Negotiations over the judicial reform reached a new obstacle this week due to an internal rift within the Opposition, Israel Hayom has learned. 

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According to officials, Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid and Benny Gantz's State Party disagreed over their demands. 

Yesh Atid said any compromise was off the table until an Opposition representative was appointed to the judicial selection committee and demanded that Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the main driving force behind the legislation, convene the committee no later than June. 

Benny Gantz's State Party, however, did not insist on the latter demand and even argued that it was impossible to compel the justice minister to do so. The negotiating team of President Isaac Herzog, who is leading the talks, is said to also have been taken aback by Yesh Atid's demand and stressed that it was indeed not possible to interfere in the work of the justice minister in such a manner. 

Nevertheless, Yesh Atid officials insisted on the matter and even threatened to withdraw from the talks lest both demands are met, saying they feared Levin might not convene the judicial committee in the near future at all, hindering its work. 

The State Party, in turn, has maintained the strategy of dragging out the time to push the Coalition to reach the legal deadline by which they would be obligated to appoint Knesset representatives to the committee – based on the current format – making it difficult to make any changes to the mechanism. 

Party officials said they were satisfied with the achievement of getting an Opposition representative appointed to the committee and did not wish to engage in requirements that were "irrelevant." 

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov canceled his visit to Israel on Friday. The reasons behind the cancellation were unclear, with some reports citing "personal reasons" and others a strike by staffers of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

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Moscow is embroiled in a tense standoff with neighboring Ukraine amid fears that a Russian military buildup near Ukraine could signal plans by President Vladimir Putin to invade the ex-Soviet neighbor.

Lavrov was expected to meet with his Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, as well as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett; topics of discussion would've included the nuclear negotiations between Iran and Western powers taking place in the Austrian capital of Vienna, as well as coordination between Moscow and Jerusalem concerning military activities in Syria.

 This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met Monday with his counterpart from San Marino, Luca Beccari, who arrived on an official visit to Israel.

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Beccari toured the south of the country, and visited Jerusalem, including a tour of the City of David, the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. He was accompanied by Israeli Ambassador to Italy Dror Eydar.

During the meeting between the two lawmakers, Lapid called for San Marino's increased support for Israel at the United Nations. The landlocked country is under the protectorate of Italy but enjoys independent status within the UN.

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Israel continued its public opposition on Saturday to a plan by the Biden administration to reopen a US consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem, a move it sees would undermine its sovereignty in the capital. 

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"My position, and it was presented to the Americans ... is that there is no place for a US consulate which serves the Palestinians in Jerusalem. We are voicing our opinion consistently, quietly, without drama," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told reporters. 

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, speaking next to Bennett, proposed that if the US insists on reopening its mission, it should do so in the West Bank.

"If they [the US] want to open a consulate in Ramallah, we have no problem with that," he said.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, rejected Lapid's comments.

"We will only accept a US consulate in Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state. That was what the US administration had announced and had committed itself to do," he told Reuters.

The US embassy was not immediately available for comment. 

The consulate was closed in 2018 by then-US President Donald Trump. However, seeking to repair ties with the Palestinians, the Biden administration has said it would reopen the consulate, although it has not given a date.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month Washington would "be moving forward with the process of opening a consulate as part of deepening of those ties with the Palestinians", however Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon has pointed out that according to US and international law, Washington cannot go ahead with the move unless the Israeli government gives its consent first. 

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Algeria's decision last week to sever diplomatic ties with its neighbor, Morocco, puts the spotlight on the strengthening Israeli-Moroccan relations that were born out of the Abraham Accords.

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Professor Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, an expert on North Africa and senior fellow at Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told JNS that Algeria and Morocco have been "geopolitical and ideological rivals for more than a half-century on the morrow of attaining independence."

The future of Spain's ex-colony, Western Sahara, has been the center of their rivalry since 1975, with Algeria supporting the Polisario independence movement and Morocco acting to incorporate the territory into the kingdom, he explained.

In December 2020, the US recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for Rabat normalizing relations with Jerusalem, as part of the series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states that were brokered by the Trump administration. Last month, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Morocco to inaugurate the Israeli liaison office there, while revealing plans to open mutual embassies within months.

But last year's quid pro quo in the Abraham Accords process – unilateral US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the contested territory in return for Morocco's restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel – was highly upsetting to Algeria, Weitzman noted.

"Moroccan expressions of support for the radical Kabylian Amazigh independence movement in Algeria, done mostly to irritate the Algerians, are also part of the background to the Algerian decision to sever relations," he said.

Weitzman added, "Algeria has blamed the movement for the recent large-scale forest fires in Kabylia, in a transparent effort to divert criticism of the regime's failure to contain the fires."

At the same time, Sarah Feuer, an expert on Arab politics and fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, believes that Israel's role in the North African dispute is minor.

"Algeria was indeed dismayed at Morocco's decision to resume diplomatic relations with Israel, and more recently, Algeria criticized Morocco for advocating on Israel's behalf in gaining observer status in the African Union," she told JNS. "But ultimately the rupture of ties between Algeria and Morocco reflects a longstanding, locally driven hostility between these two states, principally over the Western Sahara, and an effort on the part of the Algerian regime to deflect attention away from a domestic political and economic crisis the state seems unable to resolve."

Lapid's statement in Morocco that Iran is working with Algeria to block Israeli observer status in the African Union upset the Algerians, and Israel replied in kind.

"Underpinning Algeria's militant stance are the regime's difficulties in renewing its legitimacy in the eyes of an angry and disillusioned public, which is showing signs of renewing the mass peaceful Hirak protest movement that shook the regime to its core in 2019," Weitzman said.

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An Israeli diplomatic source told AFP last week that Algeria "should focus on its own problems, serious economic problems especially, so its citizens can live the life they deserve, rather than trying to harm their neighbor and involve Israel in its disputes."

Algeria said August 24 that it cut ties with Morocco due to "hostile actions." Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra also accused Lapid of "senseless accusations and veiled threats." Lapid had expressed "worries about the role played by Algeria in the region." The Israeli source told AFP that Lamamra's allegations are "unfounded and without interest – they bring nothing new."

During Lapid's visit to Morocco, he raised concerns that Algeria was "getting close to Iran" and that it worked to prevent Israel from admission as an observer member of the African Union.

Yet Feuer said, "We should be careful not to overstate the Iranian issue here. It is true that Algeria – in contrast to Morocco – maintains relations with Iran. Still, neither Algiers' ties to Tehran nor Rabat's firm placement within the pro-West camp are new."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"Shameful. At the peak of the coronavirus battle, seven directors of public hospitals are forced to beg for funds from the government, which it refuses. We will bring a new kind of leadership to Israel soon."

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"The government is losing control. People are dying. Stop playing political games and get a hold of yourselves."

"The economy is in ruins, the morbidity is at an alarming peak, and all this because the government has lost control and is acting out of political interests. But we can eliminate the coronavirus pandemic. Within ten days, many Israelis could go back to leading almost normal lives, and within a few weeks, Israel could be a green country."

"Israel must get rid of the coronavirus because relying on vaccines alone is irresponsible. We can curb COVID very quickly and return to normal life … And as for the Ben Gurion fiasco, how many variants and deaths could have been prevented if tests had been administered as we suggested?"

The above are just several of the statements made by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett since the beginning of the year and before he took office. The gap between his criticism of the Netanyahu government, albeit true in some cases, is tragic and inconceivable considering the dysfunctionality of his own government in the midst of the fourth wave of infections.

The current outbreak is hitting Israel hard, and Bennett is failing to do almost everything he had accused Netanyahu of failing to do as well. Perhaps even worse. For more than two months, the current government acted with arrogance and indifference, disregarding the warnings and recommendations of senior health officials, who urged the government to take immediate action lest another outbreak occur in Israel. At times the Coronavirus Cabinet did agree on imposing a restriction, it came into effect a week or two later.

Such unforgivable decision-making, at a time of a global pandemic no less, exposes Bennett's past statements, as well as remarks made by his fellow Knesset members, as pompous and hypocritical. Many of them, like Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, also criticized Benjamin Netanyahu when he was prime minister.

Lapid called the previous government "insane" and "a failure" for refusing to provide sufficient funds to hospitals when they were in need. However, now that he is in power, his government is doing the same. Directors of hospitals across Israel are protesting against the current leadership for abandoning them. Has Lapid made any statements about that?

Nothing bursts the bubble of a leader who hastily declared he knew how to beat a pandemic than actually coming to power. The same is true for former members of the Opposition, who now that they are in charge, have realized that they are failing no less than their predecessors.

The coronavirus has exposed the hypocrisy, lies and illusions of most politicians, and unfortunately, even that of the Health Ministry and hospital administrations, all of which have so far cost us the lives of 7,000 Israelis.

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The question on everyone's mind in Poland this week was what prompted Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to react in such a critical manner to their government's decision to put a statute of limitations on property claims that date back more than 30 years.

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Poles of all walks of life – politicians, academics, jurists, journalists, supporters of President Andrzej Duda and his opponents, and even members of the local Jewish community – wondered why Lapid went on a rant about Poland, accusing it of antisemitism and even anti-democracy.

In most Israeli media outlets, the Polish ruling was portrayed as a deeply antisemitic move, one that attempted to erase the memory of the Holocaust and deny survivors and their descendants the opportunity to reclaim property that was confiscated during the war.

Poland reacted with outrage at the accusations. Some might say, rightfully so, for, in reality, the situation is much more complex than the simplistic way the restitution law was made out to be by the Israeli media and Lapid.

"Amendments to the law have nothing to do with the distinction between Jews and non-Jews," said Jakub Kumoch, head of the International Policy Bureau of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. "They don't discriminate against anyone or prevent Holocaust victims from bringing about justice.

"Whoever distorts these laws and misrepresents them is acting out of prejudice and ignorance, and in my opinion, is no better than the antisemites who always use the Jews as scapegoats. Connecting the law to the tragedy of the Holocaust is an idea that was born in Lapid's mind, even though the two are completely unrelated."

Kumoch explained: Two dictatorial regimes confiscated property from Polish citizens – Poles, Jews and other minorities – in the 20th century: the Nazi and the communist regimes.

In terms of confiscating property, the communist regime took much more than the Nazis, and did not care whether the owners were Jewish, Poles or members of any other group.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Poland renounced communism, began a process of reinstating stolen property to their rightful owners. All they had to do was arrive at an administrative court, prove that their home or land was confiscated by the communists, and they would receive it back. Most of the applicants were not even Jewish.

"The privatization process was chaotic and disorderly and often led to corruption," Kumoch continued.

Applicants who had connections in the administrative court received their property back immediately; others were turned away time and again. Jewish survivors and their descendants, in particular, had a hard time. In most cases, they no longer lived in Poland and had to turn to unreliable real estate agencies."

These companies, in turn, purchased the rights to these properties from the helpless owners for a fraction of their actual value.

Anyone who did manage to get their property back ran into another problem. Now, although the property was registered in their name, they had no right to remove the current tenants, who were moved into the apartment by the communist government legally.

According to Kumoch, this created an entirely new branch of crime: the same real estate companies – Polish or foreign – that acquired the property rights from the real heirs, turned to gangs that threatened the tenants and forced them to leave. The matter was so widespread that such criminals got a special nickname - "apartment cleaners."

"I would like to point out that no one is blaming the Jews, Heaven forbid, or anyone else for looking to get their property back," Kumoch said.

"This is the natural part of the transition from communism to a free market, but it created a clash between two sides that are both in the right.

"Whoever is looking to reclaim their stolen property is right. As are those who were placed to live in a house by the communist regime, and have lived there for decades, because they had the right to. Sometimes, by the way, the people who were placed to live in confiscated houses were Jews who survived the Holocaust."

The shortcomings of the reprivatization process have led to countless appeals against the administrative court's decisions, and tenants were never sure if a ruling made by the court was final and would not be overturned.

And since millions have resettled after the war, Kumoch estimates that hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens, especially in big cities, live in fear and uncertainty that tomorrow someone might show up at their door with a paper declaring that the communist regime's decision to grant them their apartment is annulled.

One of the consequences of this, naturally, is that urban development halted, Kumoch explained. What entrepreneur would invest in an area where the ownership of a property is uncertain?

All of these problems have created a movement that demanded the end of the restoration process.

"This movement has nothing to do with the conservative right-wing party that is currently in power," Kumoch noted. "Most of its activists come from the urban movement circles, and its leader, Jan Spiewak, is a Jew. He is the grandson of Bialystok ghetto fighter and well-known Holocaust historian Szymon Datner.

"He was the one who uncovered the so-called "mafia of reprivatization" in Warsaw and became the first to support President Duda's decision to approve the law.

"After 40 to 50 thousand people lost their apartments (not to Holocaust survivors or their descendants, but to real estate agencies and the mafia), the matter was brought before the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, and in 2015 it passed a law that would acquire the parliament to set a statute of limitations.

"The assumption was that in the decades that passed since the end of communism in Poland, there had already been enough time for property restitution claims, and it was now possible to provide certainty and security to families that moved into them after the war. And that is exactly what happened – the parliament implemented the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal."

Kumoch's claim is supported by the results of the vote in the Polish parliament. It might come as a surprise to critics in Israel, who blame Duda's leading party for the "antisemitic ruling," but no one in the parliament opposed the law.

Even the Opposition, which takes every opportunity to accuse the leading party of steering away from democracy, did not question it when it came to the reinstitution law.

"Being unfairly accused of antisemitism is especially hurtful, for me as well, as a grandson of a Polish man who fought the Nazis and was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo," Komuch said.

"Lapid makes it seem as if there are tens of thousands of descendants of Holocaust survivors who have documents attesting that their property was stolen and that Poland is denying them their rights. These are false claims.

"But more importantly, the law does not limit the original owners, or their descendants, from reclaiming their property, no matter their nationality. Such an individual can file a claim at an ordinary civil court and receive compensation from the state. We are not running away from responsibility for deeds committed by Poles during the Holocaust."

Being that Kumoch is a diplomat, one might think that his judgment is biased. However, surprisingly, many Poles agree with him.

Professor Ewa Letowska is a well-known Polish lawyer affiliated with the left-wing camp. Between 1999 and 2002, she served as a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland and between 2002 and 2011 as a judge of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. In 1988, she became the first person to be appointed the Ombudsman for Citizen Rights in Poland.

She completely disagrees with the notion that the Polish law has an antisemitic element, but does say that the government could have adopted a more sensitive approach.

"The law is not intended against Jews," she said. "And contrary to the current propaganda, neither does it harm Holocaust survivors.

"The decision to impose a 30-year statute of limitations was the right one, but the execution lacked in terms of legislation and sensitivity. Unfortunately, Poland did not bother to explain this [the need for the law] clearly and respectfully, and now the unclear wording of the law is being used for political games."

Letowska believes that Poland should have formulated a thorough restitution mechanism, that would include Holocaust survivors, a long time ago.

"In the 1960s, under the auspices of Western governments, including the US, reparations were paid to citizens of these countries for property left behind in Poland, and the mistake of the Polish authorities was that they never offered a strategic plan for the restitution process. It is difficult to separate the law from the general context of the restoration of Jewish property and Poland's attitude towards its past.

"Poland cannot and should not be held responsible for the crimes of Nazi Germany," she continued. "The consequences of World War II, including the question of Jewish property, were a large part of my work as ombudsman for citizen rights.

"Even then, I argued and wrote that [Poland] should have started with an accurate assessment of all property. As time went on, the possibility of returning the property to the previous owners themselves became an illusion, and the fact that it applies equally to Poles and Jews is certainly not comforting.

"A partial agreement would have been better, but at least it would have been final. Poland's mistake was the unwillingness to consider how to end the matter legally."

Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich does not view the Polish ruling as antisemitic either, but is aware of the negative consequences of stopping the return of property to rightful owners - Poles, Jews, and others.

"When I addressed the Senate, the upper house of the Polish parliament, I spoke of the importance of the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," he said. "For what the Nazi occupiers, and later the communists did, was theft, and it is a wrong that should be rectified.

"As for the Israeli foreign minister's reaction, suppose there are two friends, and there is a dispute between them over a particular matter, does that mean they should no longer be friends? All the more so, when it comes to countries."

"Israel and Poland have built a close friendship over the past 30 years. Poland supports Israel, opposes Isran and the BDS movement. Should the two countries end this friendship because they disagree on the matter of restitution?"

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Israel will open a diplomatic mission in Bahrain within the next month, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced Thursday while on an official visit to Morocco to inauguarte a liasion office in Rabat.

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The statement came as the foreign minister also announced the imminent opening of an Israeli embassy in Rabat and that of a Moroccan embassy in Jerusalem. The liasion office is currently housed in a temporary building while a new embassy is being built.

Lapid told local local journalists that he had been in touch with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani about inaugurating Israel's diplomatic mission in Manama.

A few days earlier he met with Bahrain's undersecretary for international relations Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmad al Khalifa in Israel. Al Khalifa arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday for a four-day diplomatic trip during which he also met with President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Bahrain was the second Muslim country to normalize relations with Israel, following the United Arab Emirates in the historic Abraham Accords brokered with the help of former United States president Donald Trump in August 2020.

Sudan became the third country to establish relations with the Jewish state in the framework of the Abraham Accords last October, and Morocco followed suit in December.

Until last August, the only Arab countries with diplomatic relations with Israel were Egypt and Jordan.

Both Israel and the UAE have opened embassies in their respective countries as of June 2021.

i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized Prime Minister Naftali Bennett Thursday for what he called Bennett's mishandling the coronavirus pandemic, which Netanyahu said had resulted in an infection outbreak "that could have been avoided."

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His remarks came as daily coronavirus cases in Israel reached over 3,000 and the government tightened restrictions and mulled instating a national lockdown in September.

"Unfortunately, Bennett is leading us to a lockdown because he wastes precious time waiting for the third vaccine doses to arrive," Netanyahu said, referring to the third vaccine campaign the government launched last week to vaccinate Israelis over the age of 60.

"Bennett failed to bring the millions of vaccine doses the government I headed had already ordered and paid for months ago. We knew already back then that the effectiveness of the second vaccine would decrease over time, and that is why we ordered more doses for the third jab," Netanyahu said.

The former prime minister did not spare Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, either.

"The most absurd thing is that the current government is blaming us, the public, while Lapid and Lieberman didn't even bother showing up at the Coronavirus Cabinet meetings. They are running away from responsibility," Netanyahu said.

Many have criticized the foreign and finance ministers for not attending any of the ministerial committee's meetings on Israel's coronavirus response since the new government was formed in June.

Lapid claimed his position as foreign minister, as well as prime minister-designate, was not directly linked to coronavirus policy, and Lieberman said he needed to focus on passing a state budget and sent another minister in his place.

"In our government," Netanyahu said, "Finance Minister [Israel] Katz, Foreign Minister [Gabi] Ashkenazi, and I attended every coronavirus meeting, around the clock, into the night.

"We handed Bennett a country in the best condition in the world, in terms of the coronavirus, with almost zero new cases a day. Now, there are 3,000 new cases daily. Instead of arguing over government positions and raising unnecessary taxes on the public, maybe you should start fighting the coronavirus?" he concluded.

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Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid highlighted Iran's aggression in the region in a special meeting with ambassadors to Israel, revealing the perpetrators of recent maritime incidents.

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Speaking before ambassadors of countries that sit on the UN Security Council, they named the Iranian commanders responsible for the recent drone attacks on civilian ships, including last week's attack on the Israeli-operated vessel Mercer Street off the coast of Oman, which killed two crewmembers.

"Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh is behind dozens of terror attacks in the region employing UAVs and missiles," Gantz said.

He added that "the person directly responsible for the launch of explosive UAVs is Saeed Ara Jani … the head of the IRGC's UAV Command, which conducted the attack on [tanker] Mercer Street. He is the one who provides the equipment, the training, and the plans to conduct terror attacks in the region."

Gantz and Lapid explained to the ambassadors that the Iranian threat was not a local problem, but a threat to world order that warranted an immediate response.

"Iran has once again proved that it poses an international and regional threat, as well as a threat to Israel," Gantz said. "Tehran is responsible for dozens of terror attacks throughout the Middle East, and operating militias in Yemen, Iraq and other countries."

Lapid called Iran's attacks on shipping arteries "an international crime."

"What is the international community going to do about this," he asked. "Is there still such a thing as international law? And does the world have the ability and willpower to enforce it? If the answer is yes, the world should act now."

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