that could happen. This in my personal opinion is that there'll be new elections. And hopefully you guys will come to a point where that becomes apparent to the Israeli people. Anyhow, sorry Hadar. 

 

Hadar Susskind  

That's all right. Thank you, Jim. Lior, thank you for joining us. And again, thank you to everybody else who took the time out to be with us today. And will share the recording of this so you can share it with other folks who maybe weren't able to join and we appreciate you all and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you and goodbye.

 

Dear President Biden and Secretary Blinken,

We write to you with deep concern regarding the rapidly escalating violence in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and the alarming actions of the new extreme right-wing Israeli government. We urge immediate action to prevent the further loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives. At this inflection point, we ask your administration to undertake a shift in U.S. policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights. Only by protecting democracy, human rights, and self-determination for all Palestinians and Israelis can we achieve a lasting peace.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government includes far-right, anti-Palestinian individuals and parties. Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir openly encourages and praises violence against Palestinians. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to the recent Israeli settler attacks on the Palestinian town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank by declaring that the whole town should be “wiped out.”^[1] Their presence in the government has made this the most far-right, illiberal government in Israel’s history. True to their records, these figures are pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies and escalating violence towards the Palestinian population.

Israel is at an inflection point.

Over the last twelve weeks, Israelis have taken to the streets protesting Netanyahu’s attack on the Judiciary. In his compromise with Ben Gvir, Netanayahu has announced a delay in the process, but we know that the fight for Israel’s democracy did not begin with the judiciary nor will it end there. The source of this poison is and always has been the Occupation.

The Occupation has nurtured and fomented these illiberal and oppressive tendencies among Israel’s right wing. It is no surprise that these antidemocratic practices are spreading beyond the Occupied Territories.

While the protests against domestic reforms have been making the top headlines, this far right government has continued to further entrench the Occupation. The march towards annexation has accelerated, with the government further intensifying Israel's systematic violation of Palestinian rights, inciting and committing violence against Palestinians and ramping up settlement announcements despite ongoing promises made to the United States. Just last week, Israel broke yet another agreement with the United States on settlements –this time by rescinding a 2005 law reflecting a commitment made to President Bush.

It’s clear that the United States can no longer sit back and rely on diplomatic promises from Prime Minister Netanyahu. At a minimum, we must take steps to ensure that our aid is not being used to violate human rights.

PeaceCast is a podcast produced in Washington by Americans for Peace Now, the sister-organization of Israel’s preeminent peace movement, exploring issues and trends relating to peace and security for Israel, focusing on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and efforts to resolve it. If you care about Israel, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about Israel’s future as a democracy and a Jewish state, this podcast is for you. Episodes feature experts, activists, advocates and scholars whose work or passion is Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The podcast includes standalone episodes, as well as audio recordings of our webinars and events like the Dove, which brings together storytellers who have personally experienced or witnessed the Israeli Palestinian conflict to offer inspiration and hope for peace.

Listen now on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

Americans for Peace Now (APN) is deeply concerned by the current developments in Israel, including Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement today that he intends to continue pushing his government’s anti-democratic initiative to weaken the state’s judiciary, his support for the establishment of a “national guard” that will report directly to Itamar Ben Gvir, and his continued scorched earth practices both domestically and internationally.

Netanyahu and his government have brought Israel to the brink of dictatorship. And the Prime Minister’s speech today failed to pull the country back from the brink. By stating in his speech today that “one way or another, we will bring about a reform” of the judiciary, Netanyahu made clear that he is not backing down from the government’s push to eviscerate Israel’s Supreme Court, he’s simply buying time.

This government’s so-called “judicial reform” is not an effort to streamline Israel’s judiciary but rather an aggressive, anti-democratic coup, intended to change the very nature of Israel’s government, away from a liberal democracy and toward a dictatorship of the corrupt.