News Nosh 8.19.20

by APN 08/19/20
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APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday August 19, 2020

Quote of the day:

"(Netanyahu tells Israelis:) 'Annexation is around the corner. In a moment Jared Kushner will finish lunch, and voila, there is approval for annexation. And there is no arms deal. We did not discuss it at all. Actually, yes we discussed, but it won't happen. I brought peace for free.' This is a lie, of course. A lie that Netanyahu is the only one who believes."
--Senior Yedioth political correspondent Nahum Barnea writes that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is 'captive to the concept that there are free meals.'*


Front Page:

Haaretz

Yedioth Ahronoth

  • The deal and the storm - Reactions in Israel and in the world to the expose by Yedioth’s Nahum Barnea (Hebrew)
  • There are no free lunches // Nahum Barnea
  • The price of peace // Giora Eiland (Hebrew)
  • A one man rule // Limor Livnat
  • The architect of the agreement // Ari Shavit
  • Suspicion of abuse: 5 daycare workers and the owner in Holon were detained
  • Last night: Rocket exploded in open area in Ashkelon

Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)

Israel Hayom

  • Negotiations with Sudan to return the infiltrators - “No reason to continue to the hostility”: Sudan’s surprising declaration of peace
  • Air deals of the media // Amnon Lord
  • The civil reconciliation cabinet is launched
  • The fears of going back to school
  • The tensions in the south: Warning siren in Ashkelon
  • Fateful days in the coalition: The cooperation is on the verge of falling apart // Mati Tuchfeld
  • Nightmare daycare center #2: Owner of daycare center in Holon and five workers detained on suspicion of abuse


Top News Summary:
Denials were the top news today: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s denial that he agreed that the US could sell F-35 stealth fighters and other advanced aircraft to the UAE and Sudan’s Foreign Minister’s denial that his country was making peace with Israel. Also of interest was the protest by religious and right-wing Israelis Tuesday against a satire TV show that deals with issues of the Jewish religion. (Read the news item in Quick Hits and the sharp commentary in Commentary/Analysis below.)

Also, the escalating Hamas-Israel conflict in the Gaza Strip went up another notch when the Strip's only power station stopped functioning due to Israel blocking fuel and Hamas later launched a rocket towards Ashkelon. Almost 40 fires broke out along the border from explosive balloons and two explosive devices were found and disarmed.

It wasn’t a really big deal that the Sudanese Foreign Minister’s spokesman got carried away for saying that “Sudan looks forward to a peace agreement with Israel.” (He was subsequently fired.) Netanyahu welcomed the statement, but later Sudan's foreign minister rejected it, saying the spokesman was not authorized to remark on Sudan's relationship with Israel, and that the ministry had not discussed normalization of relations at all.

But what was a big deal was the question of whether Netanyahu had, in exchange for peace with the UAE, agreed to allow it to get advanced stealth planes and weapons from the US, which would harm Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East. Of course, Israel Hayom played the story down on its front page by leading with a story about how there are negotiations with Sudan to agree to take back Sudanese “infiltrators” [some of whom are asylum seekers. - OH]. Regarding the hot topic of arms to an Arab country, ‘Israel Hayom’ published an Op-Ed, instead of a news report, written by its top political commentator and Netanyahu loyalist, Amnon Lord. Lord accused the media of inventing the “imaginary” condition to the peace deal. But Nahum Barnea, who broke the story in Yedioth yesterday, wrote today that Netanyahu believes in ‘free lunches.’ (Read in Commentary/Analysis section below.) Meanwhile, Netanyahu has denied that he agreed to the sale of F-35 stealth fighters to the UAE. Israeli officials have expressed concern that he is lying. Haaretz’s Amos Harel writes that the sale of F-35s is still on the US agenda and asked “who can trust Netanyahu to safeguard that (Israel’s air superiority) anyway, after the submarine and gunships corruption scandals (Case 3000)." Israeli Intel Minister Eli Cohen also insisted, "There is no change in Israeli policy opposing US sales of advanced weaponry to Arab states that could diminish Israel's military superiority.” But a UAE official told Yedioth correspondent in Dubai, Yaniv Halili, that Netanyahu knew about the US deal to sell arms to the Emiratis.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi spoke with five Arab foreign ministers from the Gulf, including the UAE Foreign Minister and Oman Foreign Minister. An agreement has been signed on cooperation in the field of corona. Maariv’s Anna Barsky wrote that “In general, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been very active in the Persian Gulf for the past 20 years and is in contact with government officials, unofficial bodies, business companies and various others. In recent years, there has been a surge in the number of visits by official Israeli delegations to the Persian Gulf. If between the years 2016 - 2018 there were only 4 Israeli delegations in the UAE in 2019 there were 15 delegations.” Mossad chief Yossi Cohen met with the UAE national security adviser and discussed regional interests and COVID-19 efforts ahead of the official signing of the agreement between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi.

Far right-wing MK Bezalel Smotrich said, "Hopefully Netanyahu will not fall in love with the idea of a new Middle East,” he said, adding that “The issue of annexation on the issue should not have been involved - there are upheavals in the Arab world.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians were not worried about the ’nonsense' Israel-UAE deal. But senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that if the Arab League doesn't condemn the UAE for violating the long-held Arab consensus not to make agreements with Israel before a solution to the Palestinian issue was found, “It's no longer relevant.”


HAMAS/ISRAEL and the Gaza Strip:

Quick Hits:

  • UN tribunal: no evidence Hezbollah leadership tied to Hariri's killing - The UN-backed special judges' panel also says there is no evidence of Syria's involvement in the 2005 killing of the former Lebanese PM. (Agencies, Haaretz and Ynet)
  • Saudi calls for Hezbollah to be 'punished' after Hariri verdict - Saudi officials say 'views the ruling as the emergence of truth and the beginning of a process of achieving justice by chasing, arresting and punishing those involved'; Hezbullah member found guilty by ICC. (Agencies, Ynet)
  • Lebanese president denies Hezbollah involvement in port blast: "This is impossible" - Michel Aoun said in an interview that the possibilities for neglect, accident or "external disturbance" are being examined: "Many people, although 'not very reliable', claimed to have seen planes flying near the port just before the explosion." (Maariv)
  • Justice minister: Israel Police will no longer investigate itself - As well as change to internal probes, Avi Nissenkorn announces series of wide-ranging reforms for PIID including greater minority representation, faster case management in particular of hate crimes, more public accessibility. (Ynet and Maariv)
  • Outrage Over Religious Satirical Show Escalates as 1,500 Protest in Jerusalem - "The Jews are Coming" has "made a mockery of Jewish tradition and practices" and is "an affront to God," say rabbis and right-wing figures, who urge public broadcaster KAN to pull the plug on the TV show. (Israel Hayom Haaretz+ and YouTube VIDEO)
  • Ukraine Blocks Entry of Foreigners to Uman Ahead of Hasidic Pilgrimage, Citing Coronavirus Concerns - Tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews from the Bratslav sect flock to Uman during the Rosh Hashanah holiday, an event that Ukraine's foreign minister says could endanger visitors and locals alike. (Haaretz+)
  • Israeli court: Damascus Bibles to stay in National Library - The ruling ends a protracted legal battle over the ownership of the illuminated Bibles that belonged to the Syrian capital's dwindling Jewish community before they were secreted to Israel in the 1990s by the Mossad. A quarter century after Israeli spies, a Canadian activist and a Syrian rabbi smuggled nine rare medieval Jewish manuscripts out of Damascus, an Israeli court decided the books will remain under the National Library's custodianship for their preservation. (Agencies, Ynet and Israel Hayom)
  • Israeli retailer sues UNHRC for defamation over 'disputed territories blacklist' - Supermarket and telecoms magnate Rami Levy sues United Nations Human Rights Council over claims his company "violates international law" by operating in Judea and Samaria. (Israel Hayom)
  • US officials angered by former Israeli envoy's churning of vice-presidential rumor mill - Danny Danon is "as clueless and out of the loop today as he was when he actually was an ambassador," senior Trump administration official says after Danon speculates about the American president's re-election campaign. (Israel Hayom)


Features:

Why a U.S.-led Coup Seven Decades Ago Still Matters to Young Iranians
Calls for regime change in Tehran are nothing new from the United States – but on August 19, 1953, the CIA went a step further and overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. The trauma of that event still persists. (Jonathan Harounoff, Haaretz+)
Israeli Phone-hacking Firm Cellebrite Vowed Not to Sell to Sanctioned Countries. So What's It Doing in Belarus?
Thousands of protesters were arrested and beaten in demonstrations against President Lukashenko. Israeli human rights activists are calling on the Defense Ministry to halt export of hacking technology to Belarus. (Oded Yaron, Haaretz+)

Top Commentary/Analysis:
*There are no free lunches (Nahum Barnea, Yedioth Hebrew) Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed on normalization between them - a term equivalent to peace. This is great news and the most important political achievement of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is not the agreement that is disturbing, but the false representations that accompany its signing. It is a pity that a good agreement is born when it is immersed in a soup of untruth. The UAE is considered the No. 1 or No. 2 customer (after Saudi Arabia) of the American arms industry. The Emirates has been seeking to buy F-35 aircraft since 2011. According to professional press reports, these are 24 fighter jets, very expensive attack UAVs of the "Guardian" and "Blackjack" type and another huge package of advanced military systems, which comes at a price of tens of billions of dollars. The agreement involves the payment of prices. One of them is the waiver of annexation; The second is the waiver of the Israeli veto on the sale of the systems to the Emirates. The benefit justifies the prices. But Netanyahu is captive to the concept that there are free meals. He tells Israelis: There are no prices. The annexation is around the corner. In a moment Jared Kushner will finish lunch, and voila, there is approval for annexation. And there is no arms deal. We did not discuss it at all. Actually, yes we discussed, but it won't happen. I brought peace for free. This is a lie, of course. A lie that Netanyahu is the only one who believes. He would have done well to tell the Israelis the truth. There is peace, but it comes at a price. This is how Begin behaved; This is how Rabin behaved; This is how Churchill behaved. But Netanyahu tells us stories about hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of tourists and zero price. These are fairy tales for children...
UAE Spacecraft Brings No Hope for the Palestinians (Hagai El-Ad, Haaretz+) The United Arab Emirates’ spacecraft heading for Mars is called Hope. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made sure to mention this in his announcement of the peace treaty with the UAE. After all, Startup Nation is happy to gaze into space, the heavens, the Persian Gulf or any other conceivable place, just as long as it doesn’t have to look straight at the Palestinians. The Palestinians, unlike that spacecraft, didn’t merit a place of honor in the prime minister’s speech. The Palestinians, unlike that spacecraft, aren’t heading for Mars. The Palestinians, alongside us, live on the ground of reality.
Conceptions come crashing down ( Prof. Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom) There are a number of reasons why Israel is now able to make peace with Arab states, including the fact that the Palestinian issue no longer carries the weight it used to, that 'Palestinian problem' is not an asset but a burden, they will no longer entertain every Palestinian whim, leaving just Yemen and Qatar aligned with Iran and Turkey's axis of evil.
The Arab world is fed up with the Palestinians (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) As these nations come to conclusion that 'Palestinian problem' is not an asset but a burden, they will no longer entertain every Palestinian whim, leaving just Yemen and Qatar aligned with Iran and Turkey's axis of evil.
Netanyahu understood what Begin, Rabin and Sharon understood (Gilad Sher, Dr. Yoel Guzensky, Ynet Hebrew) With the relinquishment of territorial aspirations in the West Bank, Netanyahu is following in the footsteps of his predecessors. After the agreement with the Emirates, we only need to help the Palestinians get off the “I’m angry at you” tree.
The Palestinians Are Angry Again (Ronit Marzan, Haaretz+)
Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979...Yasser Arafat charged that he had sold the dignity of the Arabs, of Palestine and of Jerusalem for a fistful of sand in the Sinai desert. Fourteen years later, Arafat’s fury dissipated, and he himself recognized the State of Israel, signing the Oslo Accord in 1993...Arafat in turn was accused of betrayal...His reply was that the accord made the Palestinian Liberation Organization an equal partner in the negotiations with Israel...A year later, in 1994, Jordan’s King Hussein signed a peace treaty with Israel, and Arafat was infuriated anew. Yet again though, his anger waned, as did that of his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. Both continued to view Jordan’s king and Egypt’s president as the address for their complaints against Israel...The same process has happened in Hamas, which has overcome its opposition to the Oslo Accord. Khaled Meshal, who was distanced from the arena of conflict, understood that if he did not update Hamas’s political vision, turning it into something more practical and legitimate, he would vanish from the political stage. In May 2017, Meshal launched a new Hamas manifesto which included the acceptance of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. However, in his absence, Yahya Sinwar had been elected as the head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, and he had different plans. Sinwar preferred cozying up to Egypt and to Mohammed Dahlan, the protégé of UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed. Israel did not exploit the opportunity to promote a diplomatic move that would have included Abbas, Dahlan, Meshal and Sinwar. It ignored Meshal and weakened Abbas. It froze out Dahlan and humiliated Sinwar, by turning him into a neighborhood bully collecting protection money from Qatar in order to guarantee Israel a quiet border. The peace agreement between the UAE and Israel, expected to be signed in September, is opening another window of opportunity, although it also exacerbates the power struggles between Abbas and Dahlan within the Fatah movement, and between Meshal and Sinwar within Hamas...
There is a difference between 35-F for the Emirates and the submarines (Giora Eiland, Yedioth Hebrew) The very possible arrival of the advanced aircraft to our new friend does not constitute an intolerable security risk to Israel. There is no need to investigate this affair.
Israel-UAE Deal Is Peace Through Personality – and Political Opportunism (Abe Silberstein and Alex Leopold, Haaretz+) National interests and shared security priorities alone do not explain this extraordinary breakthrough, which also reflects the increasing role of strong personalities in shaping foreign policy.
UAE deal is a true feat for Israel (David Suissa, Israel Hayom) Let's face it: The idea of extending sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley – legal or not, approved by the United States or not – was problematic from the start.
The danger of Palestinian despair (Sever Plocker, Yedioth Hebrew) In international relations they give great weight to signed public statements; In the media they are treated with justified contempt. The opening paragraph of the joint statement of the United States, the State of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, published last Thursday in Washington, reads: "US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and UAE Deputy Commander Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed spoke today and agreed on a full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates." They added: "As a result of the diplomatic breakthrough and in response to President Trump's demand, Israel will delay the application of sovereignty to areas outlined in the president's vision of peace."
The Post-oil Era and Climate Change Drive Persian Gulf Peace With Israel (Dan Rabinowitz, Haaretz+) A lot has been written in recent days about the diplomatic-security aspect of the United Arab Emirates’ initiative to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. The UAE, which stretches across 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) of the Persian Gulf coast, has great interest in solidifying its relationship with the United States, establishing a regional alliance against Iran and strengthening its status as a defender of the Palestinians from the militant wing of Israeli governments. But beyond the geopolitical context of this move, which could be a harbinger of similar initiatives by Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and perhaps Saudi Arabia, hides an even broader economic and historical context: the earlier-than-expected end of the oil era.
Bibi’s digital warriors take on Arabia: How Israel won over the Gulf states (Katie Wachsberger, 972mag) Israel has been using a web of social media accounts to produce a more favorable image among Arabs in the Gulf. With the UAE agreement, it seems these efforts are bearing fruit.
Gantz, Netanyahu Completely Disregards You (Haaretz Editorial) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rushed to delete from his Twitter account an interview he gave to Sky News Arabia, in which he referred to the United Arab Emirates as a “progressive democracy.” The question is whether Israel under Netanyahu is worthy of that epithet, never mind the millions of Palestinians living under occupation for the last 53 years. Referring to the accord reached with the UAE, Benny Gantz said on Tuesday that it was improper that he and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi had not been informed of the deal beforehand. “Working under conditions of reciprocal transparency is a condition meant to serve the citizens of Israel, not the prime minister,” he said. Gantz is playing the innocent. This is not a problem of transparency or of appropriate governance. Netanyahu is behaving as a sole ruler, making decisions on his own and acting as he sees fit even on critical matters. As far as he’s concerned, cabinet members are lightweight extras in a play in which he is the protagonist. This also includes ministers with imposing titles such as “Alternate Prime Minister”, “Minister of Defense” or “Foreign Minister.”…
Annexation shouldn’t be the threshold for conditioning aid to Israel (Yousef Munayyer, 972mag) By hinging U.S. leverage on de jure annexation, Democrats are giving Israel the green light to proceed with other crimes against Palestinians.
Netanyahu's bold move (Ruthie Blum, Israel Hayom) The Israeli right is wrong to see the prime minister's deal with the UAE as a capitulation to foreign pressure. He is creating optimal conditions for the Jewish state's road ahead.
The New Middle East: Welcome to the End of Liberal History (Noa Landau, Haaretz+) Netanyahu calling the UAE an 'advanced democracy' shows the widening chasm between the old international order and the new one, in which liberal values are irrelevant, and Netanyahu knows just how to exploit it.
Signing of an arms agreement with the Emirates - a slippery slope that will affect the future of Israel (Ben Caspit, Maariv) No sane Israeli prime minister would agree to a precedent such as the sale of F-35 to an Arab state without an orderly discussion, with expert opinions, consultation with the defense minister - no prime minister except Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel's National Library Is Closing Down. How Much Do You Care? (Yitzhak Hen, Haaretz+) In a few days the National Library will be closing its doors until further notice, but none of those in power is saying a word. magnificent rulers were well aware that education is the key to creating a better, more ethical and more effective society, and that the basis for a good and meaningful education is the encouragement of research and creativity, which cannot exist without books and libraries. Charlemagne ordered the establishment of libraries in every monastery and every urban cathedral. That was part of a broader move of comprehensive reforms in his kingdom, in whose context the king also instituted a free compulsory education law for all the boys and girls (!) in his kingdom. these magnificent rulers were well aware that education is the key to creating a better, more ethical and more effective society, and that the basis for a good and meaningful education is the encouragement of research and creativity, which cannot exist without books and libraries…
A corona no-man's-land (Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom) The east Jerusalem neighborhood, which lies outside Israel's security barrier and is neglected in the best of times, has been especially hard hit by the second wave of coronavirus, which started after the Palestinians cut off security cooperation with Israeli authorities.
Gaza Tensions: Hamas Doesn't Seek Escalation, but Won't Make Do With Restoring Calm (Jack Khoury, Haaretz+) Hamas is not looking for a full-scale clash, but its leaders won’t stop the explosive balloons unless Israel diverts its gaze from the UAE to its yet-to-be implemented agreements with Gaza.
Sudan ditches destructive 'Three No's' strategy (Eldad Beck, Israel Hayom) At some point, officials in Khartoum realized Israel was not the problem of the Sudanese people, but could definitely be part of the solution.
For Trump’s Jewish Supporters, ‘Four More Years’ Tops Annexation (Jonathan S. Tobin, Haaretz+) Near-universal cheers for the Israel-UAE agreement show that for right-wing American Jews, keeping Trump in the White House is more important than the settlements. When settler leaders and the likes of Bennett and his party colleagues are angry about something, Jewish right-wingers in the United States usually echo those concerns. But for the most part, reactions to the Israel-UAE agreement demonstrated that there is something more important to them than even the settlements: the political fortunes of President Trump. Given how much effort right-wing Jews put into the debate about extending sovereignty, you’d have thought their disappointment about his tabling the move in payment for the coup with the UAE would have been hard to contain. Yet contain it they did. In the days after the White House announcement of the historic agreement, they joined in the general rejoicing about the Emirates’ willingness to normalize relations with Israel. Though few can have much doubt about the fact that their hopes for the settlements are not so much postponed as shelved for the foreseeable future, Netanyahu’s concession was an afterthought to most of them. The Zionist Organization of America, a reliable an indicator of the Jewish right’s views, began its press release on the issue with a headline saying “ZOA Thrilled.” “Concern About Temporary Suspension of Sovereignty Issue” was relegated to secondary status…

Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.

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