Israel's decisive defeat of Hamas in Gaza will facilitate regional peace with Saudi Arabia, whereas failure to achieve such a result is thwarting a deal, according to former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

Friedman, who served under former President Donald Trump when the Abraham Accords were signed four years ago, told JNS that US pressure on Israel regarding the war was making the chances of regional peace more remote.

"Being a strong regional superpower that can manage its borders is what is admired in the Arab world," he said in an interview with JNS. "The Saudis want to see a strong Israel defeating [the two countries'] common enemies."

The Biden administration thought, he continued, "that by limiting Israel's ability to prosecute the war, they were preserving the opportunity for peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia; just the opposite. What makes the Arab world pay attention to Israel is Israel's strength against the enemies their countries face as well. If you reduce that strength, you reduce the prospect of normalization."

My second book, ONE JEWISH STATE, is available on September 3. Whether you are religious or secular, right or left, this book offers a common sense perspective that I hope will resonate. In the aftermath of October 7, all the relevant vectors — faith, national security, human… pic.twitter.com/AdJACCG4qW

— David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) August 13, 2024

 The former ambassador, who conceded that no one could have imagined that the war against Hamas would drag on for nearly a year, downplayed assessments that terrorists carried out the Oct. 7 massacre to thwart an emerging deal with Saudi Arabia. "They did it because they could," he said. "Their motivation was hatred, with or without the Saudi initiative, and they did it because Israel let its guard down."

Friedman voiced pessimism regarding a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, despite recent remarks by US President Joe Biden and top administration officials that a deal was close. "I am not optimistic that they will ever make a deal," he said.

A Second Term?

Friedman, who is based in the United States but travels to Israel several times a year for his "spiritual health," said the Oct. 7 attacks have made him want his old job back, should Trump be re-elected in November. "There is unfinished business and course correction after four years of the Biden administration," he said.

Friedman, a proponent of Israeli sovereignty over the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria with local autonomy for Palestinians, said Israel needs to change the deeply entrenched international paradigm of a two-state solution, which he called "fitting a square peg in a round hole," by first changing its own mindset.

There must be a serious national discussion and consensus on the issue in Israel, he said, noting that it has been relegated to the Israeli far right, who he said have no credibility on the issue and don't speak for the mainstream public at large. "There is a vacuum on this issue … and leadership is not in place to make this happen," he said.

This article was first published by JNS.

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Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the war has been the overbearing calls for a pathway to Palestinian statehood in the aftermath of the worst terror massacre in Israel's history.

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In the 1993, Israel entered into the ill-fated Oslo Accords designed to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a two-state solution. While Israel is a relatively tiny country, without much land to give, the Jewish state was prepared to cede strategic tracts in exchange for quiet coexistence with its Palestinian neighbors. The formula, simple enough for a child to understand, was called "land for peace."

The accords called for the establishment of a provisional Palestinian Authority, to be led by thrice-exiled arch-terrorist PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Many argued that the accords were doomed to fail. The PA never prepared its people for coexistence, continuously inciting its public to violence on television and school textbooks, and naming public squares after terrorists. To this day, the government provides stipends to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails, as well as to families of terrorists killed while in the act of attempting first-degree murder on Israelis. The terror financing scheme is dubbed "pay for slay."

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew 8,500 Jewish residents and all military infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

The Strip, the control of which was handed over to the PA, was the pilot project for an independent Palestinian entity. Within two years, control of the Strip was wrestled away by Hamas. Since then, Israel has suffered countless attacks, including the firing of more than 50,000 rockets at Israel, the building of a 500-mile-long underground terror tunnel infrastructure, the kidnapping of Israeli citizens, and the worst massacre in Israel's history on Oct. 7.

The massacre proved Israeli fears correct – that an independent Palestinian state would be a launchpad for continuous terror and an existential threat to the Jewish state. And yet the international community is now doubling down on calls for Palestinian statehood, regardless of the Palestinians' inability to deliver Israel peace in exchange for the land it seeks.

In Part II of an exclusive interview with JNS, Minister of Strategic Affairs and member of a five-man war cabinet, Ron Dermer discusses plans for "the day after" the war in the Gaza Strip; the need for deradicalization of the Palestinian society; and why Palestinian statehood in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 would be a "historic mistake."

In Part I, Dermer discusses the military and diplomatic battlefronts Israel is facing.

JNS: What does Israel hope will be the new status quo on the "day after" the war in Gaza?

After this war is over, in the years and decades ahead, people will need to look back and ask themselves what happened to that organization that committed the pogrom on Oct. 7. Is it standing, or did Israel take it down?

Regarding the day after, there are two concepts that the prime minister put forward: demilitarization and deradicalization. Demilitarization, conceptually, is pretty easy for people to understand. We have to make sure that the border is sealed with Egypt so that weapons cannot come through. And we need to have a security perimeter that can also provide a sense of security for the Jewish communities that live there.

We have to make sure that we have the right to continue to conduct military operations, hopefully less and less over time as the terrorism recedes. The way the Israel Defense Forces currently operates in Judea, Samaria, the West Bank – able to move in and out of Palestinian-administered territories – that's what we need to be able to do in Gaza.

Right now we are going for a military victory in Gaza, and we're getting close to achieving it. And hopefully, people will stand strong down the last home stretch. When we achieve that victory, we have to do what Churchill said; we have to be "magnanimous in victory."

JNS: How do you move from demilitarization to deradicalization?

Dermer: Demilitarization alone will ensure that 20 years from now they're going to hate us as much as they hate us today. Now the question is: Can you, in the wake of a military victory, affect a political and social transformation of a society? Because without that, we're kidding ourselves, and we're never going to have peace.

You have to separate the Oct. 7 war from the 100-year fight against Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict can go on for decades if we don't get it right. And that is why for me, and what I think has been unique about my position, is that we must focus on deradicalization.

The issue is what is a 6-year-old Palestinian learning in school? What is a 10-year-old seeing on television? And for a 15-year-old, who are his heroes? That's the problem. And if we don't seriously tackle this, which we have not done for 30 years, then our children and grandchildren will get stuck with the same problem.

We need to create a situation in which young people, 6-year-olds going into a Palestinian school system today; when they're 18 years old, their goal is not to murder Jews.

And the critical part here is we have to link reconstruction in Gaza to deradicalization. If they want to rebuild Gaza, then they're going to have to deradicalize their society.

That means schools, that means mosques, that means the whole idea of refugee camps. It means media.

And the hope is that in the wake of the victory, you can begin to see real change.

JNS: And do you really believe that can happen?

Dermer: This may sound very strange, but I am more hopeful about the prospects of the Israeli-Palestinian issue ultimately moving in a positive direction than I have been in 30 years. Because for 30 years, the whole thing has been a farce. Arafat and current PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas have been teaching their kids to hate Jews. And there was no change and there was no incentive for change.

The Saudis are deradicalizing their society today. The Emiratis are deradicalizing their society today. And it's hard to stitch this thing together, but I do think it's possible that we can get them involved in this process.

JNS: What about those who say that Hamas is not just a political entity and a terrorist organization, but an ideology?

Dermer: People argue that you can't destroy all of Hamas, because they say that Hamas is an ideology and you cannot destroy an ideology. We may not finish off Hamas as an organization, but we will finish off Hamas as an organized military force in Gaza.

Nazism is an idea, and there are neo-Nazis living in America, marching with tiki torches from Bed, Bath & Beyond. But the reason the threat they pose is fundamentally different from that of Hamas is because they don't control territory, and they don't have an army. We need to make sure that Hamas does not control the territory in Gaza and that they no longer function as a military force there.

Palestinian Statehood

JNS: What do you tell diplomats who say that the current conflict is the proof that there needs to be the immediate creation of a Palestinian state?

There are three issues with talk about recognizing a Palestinian state – you simply cannot reward Oct. 7; you don't want a single Palestinian to think that Oct. 7 advanced the Palestinian cause in any way; and they need to understand that Oct. 7 set the cause back significantly.

Anybody talking about a Palestinian state right now is living on another planet because it will be the greatest reward for terrorism. That the international community will reward somebody for doing what was done on Oct. 7; would be a complete disaster. If tomorrow, there would be a Palestinian state, it would be a clear and present danger to the Jewish state.

And I think it has to be opposed whether you are ultimately for a two-state solution or not. It has to be opposed because to do this now would be a huge, huge mistake.

Anybody who cares about peace should not want a single Palestinian in five years, 10 years, 15 years or 20 years to look back on Oct. 7 and say that event – the mass murder of Jews – catapulted the Palestinian national movement forward. You cannot let the Palestinians believe that terror – that a pogrom like Oct. 7 – advanced the Palestinian cause in any way. They need to understand that Oct. 7 set the cause back significantly.

And my issue is not just what Hamas did on Oct. 7. Eighty-five percent of the Palestinians in the West Bank support what happened on Oct. 7.

So, anybody who would now consider unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state is decoupling the issue of statehood from peace. That would be a great gift to the Palestinians. It will make them think that Oct. 7 advanced their national movement and will ensure that we never have peace. Taking an irreversible step now towards a Palestinian state when they have not changed at all is a huge mistake.

JNS: Under pressure from the United States and others to create the conditions for peace, and to possibly take over the Gaza Strip in a post-Hamas reality, Abbas has asked the entire cabinet of the PA to resign. Do you think a "reformed and revitalized" PA government can be a partner for peace?

Dermer: Regarding the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas's cabinet, it's simply musical chairs. There is talk from the United States and others about a revitalized Palestinian Authority. What does revitalized mean? When I hear the word "revitalized," I think about going to a day spa.

What is needed is a real bottom-up peace process. There needs to be a transformation of Palestinian society. You need to get to the point where there is a young generation raised to accept peace with Israel. Remember, 85% of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank supported Oct. 7.

What interests me is what are they going to do in the school system? What are they going to do with the mosques? What are they going to do to de-Nazify, deradicalize, detoxify – choose your word. If we don't deradicalize Gaza, we are going to consign our children to be sitting here 20 years from now having this same conversation.

If we see that a generation emerges that rejects a hundred years of history of trying to destroy the Jewish state, then you're dealing with a real partner that you can forge an agreement with.

JNS: Is it really possible to transform and deradicalize a society that has been hell-bent on the destruction of Israel?

Dermer: People say that you can't deradicalize a society. But we saw exactly that following World War II with both Germany and Japan.

And there are those that say, well this isn't after World War II, and this is the Middle East. But you have societies that are transforming themselves in the region. It's happening in Saudi Arabia and it's happening in the Emirates. These societies have undergone a process of deradicalization and modernization.

I believe that in the wake of a military defeat, there is the possibility for a transformation of a society.

We should be using the strategic catastrophe that happened on Oct. 7 and turn it into a great strategic victory, which includes a military victory over Hamas; and, hopefully, a normalization, which I think is potentially there with the Saudis; and the deradicalization of Gaza. Then we could have a real peace process that maybe can bear fruit over time.

JNS: How have the Palestinians succeeded in convincing so many nations around the world to support Palestinian statehood, even when they continue to incite and finance terrorism against the Jewish state?

Dermer: I think that the voices you are hearing calling for a Palestinian state in the wake of Oct. 7 are due to hostility to Israel, general impatience with the conflict, and the misguided need to establish some kind of moral equivalency.

Herein is another issue with statehood, and this gets to the Palestinian national strategy and focus. About 20 years ago, there was a bombing in Jerusalem, and Hanan Ashwari, who was the Palestinian spokeswoman, got on TV to interview after this terrible terrorist attack.

And the BBC reporter says to her, "Mrs. Ashwari, you're not going to get a state unless you fight terrorism and make peace with Israel." And what she said is, "No. The question of a Palestinian state and peace with Israel are two separate things. We're a people. We have a right to self-determination. That's why we should have a state. Whether we decide to make peace with Israel is another matter." And it was something of a eureka moment for me because it was so clear to me exactly what their strategy is.

Their goal is to establish a state to continue the conflict. And what they want to do is to use diplomatic pressure, political pressure, economic pressure, legal pressure and maybe low-scale violence to try to get Israel to either leave unilaterally – which we were foolish enough to do in 2005 with the disengagement – or to get the world to recognize a Palestinian state without them giving up anything in return. And my plea to everybody who supports a two-state solution is: Do not separate statehood from peace. Because if you do, there will never be peace. They will get their state, and they will continue the conflict.

JNS: The prime minister has been an outspoken opponent of Palestinian statehood. How can he stand up to international pressure for an imposed two-state solution?

Dermer: People need to understand that there will be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by imposing it.

Now what the prime minister is doing – and what we did in the government – is we passed a statement that says Israel will not accept an international diktat and that all peace must be negotiated between the parties.

The statement received the support of 99 out of 120 members in the Knesset. That goes across the entire political spectrum of Israel, that we are opposed to any unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood. It's a statement of the whole people of Israel.

That is why this resolution was so important. The message of internal unity is not just important domestically, it is also important abroad. The language was chosen very specifically to unite Jews in the country, and hopefully, Jews outside the country and all friends of Israel, to say we cannot accept this right now after Oct. 7.

And we are now seeing pro-Israel voices in the Congress as well beginning to unite against unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.

JNS: What are the prime minister's views on Palestinian statehood?

Dermer: Now, the issue of a Palestinian state and the concerns with the Palestinian state, the prime minister has discussed this for 20 years.

Years ago, well before the formation of this government, I was asked about Israel's position on a Palestinian state. So being Jewish, I answered the question with a question and I asked the audience, "How many of you support a Palestinian state and a two-state solution?" And in that audience, I would say about 90% supported it.

And then, I said, "Well, how many of you support the Palestinians having an army?" No hands went up. "And how many of you think the Palestinians should control half the airspace between the Jordan and the Mediterranean?" No hands went up. "How many of you think they should control their borders so they can bring in any weapons they want?" No hands went up. "How many of you think they should have military pacts with Iran?" No hands went up.

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So I said, 'Basically, what you're saying is you want the Palestinians to have all the powers to govern themselves, but you don't want them to have the powers that could threaten Israel." And, that's the position of the prime minister.

Palestinians cannot gain all the powers of a sovereign state. And I say this even to those who support the idea of Palestinian statehood and want the Palestinians to govern themselves, there has to be certain limits on Palestinian sovereignty in any future agreement.

And we're nowhere even close to talking about a settlement of the conflict.

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For the last several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to protest a highly controversial package of judicial reforms being rapidly advanced by the recently installed right-wing and religious coalition led by Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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In addition to the protesters, economists, businessmen, foreign governments and leaders of the Jewish Diaspora have joined the calls to oppose the reforms. They claim that should the reforms pass, Israel will suddenly be on the road to becoming a fascist dictatorship and that the country is teetering on chaos. Leaders of the protest movement have repeatedly stated that the protests may lead to violence.

So why was the government rapidly advancing such judicial reforms while protests and domestic chaos among reform opponents were simultaneously brewing at unprecedented levels?

The proclaimed purpose of the reforms is to correct a decades-old imbalance between the powers of Israel's aggressive and activist high court and the government. For those trying to understand what gives the court in Israel more power than the elected government, it is useful to compare Israel's judicial system to that of the United States.

No constitution

Perhaps at the very base of the differences between the Israeli and American legal systems is the presence or absence of a constitution. Israel doesn't have one. Though less than ideal, it's not too difficult to understand why. After all, Israel is in its essence a Jewish state. If any other religious group had a set of laws, the list would be numbered with clearly defined laws and their limitations. In the Jewish faith, religious laws are canonized in a 38-volume series of arguments between large rabbinic schools. The rabbis contest with each other over what the laws are and how to perform them.

Furthermore, Israel is a young country that has bounced from one existential crisis to another since the moment of its founding in 1948, in between periods of rapid state-building, often with fractured coalitions at the head of the political system. Simply put, it has been near impossible for Israelis to even think about what a constitution could look like, let alone agree on its formulations. Secular Israelis would want protections for new liberal norms. More religious and traditional Israelis would seek to canonize Jewish values over progressive ones.

In the United States, the constitution provides limits on what issues are justiciable, and the rulings themselves must fall within constitutional boundaries. While there can be some latitude among justices over what the constitution's authors meant at the time or how the constitution should be interpreted today, there are still constraints.

Everything Is justiciable

In the early 1990s, Israel went through a self-proclaimed "judicial revolution" led by then-Supreme Court president Aharon Barak. Barak wanted the Supreme Court to be an "activist court," meaning that the court would not wait for issues to come to its benches, but rather, the court would increase its power and reach to enforce policy according to its own interpretation.

According to Barak, "everything is justiciable," meaning that no law, policy, or commercial dealing was out of the purview of the court. In cases in which there are no laws or policies, the court can order the parliament to pass a law on a particular issue within a court-stipulated time limit or can order the government to carry out a specific policy.

Standing not required

In the United States, a plaintiff can only bring a case before the court if they are an injured party. And even then, a case must start in a lower court and advance through a court of appeals before reaching the Supreme Court.

In Israel, a case may be brought directly to the High Court. Further, the plaintiff does not need to have standing. As such, in Israel, NGOs (non-governmental organizations), some of which receive foreign government funding, are often the parties petitioning the court on any law or policy they want the court to review.

Principle of 'reasonableness'

In the absence of a constitution and in a system in which "everything is justiciable," the court has established its own principle of "reasonableness" to determine whether a law, policy, or contract is legal. Reasonableness in each case is determined by the court.

The court has used "reasonableness" to negate laws and to overrule government policies. In addition, court rulings can force a government to take particular actions, including demolishing homes (both Jewish and Arab) that the court rules were built illegally, even when such actions are highly controversial and not politically expedient.

The court has also used the "everything is justiciable" and "reasonableness" combination to overturn commercial contracts, including contracts signed by the government.

Case study: Noble Energy

A prime example was the court's canceling a contract signed in 2015 between the government and the US energy giant Noble Energy. Noble was to invest billions of dollars to exploit natural gas off the coast of Israel. The contract signed provided guarantees that Israeli governments would not change regulations for a period of 10 years to guarantee that Noble would make back its investment within that time period.

The court nullified the contract on account of this "stability clause," stating it was unreasonable in their view to hold future governments to the agreed-upon terms. Noble nearly walked away from the deal altogether, even after it had already invested significantly into the project.

At the time of the ruling, Netanyahu stated, "The High Court of Justice's decision threatens the development of Israel's gas reserves." He added that "Israel is regarded as a state with excessive judicial intervention, which makes it difficult to do business."

Case study: Maritime border agreement

In addition, the court placed significant limitations on policies Netanyahu could enact during the periods in which he served as a transitional prime minister in the run-up to elections.

Yet just six months ago, transitional Prime Minister Yair Lapid, head of Israel's progressive Left, signed a controversial US-brokered deal to permanently delineate the maritime border between Israel and Lebanon. The deal gave 100% of the contested waters, including the natural-gas reservoirs contained therein to Lebanon in exchange for royalty payments on extracted gas.

The court refused to hear a petition on the legality of Lapid signing such a deal.

Case study: Forcing Knesset speaker to resign

In Israel's third (of five) consecutive election cycles, Netanyahu was two seats short of forming a right-wing majority. Yet the left-wing and Arab minorities were similarly unable to form a majority coalition.

During the electoral deadlock, left-wing parties sought to advance retroactive bills that would invalidate Netanyahu as a prime minister, one on the basis of term limits, and one on the basis of the criminal charges brought against Netanyahu.

Colluding with the anti-Netanyahu Opposition, the court ruled that Yuli Edelstein – a Netanyahu loyalist and Speaker of the Knesset – must resign his post so that the 61-seat opposition could assign a new speaker to advance the bills. The ruling was in contradiction of explicit Knesset bylaws that state that a new Knesset speaker can only be appointed once a new Coalition is presented.

In a stunning turn of events, Netanyahu quickly formed a unity Coalition with challenger Benny Gantz before the laws could be advanced, rendering the court's ruling meaningless and soon after forgotten.

These are just a few of several case studies that cause many on Israel's Right not to trust the court's better judgment.

Self appointment

At the heart of the tension between the court and the government is the homogenous composition of the court's justices. The court has been able to keep itself near-uniformly left-wing by the nature of the justice selection process.

In the United States, Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and then ratified by the Senate. Over the course of time, justices are nominated by presidents of both parties. Oftentimes, the party that controls the White House doesn't control the Senate. In such a case, the president will have no choice but to nominate a moderate candidate in the hopes of getting the other party to ratify the appointment.

As such, even though the balance of power between liberals and conservatives on the court may swing from one side to the other, the justices basically represent the views of the full cross-section of American citizens.

In Israel, the 15-seat Supreme Court is a largely homogenous body in which most of the justices are descendants of European Ashkenazi Jewry and are unapologetically left-wing liberal. While Sephardi Jews make up more than 50% of Israeli society and are largely responsible for the election of a right-wing coalition, there is only one Sephardi member of the court. There are three religiously observant members (two live in settlements) and one Arab member.

Supreme Court justices in Israel are selected by a nine-member committee. Seven out of nine votes are required for a justice to be approved. The first three members of the committee are sitting court justices. This means that the court has an automatic veto on any candidates it does not want to reach its benches.

The next two members of the committee are members of the Israeli Bar Association. As such, unelected lawyers have a say in who will be the judges. Together, the justices and the Bar Association typically – though not always – vote in alignment. When they vote together, the two factions hold a voting bloc of five or a majority of the nine-member selection committee.

The remaining four members of the committee are politicians. They include the justice minister, a second minister in the governing coalition, a Knesset member from the coalition, and usually a Knesset member from the Opposition.

If a left-leaning government is in power, it's easy to advance the appointment of a staunchly liberal justice through the committee with a supermajority of seven or eight ideologically aligned committee members voting in concert.

Yet when a Right-leaning government is in power, advancing the appointment of a staunchly conservative justice has consistently proven to be much more complicated. In such a case, both sides ultimately need to compromise on a more moderate candidate following rounds of intense negotiations.

Of the 15 Supreme Court justices, four are considered moderately conservative and 11 are liberal. By contrast, there are 70 conservative Knesset Members to 40 liberals. Israel is a right-wing country with a left-wing court.

Attorney general

Last but not least, the justice system has a representative that sits inside the government itself. In the United States, the attorney general is appointed by the president and is a member of the cabinet. While the attorney general retains degrees of independence, they are appointed by the government in power and tasked with advancing the policies of the president. If a new President is elected, they appoint their own attorney general.

In Israel, the attorney general is a professional appointment that serves out a six-year contract regardless of how many governments may come and go during that period. As such, the attorney general may not be politically aligned with the prime minister or the governing coalition. If the attorney general disagrees with a law or policy, then they may issue an opposing legal opinion.

Unlike in the United States, in Israel, the attorney general's opinion is considered legally binding according to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, each ministry in the government has its own legal advisors. These are also professional appointees, and they report directly to the attorney general. So, there is a mini-attorney general inside each ministry of the government. Their opinions are also binding.

The current attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, was appointed by the previous one-year "change" government led by Naftali Bennett and Lapid, which was united only in its opposition to Netanyahu. Now that Netanyahu is back in office, the attorney general has been actively opposing government policies at her own discretion and refusing to represent the government's positions before the court – forcing the government to hire private legal counsel.

Instead of the attorney general working for the prime minister, the prime minister is directly answerable to the attorney general. At present, one can argue that the Baharav-Miara is currently the most powerful government official in Israel, despite being unelected, and is effectively behaving as the unofficial chairwoman of the Opposition.

The reforms

The reforms presented by current Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Knesset Law and Constitution Committee head Simcha Rothman seek to reverse the imbalance.

The first is to change the selection process for justices. The government seeks to expand the committee to 11 members, while simultaneously removing the bar association. As such, the coalition would have six members and the lion's share of weight on the selection committee. While a conservative government could pass a conservative candidate to the court, a liberal government could pass a liberal candidate, and a unity government could pass a moderate candidate.

The next reforms would cancel the concept of "reasonableness," enforce standing before the court and limit the court's ability to negate legislation – in particular, Basic Laws.

The override clause

Had the Coalition stopped there, they may have found greater sympathy among the general public for their reforms. Yet the coalition presented two additional and highly controversial reforms: a notwithstanding clause and a Knesset override.

The notwithstanding concept would enable the Knesset to pass new laws with a specific clause that would prevent the court from being to rule on their legality.

The override clause would permit the Knesset to reverse Supreme Court decisions with a vote. The coalition proposed that a simple 61-seat majority could override Supreme Court decisions. This would give any governing coalition supremacy over court rulings.

Opponents and even many supporters of judicial reform have argued that such revisions swing the balance of power too far in the Knesset's favor. Even those who would support a Knesset override argue in favor of a supermajority of 70 or 80 Knesset members, which would include members of the Opposition.

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If both members of the Coalition and the Opposition believe a court ruling should be overturned, that is a truer indication that the court's ruling may have gone too far.

Many opponents of the reforms latched onto the simple majority override as proof that the reforms were merely a power grab. That is unfortunate because the override clause drowned out more moderate and meaningful reforms that the political center in Israel would have been more likely to support.

Pausing the reform bills

In the wake of the escalating protests that have consumed Israel, Netanyahu has announced that he has paused the advancing of the reform bills. Parties in the Coalition and the Opposition are now attempting to negotiate an agreed-upon formula for judicial reforms, led by Israel's President Isaac Herzog.

Based on the rhetoric of both sides leading up to the negotiations, it appears that an agreed-upon formula for meaningful compromise may be difficult to achieve. It is extremely likely that a breakdown in negotiations would lead to a renewed round of further escalated protests.

For the good of the country and for healthy governance, it will be preferable for all sides to reach agreeable – albeit imperfect understandings – and to slowly enact balanced reforms with broad public consensus.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The rise of Itamar Ben Gvir is one of the major storylines of the fifth election cycle in little more than three years. The political firebrand from the right flank of the political spectrum is soaring in popularity, with polls showing his Religious Zionist bloc garnering as many as 14 of the Knesset's 120 seats.

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That would likely make the Religious Zionist Party the third-largest in the Knesset (behind Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid) and larger than the State Party by Defense Minister and former Netanyahu challenger Benny Gantz. At 14 seats, the Religious Zionist Party would be twice as large as the former Yamina faction was when its leader, Naftali Bennett, emerged as prime minister in an unlikely alignment after the previous election last year.

The bloc is a combination of three relatively small right-wing parties. They banded together to run in a technical bloc, to ensure that none of the three would fall below the 3.25% vote threshold for entering the parliament. The Religious Zionist bloc is led by former Transportation Minister and longtime parliamentarian Bezalel Smotrich. Several other well-respected MKs including Simcha Rothman and Orit Strock sit high on the candidates list. The list has four women in its top 20 positions.

Israel's staunchly nationalist right-wing parties rarely surge to such high parliamentary numbers. But Ben Gvir, No. 2 on the Religious Zionist list and head of the small Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) faction, is capturing the populist wave in the current election campaign, in large part because Israel's left-wing media have turned him into the top story. Ben Gvir has become a regular guest on Israel's political news programming.

At the same time as they invite him to air his views on live television, much of Israel's left-leaning mainstream media – along with anti-Netanyahu politicians – have branded Ben Gvir a "racist."

Speaking to JNS, Ben Gvir said, "Our Tanach [Bible] teaches us that we are from here, we have come back to our land. I am not a racist, I do not hate Arabs, I hate terrorists."

The accusations against him are based on positions Ben Gvir held in his early teenage and young adult activist days. He was an ardent supporter of the teachings and principles of former Knesset member Meir Kahane, whose political party was later banned from the parliament due to its anti-Arab positions. As a Kahane supporter, Ben Gvir was prohibited from serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.

Yet he contends that the media is doubling down on the message that he is a racist "in order to shoot the messenger, instead of allowing discourse on serious issues facing the Jewish state. We have a major Jihad problem on so many levels that our political leaders and security experts refuse to deal with head-on."

He added, "I am the candidate saying that the emperor has no clothes and that we have some serious problems. They want to get rid of my message – and all of Israeli nationalism for that matter – so they call me a racist."

Despite not serving in the military, Ben Gvir is running on a platform of enhanced security for Israeli citizens.

The religious nationalist grew up in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret, raised in a mostly secular yet traditional family. Since that time, Ben Gvir has become an observant Jew, married and a father of six, living in the Jewish settlement of Hebron, site of the biblical Cave of the Patriarchs where Jewish forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their wives – Sarah, Rivka and Leah – are buried.

He explained to JNS regarding his past, "I now have six children. I am 46 years old. I came from a more radical tradition but I have matured since then. I have grown to understand better the precise problems I am trying to tackle. The problem is jihadism, which is a neo-Nazi-type movement of dangerous extremist enemies in our midst. In fact, it is the jihadism that suppresses regular Arabs living here. They too are looking to Israel to defeat this movement and provide greater security."

Today, Ben Gvir is a highly successful civil rights attorney who has tried numerous cases and won several before the Supreme Court. He has fought cases of police brutality against Jewish civilians and in defense of soldiers who faced imprisonment for taking action against terrorists and were wrongfully accused of violating the army's strict rules of engagement.

In recent years, Ben Gvir has attempted to moderate both his statements and his image. But for many Israelis on both the left and the right of the political spectrum, he has struggled to shake his reputation.

"They want to bury me as a way to strike at Jewish nationalism," he said. "So instead of telling the voters what they are really against, they accuse me of being anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Arab and everything else the liberal world stands for. They make me out to be their boogeyman instead of saying that they are against nationalist principles and greater security for Israeli citizens."

Yet for many voters, his positions are an expression of common sense that has been missing from Israel's political and security discourse.

Ben Gvir said, "My vision is a proud, strong Jewish state. I have no problem with our minorities – provided they are law-abiding citizens – but I do have a problem with those who raise a hand against our police and soldiers."

Many of his views on Israel's security resonate strongly with citizens who have seen risks to personal safety increase in recent years. In the past decade, thousands of illegal firearms including automatic assault rifles have been smuggled into Israel or manufactured locally, ending up in the hands of Arabs living in Judea and Samaria as well as in Arab-Israeli cities. Arab-on-Arab murder has soared in recent months, while Arabs rioted against Jews in mixed cities during a conflict in Gaza in May last year, without a harsh police response.

In the country's northern and southern peripheries, Ben Gvir explains that Israelis often pay mafia-style protection payments to local Bedouin to ensure their homes, businesses and equipment are not robbed, or worse. Rules of engagement for the army and police have become continuously stricter, with security personnel unable to open fire on terrorists – even in highly dangerous situations – unless they are actively being fired upon, putting their own lives at great risk.

Worse, he says, many of the terrorists captured by Israel sit together with fellow Arab murderers – some serving life sentences – in "country club" prison conditions, with televisions and cellphones, while receiving degrees from universities and stipends from the Palestinian Authority. In the past, prisoners including convicted murderers have been released as part of "peacemaking" gestures to the PA.

Ben Gvir and his party are taking firm stances against terror and calling for loosening the strict rules of engagement in an attempt to restore waning deterrence. He calls for terrorists to be expelled from Israel, and for instituting the death penalty for those convicted of murder.

"Those who murder children should not see the light of day. I want to give strength to our army and police," he said.

He hopes to become minister of public security in a future government.

"It is my goal to return security to the citizens of Israel, like [former mayor] Rudy Giuliani did in New York City. I want to change the rules of engagement so soldiers can shoot at anyone throwing Molotov cocktails. There needs to be immunity for soldiers and police who are on the front lines," he said. "We need to protect citizens and residents and bring back the sense of safety to Jews and Arabs alike. The only way we can do this is with a strong army and police, and security for all the people of Israel – regardless of their faith or race."

In recent weeks, Ben Gvir's party has risen by several seats in the polls at the expense of Netanyahu's more moderate Likud.

The rise is due in part to the feeling among many right-wing voters that they have been burned by moderate right-wing parties that ultimately formed coalitions with left-wing partners and sidelined right-wing priorities relating to Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and other issues, in favor of centrist or left-wing policies.

Such moderate right-wingers previously included Bennett, who shunned his national camp and the pro-Netanyahu right-wing bloc in favor of a rotation arrangement for premiership with Yair Lapid, head of the progressive Left. The agreement sent most of the right-wing into the opposition and brought every single member of Israel's left-wing into the coalition, along with Ra'am, a party associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

One of the storylines in that government was whether Ra'am would withdraw moral support for Hamas in favor of supporting Israeli military action in Gaza or Judea and Samaria.

Bennett's government collapsed after barely a year when his own Yamina party imploded under pressure from its right-wing voters. Bennett – now without a voter base – announced he was taking a hiatus from politics. And as part of the convoluted coalition agreement, it is the left-wing Lapid who is now serving as a caretaker prime minister, despite Israel having a large right-wing electoral majority.

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Seeking to make sure that the left does not retain power, many nationalist voters are pinning their hopes on the farthest-right flank of the political spectrum to ensure their votes are not co-opted once again.

"Nationalism stands for God. It stands for patriotism. It stands for particularism. And it stands for strong defense. These are things that the Israeli left-wing is against. They are against a religious, biblical outlook, they are against nationalism. And they are against real defense," Ben Gvir said, quipping that "One of the great mysteries of the world is why liberals have aligned with support of jihadis."

Ben Gvir's rise is sending shockwaves through Israel's political system as well as close observers abroad, many of whom are concerned that a former Kahane supporter could be tapped as a senior minister if right-wing ally and Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu re-emerges as prime minister.

Yet he and right-wing voters are concerned that Netanyahu may shun his natural right-wing ally during coalition negotiations, instead choosing to govern with left-wing partners who may be willing to concede some of their demands for the opportunity to keep Ben Gvir out of government.

"Likud needs a strong party to the right, to keep it on the right," Ben Gvir said. "Many Likud voters want a right-wing government that promotes Jewish values. And the only way that can happen is together with our party."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post 'I do not hate Arabs; I hate terrorists' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year consecutive term as prime minister came to a close just over a year ago, after successive parliamentary blocking maneuvers prevented him from forming a stable right-wing government.

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What formed in its place was an unstable alliance including every single member of the Left, and – for the first time in Israel's history – an Arab party that is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The blocking coalition which brought Israel's significantly smaller left-wing minority from the back benches of the opposition into senior government ministries was empowered by a handful of right-wing defectors who hoped that preventing Netanyahu from taking office would later usher in an era of new right-wing leadership.

The coalition was led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid under a rotation arrangement. Neither had the parliamentary support to form a coalition on their own.

By all accounts, the government was a disaster. The fractious coalition did not provide the political stability its leaders promised. Even more disappointing to the coalition's members and its supporters, Netanyahu, now leader of the opposition, refused to step aside, knowing that the improbable coalition was certain to crash. Crash it did, with Bennett resigning from politics after barely a year in office.

Despite being sent kicking and screaming into the opposition, Netanyahu remains Israel's most popular politician by far, as well as the most polarizing.

In his brief time away from office, he began feverishly penning his memoir, "Bibi: My Story," which covers his early childhood and upbringing, explains how he came to be known as Bibi and how he got the famous scar on his lip. It then covers his military service as an officer in the elite Sayeret Matkal special forces unit, including details of several daring cross-border missions and near-death encounters, including taking a bullet in the arm from friendly fire during the successful storming of a hijacked airplane at Israel's Lod Airport.

The 650-plus page account travels through episode after episode of key political and diplomatic challenges and events during his 15 collective years as Israel's longest-serving prime minister, from how then-President Bill Clinton openly acknowledged doing all he could to keep Netanyahu from first entering office, to a controversial address to a Joint Session of Congress warning against then-President Barack Obama's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal), to the triumphant signing of the historic Abraham Accords and everything noteworthy in between.

The book captures Netanyahu's worldview and thinking on the role Israel must play, not only as a safe haven for a people that formed a nascent state following the horrors of the Holocaust, but as a beacon of democracy, burgeoning free market economy and emerging superpower.

"Bibi: My Story" is an attempt to reframe the narrative around Israel's most successful and controversial politician, to tell his story the way he wants it told, following years during which an antagonistic, left-wing press drove the narrative.

And seemingly, Netanyahu's greatest hope is that the final chapters of the memoir will only be written after at least one more term as prime minister of the Jewish state.

Netanyahu sat down for a wide-ranging interview with JNS, on his seventy-third birthday, in Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss his book, his views on recent current events, including the controversial maritime border agreement with Lebanon, the Russia-Ukraine War, domestic protests in Iran, the United Nations and the policies of former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, as well as of current President Joe Biden. He also shares his views on American election interference, elusive peace with the Palestinians, the possibility of full Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, the Abraham Accords and what he hopes to accomplish in a new term.

Q: First of all, I want to wish you a very happy birthday. It's a very auspicious day for doing an interview.

"Thank you."

Q: We read in the news this morning [Friday] that the UN permanent Commission of Inquiry against Israel, led by Navi Pillay, has just once again cited Israel for violating international law. You spent a lot of time at the United Nations as Israel's UN ambassador. Is the UN an antisemitic body, and have you ever considered that Israel should potentially leave the organization?

"Yeah, I considered it a few times, and I actually stopped the payments to the UN after one particularly egregious anti-Israel move that they made. But the best news I have is the best advice I got was from the Lubavitcher Rebbe [Menachem Mendel Schneerson], who told me shortly after I came there … 'You're going into the House of Lies.' That's how he called it, 'the House of Lies,'" and said, "remember that even in the darkest hall, if you light one candle of truth, its light will be seen far and wide. That's your job, to light the candle of truth before the peoples of the world.

"Well, I tried to do that, and you can use the podium in the UN to do exactly that. In other words, they lie about us, they slander us, they vilify us, but we can also point out the truth to the representatives of the nations and public opinion around the world. It's a good podium. It's a good bully podium, actually. I bullied quite a lot there."

Q: You write in your book about how the Clinton administration organized efforts to try to keep you from becoming the Prime Minister of Israel. Isaac Herzog, who used to lead the Labor party, had the V15 organization, which was supported by many Obama consultants, to try to prevent you from retaining office…

"Well, with the State Department funds; it's even worse."

Q: Now, Herzog is the president of Israel and he's about to travel to the United States just days before a general election. Are you concerned about potential US election interference and what would be your advice to Herzog on this trip?

"I don't have to give him advice. He's sufficiently worldly and experienced not to need it. But would I say that American administrations have tried to intervene, especially against me? The answer is yes. Clinton openly admitted it. And again, under Obama, the State Department gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to NGOs working to topple my government. There's no question. In an election campaign. Was that effective? I don't think so, but I would advise them not to do it. I don't do it. I don't intervene in American elections. They shouldn't intervene in ours."

Q: When the Russia-Ukraine war began, then-Prime Minister Bennett was very careful to take a neutral stance on the conflict. Current premier Lapid has been more vocal in his support of the Ukraine and his condemnation of Vladimir Putin's attacks. You probably know Putin better than most world leaders. What do you think Israel's position should be in the conflict?

"Well, there are two issues. One is Israel's relationship with Russia vis-a-vis our conflict with Iran over the skies of Syria. We're flying side by side and preferably not bumping into each other with the Russian Air Force. Our pilots and Russian pilots literally see each other [from] their cockpits. So we want to avoid a conflict with them. And I've taken pains to do that.

"On the Ukraine matter, I think there's no question there is a horrible tragedy taking place there. It shouldn't have taken place. It shouldn't have happened, but it is happening. And the current Israeli government has used words but has not actually done anything beyond the humanitarian level. Which I think is important – they've done important stuff on the humanitarian side, taken in more refugees, Jews and non-Jews, proportionately, probably than most if not all countries in the world.

"But I can say that the question that will really come to my desk if I become the prime minister would be the question of Israeli arms. And I've said that I will look into that when I get all the information. And when I sit behind that desk, I'll look into it and then I'll decide."

Q: You were involved in attempting to negotiate a maritime border agreement with the Lebanese for close to 10 years. Suddenly Lapid becomes the prime minister, the formula of the negotiations completely changes and he's able to quickly close a deal. How?

"The formula of the negotiations? It's called capitulation, not formula for negotiations. Have you become a diplomat? They gave up, unilaterally, everything that we were fighting for; 20 times the area of greater Tel Aviv. They just ceded it to the Lebanese, who were amazed. They couldn't believe that they were getting this bonanza of economic waters and gas and so on.

"And you can argue whatever you want to argue about it, but there are two things: First, common sense and common practice dictates that they bring it to the Knesset – and they wouldn't do it – for approval. And second, and that's the worst – you can't argue this – this deal was done after Nasrallah, the leader of his Hezbollah, sent drones, attack drones, against our gas fields in the Mediterranean, with a clear threat, a spoken threat in which he said, 'I'll make Israel give us everything we demand by the threat of our arms.' That I think is the worst thing about this deal."

 Q: Did you see a formula where Israel could have kept the Qana Reservoir?

"Yeah, well we certainly could have gotten a better deal. That's why we didn't have an agreement – because Hezbollah, for 10 years, was asking for what they just got, and we wouldn't give it to them. Now, in three months, [Lapid] just capitulated. But the capitulation, under a terrorist threat by a terrorist chieftain, I think is just a horrible blow to our deterrence. And I'll have to restore our deterrence, as I always do after a leftist government. I'll have to restore our deterrence if I come into office in two weeks."

Q: In the third election cycle, you pledged to fully annex the Jordan Valley to Israel. Then it kind of got thrown in with the signing of the Abraham Accords, where you agreed to suspend the annexation. What happened?

"No, I didn't agree to suspend. I had an agreement to have Israeli law applied – or annexation, as it's popularly called – in the Jordan Valley and a third of Judea/Samaria/the West Bank and areas that everybody knew would remain in Israel. People describe them as isolated settlements and so on. They're not isolated. I mean, 90% of the Jews, of the Israeli citizens who live in Judea and Samaria, live in suburbs. They're no different from Georgetown to Washington or Brentwood to Los Angeles – suburbs of our major cities – and the remainder live in a few points that are really minuscule and not significant" in size.

"So I said, they're going to stay there as part of Israel in any case. Half of Jerusalem is defined wrongly as a settlement, until, by the way, the United States changed that recently under Trump. They [also] recognized the legitimacy of Israeli so-called settlements.

"The reality is that a third of [Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank], which includes biblical sites, strategic sites, and Jewish suburbs of our major cities, they're going to stay in Israel no matter what. We'd like more – possibly everything – but that's not the point. The point is everybody recognized this part will stay, so why not recognize it the way Trump recognized Jerusalem as our capital? And it's been that way for 3,000 years since King David; so why not recognize this reality too?

"And I thought that I would act on that, but I didn't want to act on it without an agreement with an American administration because otherwise it would flare up to an international crisis that was not warranted.

"We had an agreement to do that. We didn't surprise the president. We exchanged letters to that effect. On the eve of discussing the Trump plan, the president himself spoke about it. And then, not minutes later but a couple of hours later, I was surprised because this understanding didn't hold. The American government backed off. You can ask them why they backed off. But I would still try – and I will try – to resume that course if I get elected, and to get America to recognize that this moves peace forward.

"The reason you don't have peace with the Palestinians is because they refuse to recognize Israel under any boundary, for a century now. Whereas the other Arab countries we've made peace deals with basically embraced the idea of the Jewish state. As long as [the Palestinians] cling to the unrealistic assumption that we're going to dismantle half of Jerusalem and dismantle these suburbs, you ain't gonna get peace. You're going to get nothing. You cannot build peace in the Middle East on fantasy. Any peace built on lies and fantasy will founder on the rocks of Middle Eastern realities.

"It's about time to recognize what is going to be. What is [currently] there, and what is going to be."

Q: It appears that one of the major components of the Abraham Accords was that the Palestinian negotiation track was completely sidelined in those normalization agreements. When the Negev Forum Summit took place in February in Israel, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was here and he said very publicly that the Abraham Accords "were no substitute for a peace agreement" with the Palestinians.

"I didn't say they're a substitute, but is there a prerequisite? That is, do the Palestinians have a veto? Because that's what they had for a quarter of a century. After our initial peace treaties with Egypt and with Jordan, for 25 years – a quarter of a century – we had nothing. Because everybody said, "First, you have to make peace with the Palestinians." That's kind of hard, because the Palestinians aren't interested in peace with Israel. They're interested in peace without Israel. They don't want a state next to Israel. They want a state instead of Israel.

"So, if you wait for the Palestinians, you're never going to have peace with other Arab countries because they will veto it. Which they did. I got around that, because I said, "Peace doesn't go through the Palestinian seat of government in Ramallah, it goes around it." And I went directly to the Arab states, and we made four peace agreements with four Arab states in four months.

"Well, obviously with a lot of clandestine meetings and preparations before it.

"But that just goes to show that if you wait for the Palestinians, you're not going to get peace. You're going to get stagnation and ultimately war. If you go around the Palestinian rejectionists, and go to the Arab world first and get the 99%; then [you can] come back to the one percent. Don't let the one or two percent of the Palestinians wag the body of the Arab world, which is what American policy and Western policy in the main was doing for so many years. For decades. It's just silly, and wrong, and proven wrong."

Q: You mentioned the four historic normalization agreements with Muslim-majority countries. Why do you think that you and the leaders of those countries didn't get a Nobel Peace Prize for that accomplishment?

"Oh God. I don't know. For God's sake, [Palestinian Liberation Organization founder Yasser] Arafat got the Peace Prize. I mean, the preeminent terrorist of our time gets the Peace Prize. After he gets the Peace Prize, he launches a wave of suicide bombings to claim the lives of over a thousand Israelis. So I don't think much of the Peace Prize, and I'm not particularly concerned with not having received it. And I think history is a better judge of contributions to peace than a politically correct committee in Scandinavia."

Q: Working together with president Trump, you accomplished more, possibly, than any pair of president and prime minister had accomplished for the State of Israel in such a short period. What do you think that you could have accomplished had both your administration and the Trump administration remained in office for a few more years?

"First of all, I think we could have accomplished more in the years we were there, because we spent three years going down the rabbit hole of a Palestinian peace, only to discover that they don't want peace. I knew that in advance, but it took a while to persuade the Trump administration.

"But in my first meeting with president Trump – and I describe this in my book – I said, 'There are four peace treaties to be had right away if we pursue them.' And we waited until the fourth year and happily achieved these four historic peace accords – the Abraham Accords. But I think the big prize is peace with Saudi Arabia, which I intend to achieve if I go back into office. And I think there's a chance I will achieve it, because I think Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab countries who haven't yet made peace with us know that I'm absolutely committed to preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons, which is something that they are keenly interested in.

"And so I think there's a correlation between the rise of Iran and the rise of Israel. The rise of Israeli power facilitated the Abraham Accords, and the continual nurturing of Israeli power will also nurture a broader peace with Saudi Arabia and nearly all of the rest of the Arab world. I intend to bring the Arab Israeli conflict to a close."

Q: You write extensively in the book about how Obama tried to prevent you from taking military action against the Iranian nuclear program. Then, you had several years in which Trump was in office. Assuming he didn't give you a green light to attack, he still probably would have provided the best diplomatic cover that a US president could have provided for such a strike. Do you regret not launching an attack on Iran during the Trump years?

"No. I think we did a lot of things, that I can't itemize. One thing has been public; I sent the Mossad to the heart of Tehran and we pilfered the Iranian secret atomic archive, which I think revealed to the world how much Iran is lying. And also revealed some secret nuclear installations, which now Iran refuses to have inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. We did a lot of things that I won't get into, that in fact delayed the Iranian nuclear program. But the task is still before us. I don't circle away from it, on the contrary. That's the other major reason I want to go back into office; to roll back Iran's nuclear program. And I think we have the means to do it."

Q: In the book, you often write about Obama as if he is an antagonist. But you're very careful to be much friendlier toward then vice president, and now president, Joe Biden. And it is clear that he does exhibit some deep sentiment toward the Jewish state. But you quote Biden saying, 'Bibi, I love you, but I don't agree with a word you say,' to which you reply, 'On many occasions, the feeling was mutual.' Are Biden's policies actually very different from Obama's?

"I think on the question of Iran, it remains to be seen. I think the pursuit of the nuclear agreement with a regime that oppresses its people brutally… And I have to take my hat off to the brave men and brave women of Iran. They're incredible. And they show you, they reveal what this regime is really about. Now, you're going to give a radical Islamist regime that chants 'Death to America' the means for mass annihilation? That's crazy.

"But that's what this deal [the new nuclear agreement with Iran] does. And I said to Joe Biden, 'I think it's a mistake to go for this deal, at most it would delay this program by a year or two. But it would pave its way with gold, with hundreds of billions of dollars of sanctions relief that Iran could use to build a mighty nuclear arsenal and also to foment its terror and aggression, not only in the Middle East, but worldwide. Don't do that.'

"And this is a point of disagreement. And I hope right now that [the Biden administration] is having second thoughts. Obama didn't – he went right ahead. And I think that was a source of conflict. And I appreciated the fact that I had some points of agreement with him, but there was a fundamental point of disagreement. Sure, about the Palestinians, but more so and dramatically so on the question of this dangerous nuclear deal that paves Iran's path to the bomb with gold. So, I was against it.

"It threatens my country, and I had to take a very difficult decision, which I deliberated considerably about, whether to go into the US Congress [and address a] Joint Session of Congress, to speak up against a deal being promoted by a sitting American president. And normally I wouldn't do that, but I decided my country's very survival was on the line, so I did it."

Q: You write in the book about how Obama "waxed lyrical about soft power." And you counter that "hard power is even better." You write that developing Israel's hard-power capacity "was the central mission of your years in office." Now, the Palestinians don't have hard power as compared to Israel. But they have launched and organized a global soft power campaign of delegitimization against Israel. Do you think that the delegitimization campaign against Israel represents an existential threat?

"I think it's dangerous, but I also want to put it in proportion. Remember the Arab boycott, that was supposed to boycott Israel? Well, the hard power of Israeli economic power and technology made the boycott absurd. Nobody can boycott Israel, because you boycott yourself. You have a cellular phone in your hand – who doesn't? Half of it is made in Israel. Half of the software is made in Israel. You drive a car? You use the GPS navigational system? You use Waze? That's made in Israel. And so on. Medicines and other things that serve humanity. The economic boycott has crashed in the face of Israeli power.

"And let me tell you something: The delegitimization was also crashed in the face of Israeli power. But the most important power that we need to delegitimize the delegitimizers is the internal conviction of the justice of our cause, presented forcefully. They call us colonists? We're not the Belgians in the Congo. We're not the Dutch in Indonesia. We're Jews, for God's sake. We came from Judea. We've been attached to this land for 3,500 years. From the time Abraham came here. You remember Abraham? You know what the name of his grandson was? Benjamin. That's my name. We're here, we're rooted here.

"And it's the Arabs who invaded this country in the seventh century and depopulated it. And we brought it back to life after years of tremendous neglect to the benefit of both its Arab and Jewish residents alike. I think the most important thing is that we believe in the justice of our cause. And I'm delighted that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world, evangelical Christians and others, who know the truth and fight back this slander."

Q: Now, Israel shares many liberal values with the West. But Western society, both in the Europe and in the United States, appears to be on a downward trajectory, not just economically, but even the moral foundations of these places are being challenged. Are you worried about the shifting of the global balance of power?

"Yes, I am. I often say soft power isn't enough, because I think you need hard power to buttress it. And without it, soft power of culture, of values and so on is largely useless. You had the Mongol Empire, which wasn't exactly dedicated to human rights, control a good chunk of the world with overwhelming power. The Roman Empire did the same, and Hitler almost did it. If he had gotten an atomic bomb early enough, he would've done the same. So soft power without hard power is not enough.

"But soft power is also necessary in the sense of recommitting ourselves to what it is we're fighting for. And I think you need a union of the like-minded countries, the democratic countries – shorn of the progressive radicals that basically undermine the fundamental values of our societies. The progressive, extreme radicals who hate Israel in the United States, also hate America and the traditional values that guided it. And I think that this is something that doesn't bode well for our countries.

"But, you asked me about the future of our civilization. I think I tend to come out on the more optimistic side because I think that what happens to people who sort of lose track of where they are and what keeps them together, they get mugged by reality. And Churchill said that democracies tend to slumber until they're awakened by the jarring gong of danger. Well, we can see a lot of jarring gongs of danger waking us up, and I think we will wake up. I don't think we in Israel need to be woken up. But I think collectively, yes, we are challenged. But I have faith that the values of freedom and democracy will overcome if we couple them with a belief in their importance, and [use] the military and economic strength to back them up in the face of those who challenge them."

Q: You talk about the economy. The US economy has been declining, yet Israel has in many ways tied the strength of its own currency to the US dollar by buying over $200 billion of foreign currency reserves. The Central Bank of Israel has been raising interest rates alongside a rise in interest rates in the United States. Do you think that Israel should be tying its economic success to the dollar, or should Israel be taking different fiscal policies?

"No, I don't think we should tie it to anything. First of all, I liberated the Israeli currency. You couldn't take out $200. Well, you could, $2,000 or something like that, without getting a clearance from the Central Bank. I opened up all the foreign exchange rates. I instituted a free market revolution, which was very tough, and I describe it in detail in the book. So as a result, Israel, under these free market reforms, now has its GDP per capita, income per capita, has now taken over past Britain, France, Japan and most recently Germany.

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"So Israel's become a fairly wealthy country because of these free market reforms. And I think you need to peg the shekel to free market reforms because we still have a lot of bureaucracy, and you know what that is? That's a growth engine. You know why? Because when you remove it, the economy jumps up for another decade. And I think Israel can be one of – perhaps among the top five wealthiest countries in the world."

Q: Now, in the last election cycle, Bennett basically turned against the will of his right-wing voters, and he formed a government together with every single member of Israel's left wing and also with…

"The Muslim Brotherhood."

Q: Right. Now, some members of the right-wing camp suggest that if you do cross the magic threshold of 61, that you also might form a government with members of the center and the left, as you have done several times in the past. What kind of guarantee can you give to the voters that you would form a right-wing government?

"Well, that's the first thing that I will do. Why should I form a left-wing government? The time that I had to incorporate members of the left was when Bennett himself, in a previous election, would not join my government because he said, 'Take away some of your right-wing partners and bring members of left of center government into the coalition.' So it was under parliamentary duress.

"I wouldn't do that. Why would I? I mean, with all due respect, these people believe in a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem. They believe in a Palestinian state, which would become an armed Palestinian state. And I've always said, 'That's not going to happen.' These things are against my views. Why should I sacrifice my views? What? To get a favorable op-ed for two minutes in The New York Times? Come on. I'm not there. I'm serious.

Q: You just published your memoirs. If there's one takeaway for readers, what would that one takeaway be?

"Well, many, but I would say number one, peace through strength is not a slogan. It's a reality. We cannot ensure the peace of our societies and the survival of our societies without nurturing the strength and spirit and body. That's the first thing, and that's what I've devoted my life to.

"And the second is the whole story of the Jewish state, the Jewish people as I've experienced it and had an opportunity to contribute to it, which I think is also a contribution to human freedom, because I think the story of Israel is a parable. It's a parable that says that a free people, if they muster their resolve and their courage, can overcome the most threatening odds of history. So it gives hope for everyone. If we can cross this raging river between annihilation and salvation as no other people has, then there's hope for everyone."

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post 'I intend to achieve peace with Saudi Arabia' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

After 10 years of failing to reach an agreement on the Israel-Lebanon maritime border, Prime Minister Yair Lapid has announced that an accord has been reached, calling it a "historic achievement."

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The agreement is highly controversial for a number of reasons, including that Israel essentially ceded the entire negotiating position it held firmly for over a decade and accepted the border demarcation proposed by Lebanon at the start of negotiations, with the exception of a small portion of territory near the land border between the two nations.

There are believed to be significant deposits of natural gas within the disputed waters, deposits that Lebanon will now be able and expected to exploit. Israel will receive some compensation for gas extracted from its territorial waters, though the actual volume of natgas in the well remains unspecified and the percentage of the royalties has yet to be fully negotiated.

Hezbollah is celebrating the deal as a victory while many in Israel and the United States – particularly those who had long been involved in the negotiations prior to Yair Lapid's ascension as caretaker prime minister – are calling the agreement a disaster.

Sovereign doctrine

The main issue relates to the value of the natural gas contained within the economic waters given up. The Qana well/Sidon reservoir is believed to have major quantities, although no commercially-viable quantities have been officially confirmed. A seismic study performed in 2012 suggested that the well may have as much as 25.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In addition to Qana, reports have referenced other potential reservoirs in the zone. On Wednesday, US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, who supports the deal, told JNS, "We are satisfied and happy that Lebanon will now be able to develop the fields – the one that everybody is talking about [Qana], as well as other fields in those waters."

Yet aside from the quantities of natgas, issues of sovereignty and security loom large. Where the maritime border is drawn impacts how close the Iranian proxy Hezbollah can get to Israeli population centers. And negotiations in which Israel gives up sovereign territory follow a dangerous pattern for Israel in which it signals that it is willing to cede areas of significant value whenever pressed to do so.

Negotiating with terrorists

While not in an official capacity, Hezbollah has been an active party to the negotiations. In early July, Hezbollah sent three drones towards the Karish natgas rig, located south of the maritime border in Israeli economic waters. The IDF shot them down but a clear message was sent that if Lebanese demands over the Qana well, which both Israel and Lebanon previously claimed, were not satisfactorily met, then the Karish well was not safe from Hezbollah fire.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly threatened Israel with war during the negotiations in recent months. Just last week, after it appeared talks might break down over new Lebanese demands, Defense Minister Benny Gantz publicly ordered Israeli troops on high alert, following warnings from the Mossad that Hezbollah might launch an imminent attack.

Proponents of the deal insist that Lebanon's having its own natgas rig opposite Israel's Karish rig provides mutual incentives not to spark a conflict. We do not know how close Israel was and remains to being in an all-out war with Iran's largest terror proxy, and we don't know how much time signing such a deal buys Israel before a future conflict.

We do know that immediately following the agreement on the deal, Nasrallah celebrated it as a victory, citing Hezbollah's "resistance" as the primary factor in convincing Israel to agree.

Bad buoy

Israel insists that the major gain for it, the one that protects its security interests, is Lebanon's acceptance of Israel's border claims for a distance of 5 km. from the shore. The area has been marked for years by buoys that have already served for all intents and purposes as a de facto border. Yet in the deal, Lebanon does not formally recognize Israel's territorial waters – some of which it ceded to Lebanon and are separate from the economic waters – as permanent demarcations, but rather as a "status quo" that may be renegotiated as part of a larger agreement in the future.

In practicable terms, Israel has not gained any territory or even any new understandings on its border. Rather, Lebanon acknowledges that the situation already existing will exist after the deal, pending some later event in which the demarcations are opened to renegotiation.

Third-party resellers

Israel is not signing a bilateral deal with Beirut. Lebanon still considers Israel to be an enemy state. Lebanon does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of the deal. Lebanon does not recognize its existing land border with Israel. The agreement is being signed by Beirut and Jerusalem with the United States, which is meant to serve as a facilitator, future negotiator and guarantor of the deal.

Israel's financial compensation for gas extracted under the deal, some of it in Israel's economic territorial waters, will be negotiated later with the third-party commercial entity, Total Energy, a French company that intends to exploit the Qana well on behalf of Lebanon.

Unstable and unable

Beyond the fact that Lebanon is not a direct party to the deal with Israel, it is an unstable actor. The country does not have a stable government and Hezbollah wields significant influence over Lebanese politics. Worse, the country is in lamentable financial straits and a severe energy crisis. While one of the purposes of the deal is to alleviate Lebanon's financial and energy woes, it is estimated that even if there is gas, it may take five to six years for quantities to reach shore. The environment does not lend itself to a large, viable commercial project and it is hard to see how Lebanon can securely expedite it.

Secret window

Though Israel and Lebanon have been negotiating for 10 years over the maritime border, American and Israeli officials have continually referenced a small and limited window of opportunity through which the deal needed to be closed. It appears that this window was based upon two factors: ramped-up threats from Hezbollah, and the likelihood that Yair Lapid – who takes his diplomatic marching orders from the Biden administration as well as French President Emmanuel Macron – may not be in office much longer.

Should former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who currently leads in the polls by a significant margin, return to power in the upcoming election, it is likely his government would have taken a much firmer stance against Lebanese demands. Netanyahu has railed against the maritime agreement agreed to by Lapid as a "complete surrender" to Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, nobody has told Israelis exactly why the accord needed to be signed urgently.

Caretaker peacemaker

The deal is being agreed upon just three weeks ahead of an election and barely two months since Lapid became a temporary "caretaker" prime minister of a transitional government. Israel's faulty "anybody but Netanyahu" coalition collapsed in July, just a year after it was formed, triggering the early election. That government was initially led by Naftali Bennett, who last week tweeted that the agreement being signed looks nothing like the proposals he reviewed as prime minister. The convoluted coalition agreement, which called for Bennett and Lapid to alternate as prime minister, temporarily thrust Lapid into office once the government collapsed and the election was called.

In short, Lapid does not have a mandate from the electorate to govern the country and is meant to be a caretaker prime minister to handle both normal and urgent affairs until a new government can be sworn in. Yet Lapid is trying to prove to Israelis that he is fit to lead the country, using his caretaker post as the seat of his election campaign.

Capitulation without representation

Israel's government is not meant to run with a caretaker at the helm and a lame-duck parliament on recess. As such, there are few clear rules or precedents about how affairs of state are to be conducted during such a period. Normally, an agreement like this would need to be brought to the Knesset for approval. However, at present there is no Knesset majority to pass even the most basic legislation, let alone a highly-controversial maritime border agreement with an enemy state and the transfer of natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Israel's recently appointed attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, recommended but did not demand that the deal be brought to the Knesset for approval. Lapid intends rather to simply present the deal to the legislature, but then approve the deal in the Lapid-Bennett appointed Cabinet, where it is expected to pass overwhelmingly. As such, the minority of politicians supporting Lapid as Israel's next prime minister will pass the deal, whereas the Knesset, which represents the complete range of Israeli voters, would most likely reject it.

Stunning resignation

Israel's lead negotiator Ehud Adiri suddenly quit just a week before the Lebanon agreement was announced. It was clear that all the positions Adiri was staking were about to be ceded by Lapid.

It was Adiri's resignation that paved the way for Lapid to flip Israel's previous negotiating position on its head and quickly close a deal Beirut could easily accept. The negotiations were closed by National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata, a Lapid confidante who has traveled to Washington for diplomatic meetings with the Biden administration more than any other Israeli official.

Faulty guarantees

Israel is essentially signing the deal because it is being brokered by the United States, and America has vowed to protect Israeli interests should Lebanon and Hezbollah violate it.

Meanwhile, the United States openly acknowledges the agreement may be problematic down the road. In a background press briefing by the White House on Tuesday, an unnamed senior administration official stated, "We expect that there may be other difficult moments as we implement this agreement moving forward."

The official added that "No one can guarantee where the future lies – and therefore no one can guarantee that opportunities for the future of Israel, for the security of Israel, and for the economic prosperity of Lebanon will still be there at a different time.

"And if there's any questions in the future of disagreement – not of conflict, which I do not expect, but of disagreement – the United States has assured both parties that it would use its best efforts through diplomatic means to see if it could help facilitate."

Israel should know better than to trust such guarantees. After the Israel-Lebanon War of 2006, it was the UNIFIL international body that deployed in southern Lebanon following Israeli withdrawal, with a mandate "to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind." Despite UNIFIL's presence, Hezbollah has deployed over 150,000 missiles pointed at Israeli population centers, many of them long-range and precision-guided.

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Similarly, the raging war between Russia and Ukraine demonstrates how a country can lose its power of deterrence to third-party guarantors. NATO guarantees to protect Ukraine in exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons failed to stop Russia from launching deadly attacks and bidding to forcefully annex its sovereign territory.

Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tweeted Wednesday that "All Israel is getting is a 'guarantee' from the US. What does that say, what is the nature of America's commitment, and why is that good for Israel or America? Remember, Bush's letter to Sharon was ripped up by HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] and the Budapest Memorandum was worthless."

In 2004, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon received a letter from President George W. Bush recognizing Israel's right to build in long-standing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem such as East Talpiot and Ramot and in "settlement blocs" crucial for Israel's security. According to the letter, these areas would remain within Israel's borders in any arrangement with the Palestinians.

The 1994 Budapest Memorandum extended security assurances to Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan for joining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Israel would have made a much stronger and more reliable guarantor of the gas reserve's security as well as any royalties Lebanon may have been owed, had the deal been signed in reverse.

The best Israel can do now is hope that the deal turns out as Lapid insists, although he likely will not be the leader to see it executed. And unless the deal secures deterrence against Hezbollah, and produces billions in revenue for Israel, Israelis will have many good reasons to cry foul.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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