News Update - September 18

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http://www.centerpeace.org ** Israel and the Middle East News Update ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Friday, September 18 ------------------------------------------------------------ Click here for a printer-friendly version. (http://centerpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/September-18.pdf) Headlines: * Erdan: Rioters Have Turned Temple Mount into ‘Warehouse of Terror’ * Jerusalem Mayor: Israel Too Merciful to Palestinian Rioters * Saudi King Asks Obama to Stop ‘Israeli Attacks’ on Temple Mount * Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to Debate “Iranian Fiasco” * Gilad: Israel Worried About Daesh Threat to Jordan * Likud vs. Lieberman: Joined Forces with Left Wing Parties * Call to Inspect Israeli Nuclear Site Defeated Commentary: * Ma'ariv: "And at Its Heart, a Wall" - By Alon Ben-David, Senior Correspondent for Israel Channel 10 and Aviation Week * NPR: "After Iran Deal Defeat, How Do Pro-Israel Lobbyists Regain Clout?" -By Peter Overby, Power, Money, and Influence NPR Correspondent ** Times of Israel ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Erdan: Rioters Turned Temple Mount into 'Warehouse of Terror' (http://www.timesofisrael.com/anticipating-riots-hundreds-of-cops-deployed-in-jerusalem/) ------------------------------------------------------------ With police on high alert in Jerusalem, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Friday condemned the PA and Arab-Israeli lawmakers for spreading “incitement and lies” about the Temple Mount and fomenting unrest. Palestinian rioters have stashed weapons on the holy site, Erdan asserted, turning the compound into a “warehouse of terror.” Erdan’s comments came as the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved the draft of Border Police reservists to bolster security in the capital. ** Times of Israel ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Jerusalem Mayor: Israel Too ‘Merciful’ to Palestinian Rioters (http://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-mayor-israel-too-merciful-to-palestinian-rioters/#.Vfuo9azw71M.twitter) ------------------------------------------------------------ Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat declared “war” against Palestinian youths who throw firebombs and rocks in the capital, saying police must use live ammunition if they are to counter escalating attacks against them and against Jewish civilians. In a phone interview Wednesday with The Times of Israel, Barkat, who has served as mayor since 2008, insisted that such violence was “unacceptable anywhere else in the world” and that Israel has been too “merciful.” ** Ha'aretz ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Saudi King Asks Obama, ‘Stop Israeli Attacks on Temple Mount’ (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.676506) ------------------------------------------------------------ Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Abdul Aziz spoke by phone with U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday and sharply condemned the “dangerous Israeli escalation at Al-Aqsa Mosque.” The Saudi press agency reported that Salman told Obama that “the attack on worshipers at the mosque [earlier this week] is an offense against the Islamic holy places.” The White House confirmed that the two leaders spoke about the Temple Mount, but did provide further details. ** Yedioth Ahronoth ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Knesset Foreign Affairs Officials to Debate “Iranian Fiasco” ------------------------------------------------------------ Over the course of two months, Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid has been attempting to steer toward an examination of “Israel’s diplomatic fiasco concerning the Iranian nuclear agreement.” After protracted efforts, he scored a victory yesterday and managed to force the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to debate the issue in the future. By the time the agreement between the P5+1 and the Islamic Republic was signed, Lapid called to establish a commission of inquiry on what he termed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy debacle. ** Middle East Monitor ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Gilad: Israel Worried About Daesh Threat to Jordan (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/21141-israel-worried-about-daesh-threat-to-jordan) ------------------------------------------------------------ Israel has intensely expressed its concerns about Jordan’s destiny due to the shifts the region is witnessing. Major General Amos Gilad, director of the Political-Military Affairs Bureau at Israel’s Defense Ministry, said: "Jordan may be exposed to attacks by ISIS from the east, and attacks by Al-Qaeda from the north," using another acronym for Daesh. Ma’ariv newspaper reported on Wednesday that the US intensified attacks should destroy Daesh in Iraq, forcing the organization to head west towards Jordan. ** Ma'ariv ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Likud vs. Lieberman: Joined Forces with Left Wing Parties ------------------------------------------------------------ Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman has stepped up his attacks against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In a sharply-worded post he published yesterday on Facebook, Lieberman demanded that Netanyahu ask the people for forgiveness and resign his post following the escalation in the security situation. “When a Jew is murdered in Jerusalem on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, when stones are thrown on the Temple Mount before and during the holiday, and when we are told about a second consecutive month in which economic growth in Israel is lower than economic growth in Greece; when all these things happen between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the people of Israel should ask the prime minister where the security is and where the money is,” Lieberman wrote. ** Ynet News ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Call to Inspect Israeli Nuclear Site Defeated (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4701452,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ In a 61-43 vote, the International Atomic Energy Agency General Assembly on Thursday defeated a proposal submitted by Egypt and supported by Syria, Iran, Libya, and Iraq to force inspections on Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona. Israel had been working closely with the US and other Western allies behind the scenes in order to reach a majority that would block the proposal. Israel has managed to block similar proposals in recent years, saying their purpose was mainly to single out Israel. But this was the first time the proposal was made in the context of the nuclear deal with Iran. ** Ma’ariv – September 18, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------------ ** And at Its Heart, a Wall ------------------------------------------------------------ By Alon Ben-David There is already a mini-Intifada in Jerusalem. “Mini” because it has not yet spread to the rest of the West Bank. But it comes from the people, it is neither led nor directed, it is bursting forth from social networks, and is perpetrated mostly by 14-20 year-old youths. Almost every year, the violence around the High Holidays intensifies, but this time there has been a substantial increase in the number of incidents and the climax is yet to come: this year, the Feast of the Sacrifice (Eid el-Adha) takes place immediately after Yom Kippur and before Sukkot, and Abu Mazen is anticipated to declare at the UN that Palestine is a state under occupation—a recipe that guarantees that the upcoming weeks will also be turbulent. As is nearly always the case, the focal point is the Temple Mount. None of the explanations relayed to the Palestinians through all channels will help—the Palestinian public is convinced that Israel is about to change the status quo on the Temple Mount. Much like the way Israeli social media spawned a group that believes the fallacious rumor that the arson of the family [home] in Duma was not a Jewish terrorist attack, the Palestinian social networks spread mendacious reports about the changes that Israel plans to implement at el-Aksa Mosque. That is enough to get the young people to take to the streets. No established organization is guiding events there either, but there is a series of figures stirring them up: the Israeli Islamic Movement, the Shabab el-Aksa youth movement, and of course Hamas. Quite a few of the figures inciting on the mount are Israeli citizens, exploiting their free access to the site. The increasing friction in Jerusalem did not begin sometime in the past few weeks. Residents of the seamline neighborhoods have been feeling it for years. There is a tendency to think that the violence erupted in Jerusalem during Operation Protective Edge and after the murder of the young boy Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Both events indubitably spurred the violence, but it began before then, with the Shalit deal. The six terrorists from Jerusalem who returned home were the first spark. The capital has never really been unified, and the separation fence that was built leaving 300,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side just emphasizes this. West of the fence, the city is prosperous and thriving, and a few meters from there it becomes Palestinian villages, which have become neighborhoods in Jerusalem that have nothing in common with Israel. Israeli law rules in the west, while the law dares not enter the east. For years, the enforcement authorities have neglected East Jerusalem and created enclaves in the capital where the arm of the law does not reach. Serving legal papers in Sur Baher requires a company of policemen, and every house demolition in Silwan entails a battalion. The young people currently setting the seamline ablaze grew up in an environment where the law was absent. Stiffening the punishment for stone-throwing and fining the parents of minors who throw stones is a good idea. To date, when a stone-thrower got arrested, he would be released within three days and return as a leader of such attacks. The law did not deter them at all. When the price becomes more painful, there is a chance that it will keep some of the youth at home. Not so the idea to lighten the police’s rules of engagement. Since the disturbances of October 2000 and the trauma of the Orr Commission, the police learned how to deal with violent rioters without causing unnecessary injuries. This ability requires the concentration of many troops, but proved itself effective in hundreds of instances. Clashes such as this week’s on the Temple Mount would have resulted in a dozen fatalities and a regional firestorm, and nowadays the police know how to spare us that experience. The prime minister’s populist instructions to allow the police to employ snipers in Jerusalem run contrary to every recommendation from intelligence figures. All of them, to a man, believe that causing a large number of casualties on the Palestinian side will only fan the flames of violence and cause it to spread. As we learned from the first and second Intifada, Palestinian fatalities do not mollify the turmoil. On the contrary, they fuel it. Perhaps the prime minister needs to satisfy the online commenters, but the police are doing well by not getting dragged into it. If the IDF learned how to enter the refugee camp in Jenin, the most dangerous place in the West Bank, and carry out an arrest while causing a minimum number of casualties, the police also need to learn how to conduct arrests and ambushes in Jabel Mukaber and Shuafat with a minimum of friction. But the wish to prevent casualties must not stop Israel from exercising its sovereignty, and the Temple Mount will be the test. It takes an effort of presence on the mount and full control over its entry points in order to eliminate the “I’tikaf,” young people who come to stay the night in the mosque and prepare for clashes the next morning. The “Murabitat” choir, which follows and shrieks at every Israeli visitor that ascends the mount, must also be disbanded. Israel has also neglected its sovereignty on the Temple Mount for years, and made policy based on fear and impotence. After 48 years, it is time for Israel to take back the keys to the Temple Mount from the Islamic Movement and the Wakf, and permit anyone who so wishes to visit and worship. If there is an arrangement for Jewish and Muslim prayer at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and if Jews even manage to pray at Joseph’s Tomb, there is no reason not to instate a regime facilitating universal freedom of worship on the Temple Mount. Correct behavior will enable this wave of violence to fade out after the High Holidays, but there is no point in expecting the vision of the “city of peace” or hoping that brotherhood will blossom on the seamline. The mixture that Israeli construction in Jerusalem created between Jewish neighborhoods and Palestinian villages invites constant friction, and in the absence of separation, this friction will continue. In the state of relations between us and the Palestinians, high fences make good neighbors. Ask the residents of Matan in the Sharon how their neighborly relations with the village of Habala were before a wall crossed between them. Coexistence can and must be enforced in the holy places, but whoever deludes themselves with a binational state is welcome to look at Jerusalem and realize what awaits us. Like many Israelis, I also fear that I will not get to see a peace agreement in my lifetime. But in recent years, the word “peace” has become politically incorrect, and it seems that we also gave up the aspiration to live in peace. During my childhood, almost every Rosh Hashanah greeting included the holiday wish for “a year of peace and security.” Those were years when the visit of an Egyptian president to Jerusalem seemed like a unsubstantiated illusion. It did not stop us from aspiring to peace. Last Rosh Hashanah, I looked in vain for the word “peace” among the holiday wishes. It was not there, and that was such a pity. We must face reality soberly, but we must also aspire to change it. Our forefathers would say the blessing “next year in Jerusalem,” even when Jerusalem seemed farther away than the moon. Perhaps we will forever live by the sword here, but we must not give up our hope. Alon Ben-David has been covering Israeli military affairs for more than 25 years and is a senior defense correspondent for Israel Channel 10 and Middle East correspondent for Aviation Week. ** NPR – September 16, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------------ ** After Iran Deal Defeat, How Pro-Israel Lobbyists Regain Clout? (http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/17/441171332/after-iran-deal-defeat-how-do-pro-israel-lobbyists-regain-clout) ------------------------------------------------------------ By Peter Overby Nobody on Capitol Hill underestimates the lobbying clout of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. For six decades — almost since the birth of Israel — AIPAC has presented itself as the deliberately bipartisan, and frequently victorious, voice of American-Israeli unity. It has maintained this emphasis on bipartisanship even as American views of Israel have grown more partisan. Israel's politics have turned sharply rightward and are now much more closely aligned with American Republicans than with Democrats. It's something Steve Rosen couldn't have imagined when he worked as AIPAC's foreign policy director from 1982 to 2005. "If AIPAC became a Republican organization it would cease to exist," he says. So here's AIPAC's problem: While it's been walking that bipartisan line — it maintains its board of directors as a mix of Democrats and Republicans — Mideast politics in Washington have become a partisan football. Last winter, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress. (It wasn't a joint session because that would have required both chambers to adopt a resolution to convene it, a high hurdle given the Iran deal.) Netanyahu and the Republicans used his visit to underscore their united opposition to the deal. AIPAC isn't in the business of opposing Israeli government positions. So it entered the partisan fray and opposed the Obama administration. Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for the State Department and now a scholar at the Wilson International Center in Washington, said AIPAC's mission was doomed from the start. "This pro-Israeli community has a powerful voice, there's no question about it," Miller said. "But it does not and has never had a veto over what a willful and skillful and determined American president does." AIPAC's spokesman declined to speak on the record for this story. The group has lost big battles before: over proposed arms sales to Israel in 1975 and 1980, and in 1991, when President George H.W. Bush postponed $10 billion in loan guarantees. Miller said, "They lost all three of these fights. And yet no one could argue that 15 or 20 years later, this organization has any less influence." In fact, after each of those battles, AIPAC membership and fundraising spiked. In special interest politics, there's nothing like a high-profile loss to make supporters open their wallets. AIPAC has rivals in the pro-Israel lobby, most notably J Street. It's younger, more liberal, and much smaller. Last year J Street spent $400,000 on lobbying, compared with $3 million by AIPAC. J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said the outcome on the Iran deal, by itself, is not a turning point. "It's not everything changes from here on in. But one will look back at this and say this was a very important moment," Ben-Ami says. "And from here on in you can't talk about the American Jewish political community the same way that you did before." AIPAC's backers dismiss J Street as just the latest of many attempts to build a more liberal pro-Israel advocacy group. They can run through a list of similar efforts that failed. In the short term, Congress is expected to produce a big aid package for Israel, giving the factions on Capitol Hill a chance to kiss and make up. But conservatives are exploring possible amendments to obstruct the Iran deal. Ben-Ami said that would cause trouble. "If that legislation is used as a Trojan horse, to contain poison pills that are designed to undermine the deal, then there's going to be yet another fight," he said. And at the same time, AIPAC members will start deciding how — and whether — to reconcile with Democratic lawmakers who chose Obama over AIPAC in the debate over the nuclear deal. "How they move ahead and support those members of Congress or support others to replace them, is an open question," said Josh Black, a former AIPAC spokesman who now heads a nonprofit group called the Israel Project. "You know, in politics hindsight isn't just a matter of hindsight. It's a matter of accountability." Peter Overby covers campaign finance and lobbying as NPR’s Power, Money, and Influence Correspondent. ============================================================ S. 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