The recent measure that passed in the Knesset as part of the judicial reform – a bill that effectively restricts the courts' ability to strike down decisions by the government on grounds that they are unreasonable – elicited a whole host of reactions in the Arab world, including among refugees and exiles in Europe. "Why is [Benjamin] Netanyahu insisting on becoming Pharaoh?", Mohamed Khirallah, a commentator who is part of the Egyptian exile in Sweden, wrote.

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Writing online, he explained: "Everyone knows the threat of tyranny, its catastrophe, and its implications. But only those who tasted it know how bitter it is. I was one of them. I had to leave my country to save my life. Today Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. We struggled to become like it, and we continue to do so. So when the Israeli government passes the first station on the railway to a tyrannical Middle Eastern state – we recognize that path."

Video: Anti-reform protesters demonstrate outside the home of Economy Minister Nir Barkat. Credit: Israel Hayom

He added, "Israeli democracy is now facing real danger that threatens the country's very existence. Ever since the first bill was passed, the risk of civil war has been increasing. In that sense, the date of the passage – July 27, 2023 – is the Israeli equivalent to Egypt's August 31, 1969, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser carried out the so-called 'Massacre of the Judiciary' to consolidate his tyranny. Some 200 judges were fired at that incident on the grounds that they were hostile to the 1952 officers' coup that Nasser led."

Tariq Al-Homayed, a Saudi journalist and writer, as well as the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper (which is indirectly owned by the Saudi government), wrote: "Israel has long been described as the 'democratic' state of our region, and this is why it is the United States and the West's trusted ally. However, amid the ongoing battle over judicial reform led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite mass opposition, its image is changing.

"Today, we can say Israel has succumbed to the rules of the game in the region, becoming a quintessential Middle Eastern state. A third of its electorate votes for religious parties steeped in mysticism, and its prime minister is leading the push to curb the judiciary's authority and autonomy. He is doing this in the name of 'democracy,' although Netanyahu's coalition is shaky and was built after a deeply divided Israel voted in several elections. Indeed, the abolition of what is known as the 'Reasonableness Doctrine' law lacks genuine majority support…The point here is that Netanyahu's Israel is increasingly playing the rules of the region, where power corrupts, and corruption is enshrined into all, all under the veneer of state legitimacy."

He added, "By 'the region,' I am referring to the countries that have undermined their stability under the pretext that they were working on wiping Israel off the map, as well as with other slogans. Insidiously exploiting democratic slogans, the authorities in these countries have given rise to the state of affairs we see today, which speak for themselves. Someone might ask: 'Are you also referring to the Arab Gulf states?' The answer is no. I am a staunch royalist…The Gulf states, first and foremost Saudi Arabia, seek stability and prosperity. They want development in a region plagued by the lies of nationalists, Islamists, those claiming to be democrats, and others exploiting the various slogans that have been bombarding the region since the early 1970s."

The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi wrote in an editorial, "The bill limiting the reasonableness test will severely cripple judicial review on the government and will make it more difficult for the Supreme Court to intervene in matters where ministers make decisions that are arbitrary, corrupt or severe, as well as those that violate human rights. Even though we believe the current system of government in Israel is not democratic but ethnocratic – the Jewish citizens enjoy some elements of a democratic regime, including the protections afforded by the justice system."

Jordanian commentator Ayman Al-Khanity expressed bewilderment over the selfie taken in the plenum by some of the Coalition MKs after the bill passed in the Knesset.  "A victory selfie after the first bill of the judicial reform passes. This is a picture that angered many Israelis, who began to ask, Who is the real prime minister: Netanyahu, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, or MK Simcha Rothman?"

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Saudi and Iranian experts took part in a security dialogue in the Jordanian capital Amman which discussed confidence-building measures between the regional rivals, Jordan's state news agency Petra reported on Monday.

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A senior Iranian diplomat told Reuters that no Iranian official attended the session, which Petra said was hosted by the Arab Institute for Security Studies.

"What was held in Amman was not an official meeting. But of course such meetings between academics are useful to give better understanding about realities between the two neighbors," the diplomat said.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia on the security dialogue in Amman.

Riyadh and Tehran started direct talks this year with four rounds held in Iraq. Diplomacy among academics from the two countries has taken place in the past.

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The Arab world on Wednesday was closely following the election in Israel. "The Israeli election: A fight to the end for every vote," Saudi paper Asharq al-Awsat said in its headline, noting in its story the concern in Israel that the election would fail to break the political deadlock in the country and force a fifth election.

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Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar said, "No surprises in fourth election: Bibi at the mercy of Bennett." The Hezbollah-affiliated paper said the odds of anyone forming a 61-seat majority were low. The report also noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while campaigning in Beersheba on Tuesday, was whisked away by his security detail when a rocket was fired from Gaza into southern Israel.

The Hamas terrorist organization also responded to the election results in Israel.

"We don't trust any changes in Israeli society," said the group's spokesperson, Fawzi Barhoum. "It is all the byproduct of the Zionist project, the goal of which is to entrench the foundations of the Zionist entity at the expense of Palestinian rights. The identity of the next Israeli government won't change the nature of the conflict with this occupier, and it is deemed an occupying entity that must be resisted. [The election results] won't affect our people's struggle, until we defeat this occupation," Barhoum said.

Emirati newspaper The National quoted a café owner in Jerusalem, who said: "I think Netanyahu is truly a good manager, but I don't trust him with absolute power. I want him to have good partners."

The paper also said the Likud party will need support from smaller parties to secure a Knesset majority, including from the Religious Zionist party.

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Only recently, Lithuania agreed to Israel's request that it not allow Hezbollah operatives to enter its borders. Three years ago, Linkevičius organized an invitation for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who at that time was also acting foreign minister – to meet with European foreign ministers, breaking a long-term impasse between Brussels and Jerusalem.

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Currently, Linkevičius is dealing other problems, namely the ongoing crisis in Belarus. Speaking to Israel Hayom, Linkevičius said he believed that change in Belarus was possible, and that the EU should cut ties with the current regime in Minsk.

"People in Belarus deserve to live a normal life," he said, adding that while a flourishing democracy might be slow to arrive, it was impossible not to hold members of the recent regime responsible for events in that country.

"The least we can do – the Lithuanians, the EU, and other countries – is to say that a leadership like that is unacceptable."

When asked why the EU did not appear delighted at the news that Israel and the United Arab Emirates were normalizing relations, Linkevičius said, "It's a step in the right direction."

Generally speaking, the foreign minister said, Lithuania wanted to see dialogue between Israel and the Arab world, but right now realized that the Palestinians were not "thrilled."

Lithuania hopes that the Palestinians will understand that dialogue between Israel and the Arabs is a good thing, he added.

Linkevičius added that it was important that Israel's plans to "annex" parts of Judea and Samaria had been postponed, and that the deal between Israel and the UAE was something "very positive."

Touching on the matter of continued EU support for the Palestinians, Linkevičius said, "there is a need to find a balance in terms of providing them with aid. What is lacking, I think, is ongoing, fair, and pro-active dialogue with Israel.

"The Palestinians need to be told to start acting fairly, condemn terrorism, and not provide a haven for those who commit terrorist acts. And Israel should be told that the two-state solution is important, and annexation is not acceptable under international law. There is no black and white," he said.

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However, the conventional wisdom is that the corona death toll in Iran is actually much higher and that the government is not revealing the true state of the epidemic because it fears a popular response of chaos and anarchy that could destabilize the regime.

In effect it could be said that fear for the stability of their governments is a common thread among all Middle East regimes that shapes how they are responding to the epidemic, and at a time when most Arab states are still scarred from the events of the Arab Spring in 2011.

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 It is no coincidence that director of the World Health Organization for the Eastern Mediterranean, Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, has said that Arab states are supplying insufficient information about the number of coronavirus cases and the extent of its spread in their countries.

According to Al-Mandhari, the information available indicates contradictory numbers, whereas the countries are adopting different and irresponsible methods of trying to check the spread of the epidemic within their borders.

The government's fears about how an outbreak would affect their stability prompted them to delay their responses to the epidemic. In Lebanon, for example, inbound flights from China, Iran, and Italy were suspended only on March 11, which caused the public to prickle and even point an accusing finger at Hezbollah as acting in accordance with dictates from Tehran.

In Syria, where a civil war is still raging, only in the past few days has the regime declared a lockdown and even a total curfew in some provinces after health authorities reported the first corona case. Jordan has taken the necessary steps of shutting its borders, declaring a lockdown and curfew, and deploying soldiers at the entry and exit point to the capital, Amman, and other major cities.

The healthcare systems in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and other Arab countries in the Middle East are shaky and suffer a serious shortage of medical supplies and equipment, such as ventilators, testing kits, and vital medicine for the treatment of corona patients.

If the healthcare system and the economies there collapse entirely as a result of a major outbreak, the people will take to the streets en masse, demanding that the leaders be deposed. High-ranking government officials in some Arab states have already started claiming that coronavirus is an "American-Zionist imperialist conspiracy." A few thousand protesters in Egypt, Jordan, and other countries have even begun demonstrating against the "American-Zionist corona conspiracy."

The more the corona epidemic spreads throughout Arab states and the more their people sicken and die, we will see a starker difference between the wealthy Gulf State emirates – which can afford massive acquisition of ventilators, testing kits, and medicine – and the failing Arab states whose health care system has many shortcomings. Moreover, the Gulf states are pointing their finger at Iran as the entity responsible for the epidemic in Arab countries as a result of the ayatollah regime's lax handling of the outbreak and attempts to hide the true data about it.

Meanwhile, some think that the coronavirus pandemic will bring an end to the violent conflicts in the Middle East, even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the latter, thanks to close cooperation between Israel and the PA, as well as Jordan and Egypt, in attempts to stop the spread of the virus from one country to another, which has led to a drastic drop in security incidents on the borders.

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Speaking to France 24 Arabic TV on Feb. 12, Chiheb said the greatest danger facing the Arab world today was Iran, not Israel.

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Chiheb: "In my opinion, the greater danger that threatens the Arab world is Iran, the Shiite movement in the region, and the proliferation of WMDs, and the spread of terrorism in the Sub-Sahara, and the Sahel region. Israel is not an enemy of Morocco. Furthermore, in the past, it provided some intelligence services."

Interviewer: "This is what certain people in the region are saying."

Chiheb: "It's the truth."

Interviewer: "This is your opinion. Others may think differently."

Chiheb: "Israel has no problem with Morocco. It does not hate Morocco. In addition, as my colleague said, Morocco is exceptional in the Arab world when it comes to its potential relations with Israel. Morocco is a country that…"

Interviewer: "What kind of relationship can we have with Israel? We saw that Jordan and Egypt have signed a peace treaty with Israel, but it did not change at all what the people feel about Israel. If such a thing happens in Morocco – will there be a peace treaty? How will the normalization proceed? Will Morocco welcome [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, for instance?"

Chiheb: "The Arab world has been brainwashed with anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli rhetoric. But the world has changed and so has the balance of power in the Middle East. Other dangers have risen, globalization has appeared, ideas have changed … The Arab way of thinking toward Israel has become archaic. Israel must be dealt with as an existing state."

Interviewer: "So the Palestinian cause is over?"

Chiheb: "The Palestinian cause is between the Palestinians and Israel…"

Interviewer: "Isn't it the number one cause of the Arabs?"

Chiheb: "I don't think so."

Interviewer: "For many years, the Palestinian cause has been the number one cause of the Arabs."

Chiheb: "It was in the old days, but it's over. It was part of the common tune, but all the Arab regimes have used the Palestinian cause for domestic purposes. No Arab leader has offered any solution for the Palestinians.

"Jerusalem and Palestine were lost in 1999, when Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were in Morocco, and then moved to Washington under the auspices of [US President Bill] Clinton, who said that they had been given the opportunity of a lifetime – not the deal of the century, but an opportunity of a lifetime – to put their pride aside and sign an agreement. The late chairman Arafat was about to sign, but then the Arab countries intervened and accused him of treason. In our Arab way of thinking, we are still the victims of the Crusader wars. We still believe that within every Arab person there is a Saladin al-Ayoubi. The world has changed."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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However, one such Saudi – a reporter, cultural researcher and scholar of Jewish text – made a secret trip this week after accepting an invitation by Israel's foreign ministry.

Speaking to Israel's Army Radio on conditions of anonymity, the Saudi journalist expressed opinions seldom heard in the Arab world.

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"There is no escape from establishing normal relations with Israel," he said in an interview aired Tuesday morning following his return to the kingdom.

But those "normalized relations" cannot be like the ones Israel has with Jordan or Egypt, stipulated the anonymous Saudi, a prominent figure in his home country, according to the army broadcast. He dismissed them as mere connections between governments, as opposed to "real peace" agreements.

Criticizing Israel's neighboring Arab states, he argued that their cross-border relations cultivate hate, which at the same time he said should be prosecuted.

On the Palestinian conflict, the interviewee also presented an unconventional opinion.

"Why should the Arab world ignite problems with Israel and the superpowers because of a small minority? This minority had a chance to form a state in '47 but refused because it only dealt with the question, 'why do the Jews have an independent country?'"

Asked about his experience walking around in cities like Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, the journalist said, "When people heard I am from Saudi Arabia, they were amazed. Not in a hostile manner but by accepting who I was."

"I love the Jewish people and all the citizens of Israel," he concluded in broken Hebrew.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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"Something very big is happening: the transformation of Israel in the minds of many in the Middle East. It's no longer being perceived as an enemy. We've become an indispensable ally against the enemy of militant Islam," he claimed. 

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Netanyahu cited the lack of violence after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and then later its sovereignty over the Golan Heights as evidence for this development.

"People said there would be a tremendous convulsion. But what happened? Nothing," Netanyahu said.

Israel's Prime Minister delivered his comments at the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem - an interactive facility that harnesses Christian support to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement and anti-Semitism.

The first night of the summit also kicked off the opening of the museum's new state-of-the-art media center. 

Video: GPO

Netanyahu was among friends – some 200 Evangelical Christians – as he spoke about the Arab world beginning to band together with Israel to combat Iranian attempts at regional hegemony.

In fact, he said Israel's main goal is "to make sure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons and that its march toward an empire and conquest has stopped."

Praising US President Donald Trump's decision to level hefty economic sanctions on Iran, Trump revealed that "If Israel was not here, Iran would already have nuclear weapons."

"The Arab states recognize that this militancy is a danger to them, no less than it is a danger to us ... so they've made a common cause with us to defend a common foe," he said. 

This normalization, he said, has spilled over to areas that go beyond security and diplomacy and has seeped into technological and economic collaboration. 

"There's a clear shift, this is the way peace will ultimately be achieved."

He did caution, though, that common goals don't translate to common values. "These aren't Western Democracies," he said, plainly. "But they also understand that unless we cooperate we could be threatened by a great evil power."

Sharing common values, he posited, existed among Israel and the audience – a large delegation of Evangelical Christians. He hailed them as "great believers in the Judeo-Christian tradition. We have no better friends in the world than our Christian friends."

He recalled Theodore Herzl's early supporters who were not fellow Jews, but Christian Zionists who believed in his cause.

Netanyahu further vowed that Israel will continue to be a bastion of religious freedom, while other countries in the Middle East have tragically failed to protect its Christian minorities. 

"We have a common cause to protect Christians, Yazidis, Muslims, and Jews everywhere and to protect our view of civilization which protects individual rights and guarantees freedom," he said. 

Netanyahu also dismissed anti-semites who mask themselves as anti-Zionists and advocated for exposing them for the bigots that they are. 

"Who do they stand with? They stand with Hamas – who shoot people in the back of their head in Gaza. They stand with ISIS who beheads people. They stand with Iran," he said accusingly, adding that Israel and its friends must "delegitimize the deligitmizers." 

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Dichter was at the helm of the Shin Bet when the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke out after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. Last week Israel Hayom accompanied him on a visit to the Mount in an attempt to understand if, since Sharon's visit, anything has changed at what is considered the most volatile site in the world.

"Do you know what the most frustrating thing about the Miss Universe pageant is?" Dichter asks as we set out. "Coming in second."

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"The Temple Mount is in second place after Mecca and Medina. No one really makes pilgrimages to the Temple Mount. There is no Hajj here. For them, the fact that Israel captured the Temple Mount is outstanding leverage, but their real goal is elsewhere – it's conflict. The Temple Mount is just an instrument."

This time of year, the Temple Mount is crowded with visitors. An average of 7,000 tourists arrive each day, and another 150 or so Jewish visitors. Visitors begin making their way in early; Jews and tourists via the Mughrabi Bridge, and Arab worshippers use the other eight entrances to the Mount.

In the past, each visitor had to pay a $10 entrance fee. It wasn't a bad source of revenue, but Israel decided to end that practice in 2000 because it gave the impression that it was the people collecting the money, rather than Israel, who were in charge. Later on, the sale of food and souvenirs on the Mount was also banned.

The Mount is under heavy security. Police and Border Police are on duty at each of the entrances, and they check the people who come to pray. There are no hi-tech security measures in places, and everything is done by hand. Bags are searched, and so are bodies if the need arises. The biggest concern is that someone, Muslim or Jew, will try and bring weapons into the Temple Mount.

Both sides worry – about extremist Jews who might try to carry out a terrorist attack or Muslims who will bring in weapons for use in an immediate or future attack. Police commanders declare unequivocally that there are no weapons on the Mount, but Dichter is much more cautious.

"I'm telling you that our working assumption must be that there are weapons on the Mount. The police must work under the assumption that they could be surprised by guns," he says.

Q: Guns that are there for what reason?

"If there are weapons, they see them as something to use to deal with attempts to force something on them they don't want to happen. Tomorrow they could decide, for example, that the police can't come into Al-Aqsa Mosque when things start to heat up, and they know they won't have to standoff against the police barehanded."

The metal detector crisis that led to the murder of two police officers in a shooting attack perpetrated by three Israeli Arabs in July 2017 prevented the introduction of any advanced technology that would make it harder to bring weapons onto the Mount. Dichter supports the idea of metal detectors.

"I know that eventually, there will be security checks at the entrances to the Temple Mount. I can't tell you what they'll look like, but there will have to be security checks because everyone understands the sensitivity of what would happen if, heaven forbid, there was another terrorist attack here."

"If it did, we'd ask ourselves how we allowed people to bring weapons onto the Mount, and you need to remember that at peak times, the number of people coming in reaches hundreds of thousands per day. It's very hard to check everyone. That's another reason why I think that the working assumption must be that there are weapons stockpiles on the Mount, and anyone who doesn't work off that assumption is missing an important part of his job, I think."

A chick that turned into a bird of prey

Despite the number of tourists and worshippers, the Mount is very clean. Everything is orderly, calm, and light-years away from the media images of violence that frequently make headlines. The police here are prepared for these sudden extreme shifts. The commanders are very experienced and most of them have been here for years. They've all been through plenty of cycles of violence on the Mount.

Dichter is accompanied during his visit by the entire Israel Police chain of command on the Mount: Cmdr. Haim Shmueli, who is in charge of the David District (the Old City); Chief Supt. Yuval Reuven, who is in charge of holy sites (the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre); and Supt. Daniel Mizrahi, the commander of the Mount itself. The Temple Mount police station is the only sign of Israeli sovereignty, and as such is the target of frequent violent attacks. In an attempt to establish facts on the ground, the Muslim Waqf located its offices on one side of the station, and the officer for its security guards on the other.

A few dozen Waqf officials are scattered across the Mount, keeping an eye on things from afar. They use walkie-talkies to report but refrain from interfering. A little like museum guards, who follow visitors and intervene only when necessary. They are especially interested in Dichter – a visit by a high-ranking Israeli official, a politician, who has a notable background in security, is always an unusual event. Dichter's visit was preceded by lengthy consultations between security officials, who were concerned he might spark riots at a sensitive time. At first, he received hints that perhaps he should cancel, but in the end, his visit was approved.

As we mentioned, Dichter was head of the Shin Bet when Sharon visited the Temple Mount on Sept. 29, 2000, an event that precipitated the Second (or Al-Aqsa) Intifada.

"We checked with everyone, and we didn't see any problem. It was a Thursday. Even though Arab MKs were waiting for him on the Mount and creating provocations, the event here ended relatively quietly. The storm only broke the next day, and [the visit] was the excuse."

'The Palestinians are a cowardly people'

The violence that re-erupted the day after Sharon's appearance, following Friday prayers, was on a much larger scale than it had been in the past. The police pushed into the Mount with guns and four Palestinians were killed in the compound, along with another three in the Old City. Hundreds were wounded. The violence spread quickly, engulfing Israeli Arabs, Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.

"The main insights since then are that a casualty on the Temple Mount is not a regular casualty – it's something else. So incidents here have to be handled in a way that does not result in casualties – starting with the weapons and the tactics, and the people that you put on duty and the commanders who oversee the incidents. The rules on the Temple Mount are different, and we paid a very high price to learn them," Dichter says.

Q: Israel's sovereignty isn't eroded because of how it operates on the Temple Mount?

"How you handle incidents doesn't add to or take away from sovereignty. On the Temple Mount, it's impossible to implement sovereignty because the status quo determines that there are to be no flags or any other national symbols, so there is no sign of [Israeli] sovereignty here other than the police station."

Anyway, Dichter says, the Waqf is taking a "salami" approach on the Mount – "always slicing off small bits, and when they see that they can take a big slice, like they did in 1999 with Solomon's Stables, that's what they do, shamelessly.

"Back then, they received the biggest mosque in the region to be built not in the time of the Turks or the British, but under Israeli rule, and we looked the other way. We said, we need to let the chick spread its wings and learn to fly. We didn't realize that the chick was a bird of prey. The Temple Mount is the only place where you see Palestinian self-confidence on display. Without shame."

Q: Explain.

"They feel that it belongs to them, that they have the backing not only of the fragile Palestinian Authority but also of other states. The Waqf officials here don't feel that they are representatives of [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas, but rather of the King of Jordan, the King of Morocco, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan – of all Islam. I know the Palestinians fairly well. Look at them. Look at their self-confidence."

Q: Does Israel even have a clear policy on the Temple Mount?

"Ultimately, we decide what happens here. The status quo is very clear, and where they are challenging us, we need to take decisive action."

An example of that is a mosque the Waqf wanted to break open near the Gate of Mercy about six months ago.

"That was a classic example in which they had a permit to build offices for the Waqf, but their true intention was clear – they didn't intend to build anything other than a mosque. In so far as it hinges on me, it won't happen. I can't see any Israeli government allowing them to build a mosque at the Gate of Mercy."

A small rock, big boulders

Tourists walk around the Temple Mount freely, accompanied only by guides. The Jews are protected, both to keep them from being attacked, and to keep them from praying. The police take care not to allow outward symbols of prayer such as a tallit or fringes, but is less careful about murmured prayer, except when it comes to known provocateurs. Their names and faces are well-known, and sometimes they are barred from the site entirely.

Dichter thinks that Jews should be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, "Just like Muslims are allowed in to pray."

He thinks that the Palestinians' current attitude toward the Temple Mount is emotional, not rational: "When a Muslim here sees someone wearing a kippa or a cross he goes nuts."

However, in Dichter's opinion that change must be made through consensus and be well-thought-out, because "the Temple Mount is a little rock that's holding big boulders [in place], and you need to ask yourself what would happen if you moved it after 52 years in which everything here was static, and any change could cause a major shake-up."

The constant concern is fear of an attack by Jewish extremists. Since the Jewish underground of the 1980s, there hasn't been any Jewish terrorist activity that hasn't addressed the possibility of attacking the Temple Mount mosques, or as some of the groups put it, "taking the filth away from where the Temple once stood."

Dichter recalls two such plots from his time as head of the Shin Bet: One group wanted to shoot an anti-tank missile at the Temple Mount, and the other wanted to deploy an explosives-laden model plane.

"A grenade on the Temple Mount equals war," he says. "Look what happened when Al-Aqsa Mosque was set on fire in 1969, or after the Western Wall tunnels were opened."

Q: Why would Jews want to carry out a terrorist attack on the Temple Mount?

"Attacking the Temple Mount has much broader implications that what happens right here, and I'm saying that from all my security experience and knowledge of the Muslim world. We have an army and the Shin Bet and the police here, and we know how to handle it and contain it, but I'm worried about what would happen to Jews and Israelis all over the world. They'd become targets anywhere there are Muslims."

Q: Should we be worried?

"Yes. There are people whose thinking is detached from the reality in which we live. Tomorrow some Baruch Goldstein who decides that God came to him in a dream and told him to carry out an attack here could get up and cause damage that would have an enormous effect."

Dichter says that the way to handle that threat is twofold: through intelligence and a physical security presence on the Mount, and through dialogue with the only officials he thinks can get through to the extremists – rabbis.

"After the attempts at terrorist attacks [by Jews] in my time, I went and met with rabbis. I told them I thought they were the ones giving the orders, but they had to demonstrate responsibility. They not only have immediate responsibility for what happens here but also responsibility for every Jew and Israeli all over the world."

'The Palestinians are a cowardly people'

Dichter's most important visit to the Mount was a private one. It was in 2003, and his daughter was about to be drafted. She wanted the family to take a vacation abroad, but Dichter was in charge of the Shin Bet and couldn't go.

"Her compensation was a two-day tour of Jerusalem that they'll never forget. One day in ancient Jerusalem, and one day in today's Jerusalem. We hired the best guides. It was the most in-depth tour I've ever had here."

Q: Can a solution to the Temple Mount issue be found?

"Right now I don't see a solution in the form of dialogue with them, because the Palestinians are a cowardly people. They don't have the courage to do anything that isn't belligerent. You don't need to be brave to carry out a suicide bus bombing, you need to be a fanatic and not able to see beyond the end of your nose. Look at what they did to Sadat and Hussein, look at Arafat and Abu Mazen [Abbas]."

Q: Nevertheless, international sovereignty on the Mount has been discussed that would allow everyone to pray, things like that.

"The Temple Mount can be one clause of many in a peace deal, but there is no Palestinian leader who'll go there, stand up in the Knesset, and say, 'The path of terrorism is at an end.' At first, I thought that Arafat had an opportunity to be the one, but when I got to know him from close-up, I saw that he wasn't it."

Q: So the Temple Mount will remain an eternal point of conflict for us?

"Yes. Or at least until there are leaders, on both sides, like Begin and Rabin, who will undertake dramatic steps and concessions."

Meanwhile, Dichter thinks, Israel must stand its ground – not violate the status quo so as not to set off riots, but also make sure it doesn't pay a price for that.

"There is an obvious effort to turn the entire Temple Mount into Al-Aqsa," he says.

"If we can't contradict the sense that the Temple Mount is Al-Aqsa, they'll have legitimacy to keep Jews off the Mount and behave like they do in Mecca and Medina, where non-Muslims are not allowed. That is there guiding motive, and not many people in Israel understand that this is their goal and what ramifications that has for our own goals. We have to be aware of that. This is a battle for hearts and minds whose importance must not be underestimated."

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The interview was part of a lengthy profile piece on Netanyahu and was conducted ahead of an important milestone in his career: Netanyahu is set to become Israel's longest-serving prime minister later this month.

TIME's new cover: "Only the strong survive." How Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu is testing the limits of power https://t.co/wmtLUAulGr pic.twitter.com/JHp2NwbHGG

— TIME (@TIME) July 11, 2019

Netanyahu said that Tehran's regional aggression and ongoing efforts to entrench itself in Syria and other hotspots have created a de facto alliance that helped Israel's image in Arab capitals, including in states that have refused to have any official contact with Israel.

"Once you eliminate the idea of eliminating Israel, you can solve the problem [of peace]," Netanyahu told Time. "In many ways, the Arab governments around us have already moved," he said.

He stressed that this shift was made possible not because of Israeli concessions but because Israel proved itself as a net plus for the region, and as a force to be reckoned with. "The strong survive. Strong and smart," he said.

"For so many years, people first of all believed that the cause of all the conflicts in the Middle East was the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Netanyahu said. "Well, that's gone."

Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for taking the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. "Obviously I agree with him completely, and I appreciate the fact that he acted on this," Netanyahu said.

He further stressed that his sole focus was on securing Israel, not his hold on power, despite the potential trial he might face in three corruption cases. "I don't look at my survival," he told the magazine. "I look at the survival of the country, its durability, its future."

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