The "March of the Million" near the Knesset in Jerusalem on Thursday evening may not have hit its target (organizers say 600,000 attended; police say 200,000), but it succeeded in putting to bed Opposition claims that Israelis are united against judicial reform. It also provided much-needed backing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's beleaguered government.

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Supporters of reform have been slow to respond to months of protests against it, which have forced the coalition back on its heels, leading Netanyahu to pause the process and enter into negotiations with the opposition under the auspices of President Isaac Herzog. Those favoring reform worry that the result will be a watered-down version of the legislation. Among the crowd's chants at the rally: "Stop being afraid" and "We don't want compromise."

Of the many politicians and right-wing figures who addressed the assembled, the biggest cheers went to the chief architects of judicial reform: Justice Minister Yariv Levin of Likud and Knesset Member Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism Party, who chairs the parliament's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

"Over two million Israelis voted six months ago in the real referendum: the election. They voted in favor of legal reform," Levin declared. "We are here on this stage with 64 mandates to right an injustice. No more inequality, no one-sided judicial system, no court whose judges are above the Knesset and above the government.

"We are told that if the reform passes there will be a dictatorship. There is no bigger lie than that. Show me a single democracy in which the legal advisers decide [government policy] instead of the government," Levin said, adding to cheers, "I will do everything in my power to bring the desired change to the judicial system.

"If someone were to tell me a few years ago that in 2023 there would be such a broad consensus in Israeli society for the need for judicial reform and that the situation today isn't democratic, I would have told him he was delusional," Rothman said. "Correcting the judicial system is my life's mission and I will continue to promote it in every way."

Likud MK Avichay Boaron acted as master of ceremonies. "The purpose of the demonstration is to remind and demand from our elected officials in the government and the coalition that the people want judicial reform, that the people are behind them, that the people give them strength," he said.

Netanyahu, who didn't attend for security reasons, tweeted, "I am deeply moved by the tremendous support of the national camp that came to Jerusalem this evening en masse. All of us, 64 mandates that brought on our victory, are first-class citizens. You warmed my heart very much, and I thank each and every one of you."

Twenty-nine NGOs sponsored the protest, foremost among them Tekuma 23, an NGO founded by political activist Berale Crombie together with Boaron. Its mission is to build support for judicial reform in the wake of the protests against it.

The pro-reform rally was different in tone from its anti-reform counterparts, which are grim affairs with warnings of pending dictatorship, clashes with police, solemn torchlit marches and women dressed as Margaret Atwood-inspired handmaids with heads lowered. This rally was boisterous, resembling a giant block party. Music pumped through large speaker systems. Protesters danced and sang. Strangers backslapped one another. It was festive. The optimism was palpable.

Encountering Herzl Hajaj of Choosing Life, a forum of Israeli terror victims and bereaved families, JNS asked him to explain the difference.

"The Right is always happier," he said. "There's a lot of money driving the Left's protests. The folks who make all the noise and confusion do it for a payment. People here have left work. They came from Eilat, Metulla, Dimona because their hearts are with this government."

Another notable difference was the age of the protesters. At Thursday's rally, youth was the rule with thousands of teens in attendance. Young families with infants were not uncommon.

Israel's right argues that the Supreme Court turned activist starting in the 1990s under then-Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, who orchestrated what he termed the "Constitutional Revolution." The government says its judicial reform program seeks to fix the problem that has grown with the years and restore the balance of power between the three branches of government.

Rothman told JNS earlier in the week that for the Opposition the protests aren't really about judicial reform but a clash between two visions of what Israel should be, a secular state on the lines of Denmark, or a Jewish state deeply connected to its particular religious and cultural traditions. If such is the case, the young teens chanting "Rothman" at Thursday's rally symbolize opponents' fear that demographics are against them. They see the Supreme Court as a check on right-wing ascendance, which explains their determination to defend its power.

Reformers are just as determined to drive through changes to the court, which they say rules according to a left-wing, globalist worldview.

Hajaj said, "Bereaved families, victims of terror, are here because the Supreme Court plays a big role in undermining deterrence against terrorists. They give them rights that no other country gives them. And we paid with the blood of our children. And the citizens of Israel will continue to pay with their blood until we change this."

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JNS also met Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of legal strategies at Palestinian Media Watch, who served in senior positions in the IDF Military Advocate General's Corps.

"What brings me here is the understanding that the legal system has to change. I was part of that ecosystem for 20 years. I was an assistant district prosecutor. And I understand that the legal system as it is today has completely failed," he told JNS, highlighting the self-selection process that goes on in the judicial system and precludes a diversity of views on the bench.

"We have members of the Bar Association appointing judges, lawyers appointing their friends to be judges with the assistance of Supreme Court judges, ensuring that they only appoint lawyers who are the same as they – in their image. Nothing changes. There's only one way of thinking," Hirsch said.

Im Tirtzu, an NGO and one of the rally organizers, organized street theater highlighting the Supreme Court's power. It featured people lined up in orange prison jumpsuits, representing a nation imprisoned by the court's rulings. Each carried a sign with a different ruling: "The Supreme Court requires National Insurance payments to terrorists," "The Supreme Court rejected petitions against the building of illegal mosques on the Temple Mount," "The Supreme Court prevents the removal of illegal [aliens] even when they're violent."

One protester wearing a mask of current Supreme Court President Esther Hayut held a stick with which he pretended to threaten and beat the uniformed protesters should they get out of line.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that he hopes to bring about "a full, formal peace" with Saudi Arabia, as Israel has done with other Gulf states. However, analysts say there are several significant obstacles to achieving full normalization with the Saudis.

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According to Eytan Gilboa, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), the chances of peace between Jerusalem and Riyadh are "low."

For starters, noted Gilboa, the Saudis have been consistent in their call for Palestinian statehood as a prerequisite to a regional peace, as per the Saudi's 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. While the Abraham Accords have turned on its head the concept that peace with the Palestinians must come before peace with Arab states, "Saudi Arabia is much more involved in the Israel-Palestinian conflict compared to the other members of the Abraham accords," he said.

Then there is the question of whether the United States, and specifically the Biden White House, will play the same role as the Trump administration did with the Abraham Accords, said Gilboa. Whether or not Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords largely depends on the United States, he added.

The Abraham Accords, signed by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 (later joined by Morocco and Sudan), involve a trilateral relationship between the Muslim signatories, Israel and the United States. It was Washington which greased the wheels that made the breakthrough possible, according to Gilboa. Morocco, for example, wanted the United States to recognize its sovereignty in Western Sahara. The UAE wanted American weapons. Sudan wanted to be dropped from the State Department's list of Foreign Terror Organizations.

"So the key is not what Netanyahu is going to do, but what the United States is going to do," and so far the Biden administration "has not been willing to make positive moves towards Saudi Arabia," said Gilboa.

US-Saudi relations have been strained since the 2018 murder in Istanbul of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi. US intelligence agencies determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the killing, and President Biden vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into a "pariah."

Although Biden visited Saudi Arabia in June, returning a measure of legitimacy to the regime, more recognition could be a concession Washington might make, said Gilboa. "They want American recognition of the pro-Western steps taken by MBS [Mohammed bin Salman]. This is important in Arab culture. This is something that Americans have never understood," said Gilboa.

Joshua Teitelbaum, a professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University, agreed, telling JNS that "some kind of rehabilitation" might tempt the Saudi crown prince. "I think he would be very pleased to have an agreement signed on the White House lawn, if it got that far. But would a Democratic president sign an agreement with someone who's been accused by the CIA of murdering a Washington Post journalist? That's the question."

Teitelbaum said he doesn't believe a full peace agreement is likely, but expects "minor steps" to move relations forward. (Netanyahu may have admitted as much in his comments last week, saying, "I want to go as big as we can, but sometimes to take a long journey it takes smaller steps, and that's not a problem.") Teitelbaum said there might be announcements along the lines of the one made during Biden's Middle East tour in July, regarding Israeli flights being allowed to traverse Saudi airspace. Perhaps Israel in turn will allow direct flights to Saudi Arabia for Arab Israelis making the pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca, he said.

But regardless of these challenges, all the experts agree that peace with the Saudi kingdom is key.

"Saudi Arabia is the grand prize. It's the richest country in the Arab world. It rules over the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina. It's probably the most central player in the Arab world," said Teitelbaum, reinforcing Netanyahu's comment last week that "if we have peace with Saudi Arabia, we are effectively going to bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Ronnie Shaked of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem made the same point, telling JNS: "Saudi Arabia is a symbol, the representative of [the Islamic prophet] Muhammad on earth. They keep the holy places: the Kaaba in Mecca, and in Medina, the tomb of Muhammad. That's the most important thing for every Muslim."

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Shaked is more optimistic about an agreement with the Saudis, due mainly to Iran. The threat posed by the Islamic Republic has forged a common interest between Jerusalem and Riyadh, he said. From Yemen, the Houthis, an Iranian proxy, attack Saudi Arabia. The Saudis need weapons, especially missiles, to counter Iranian drones in Yemen, and they need allies to confront Iran politically, to build a coalition against Tehran, he said.

More open relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are definitely possible, according to Shaked. The Saudis will very likely ask for concessions, such as special status on the Temple Mount, and a promise from Netanyahu not to annex Judea and Samaria. The latter, said Shaked, will be easy for Netanyahu. "Netanyahu understands that we've been in the West Bank for 70 years, so in actual fact we have annexed it. We don't have to declare it," he said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"Today, Theodor Herzl is best known for his beard, not his books," laments Gil Troy, editor of "The Zionist Writings of Theodor Herzl," in his introductory essay to a new edition of Herzl's diaries.

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Troy, a professor of history at Canada's McGill University now living in Israel, wants to make Zionism's founders come alive for the next generation. His latest effort is a three-volume collection of Herzl's writings.

The brainchild behind the series is Matthew Miller, owner of Koren Publishers, a Jerusalem publishing house producing mainly religious texts. Drawing inspiration from the Library of America, a publisher of notable American classics and historical works, Miller decided to create a Library of the Jewish People to bring together the best writings from Jewish history in the fields of religion, the arts and politics.

"The Zionist Writings" are the first titles in that ambitious effort. They include a fairly comprehensive collection of Herzl's diaries and other works, including his play "The New Ghetto" (1894), of which Herzl biographer Alex Bein said, "Herzl completed his inner return to his people"; Herzl's 1896 manifesto "The Jewish State"; and important essays, like "The Menorah" (1897), showing how, through Zionism, Herzl reconnected with his Judaism.

The series uses translations from the original German made by historian Harry Zohn in the 1960s. Other works, like "The New Ghetto," are newly translated by Uri Bollag.

Troy, who spoke to JNS the day after the book launch at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, said the Herzl series is his fourteenth book project and the first where he stood before an audience and said "Shehecheyanu" – a Jewish prayer to give thanks for special occasions – both to mark the 75th anniversary of the date the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a Jewish state (Nov. 29, 1947) and to celebrate the launch of Library of the Jewish People.

"It's an attempt to invite the Jewish people to build a bookshelf, because we've been building a bookshelf for thousands of years, but most of us don't know the Jewish texts, the Jewish canon," he said.

Troy sees no better place to start than Herzl. "He's our George Washington and our Thomas Jefferson all wrapped in one," said Troy. "Washington's diaries are interesting, but they're not ideological. That's why, when talking about Herzl in American terms, we say he's a cross between Washington and Jefferson, because he's also a conceptualizer."

Troy, who pored through 2,700 pages of Herzl's diaries, described them as "a political-science version of an artist's sketchbook."

"Herzl draws in the contours of the Jewish state. He plans different dimensions from a flag to the architectural aesthetic, from labor-capital relations to the dynamics between rabbis and politicians," Troy writes in one essay.

The series is organized chronologically. Troy wrote 11 introductions, one for each year Herzl was active as a Zionist (he died at 44 having suffered for years from a weak heart). Dividing by years can be artificial, but not in Herzl's case, Troy said, noting important yearly milestones in Herzl's development as a thinker and a leader.

Herzl, an assimilated European Jew, concluded through experience and observation that the only solution to the Jewish problem was a Jewish state. "Let them give us sovereignty over a portion of the globe that is large enough for our just national needs, and we will take care of everything else," he said.

The process to reach that conclusion was gradual – 13 years by Herzl's own estimate. "Just as the Jew-haters started seeing various unappealing traits as endemic to the Jewish character, Herzl started seeing Jew-hatred as endemic to the European character," Troy wrote.

When the idea of a Jewish state finally did spring upon him, it was like a thunderbolt. "I have the solution to the Jewish question," Herzl wrote while working on his manifesto. "I know it sounds mad; and at the beginning I shall be called mad more than once – until the truth of what I am saying is recognized in all its shattering force."

A talented journalist and playwright, he possessed a unique set of gifts – showman, statesman, prophet and political thinker – that propelled him to the head of the Zionist movement, which existed prior to Herzl but in scattered form. Herzl termed Zionism "the Jewish people on the march."

Herzl not only wrote the manifesto for a Jewish state but started the Jews on the path to building one, meeting world leaders and creating key institutions, including a Zionist congress, a newspaper – Die Welt, or "The World" – for disseminating Zionist ideas, and a Jewish Colonial Bank to raise the funds necessary for settling the Land of Israel.

While Herzl endured enormous obstacles and setbacks in pursuing his course, he maintained a remarkable surety of eventual success. The diaries are a testament to that certainty, which he begins in 1895 to chronicle his Zionist activities. "What dreams, thoughts, letters, meetings, actions I shall have to live through – disappointments if nothing comes of it, terrible struggles if things work out. All that must be recorded."

Herzl believed that a Jewish state was "a world necessity – and that is why it will come into being." When Herzl passed away on July 3, 1904, his will directed that he be buried in Vienna next to his father "until the Jewish people will carry my remains to Palestine."

Q: What attracted you to this project?

Troy: One of the things I've also been working on is what I call "identity Zionism." Herzl focused on political Zionism, an outer Zionism, which was all about establishing the state. … If political Zionism was all about establishing the state, identity Zionism is about building our core sense of self. Many of the core texts talk not just about an outer Zion but an inner Zion as well.

[Ed. note: Herzl himself touched on this inner Zionism, writing in 1895: "No one ever thought of looking for the Promised Land where it actually is – and yet it lies so near … This is where it is: within ourselves!" Similarly, in a speech in 1896 he talks about an inner transformation through the struggle for an outer Zionism. "I do know that even by merely walking along this road we will become different persons. We shall thereby regain our lost inner wholeness and along with a little character – our own character, not a Marrano-like, borrowed, untruthful character, but our own."]

As the volunteer educational chair of Birthright Israel, I find that what young people are missing most are things like identity, connection, community.

Herzl himself was kind of lost, traumatized. He felt cut off because he was being robbed of all the dreams that he'd bought into to be a proper European. The Jewish people were being robbed. And all of a sudden, he said, "I want something else." If you look at his journey, one of the exciting things about the diaries is that it's not a snapshot, it's a continuous, moving, motion picture. You see his evolution. He discovers bit by bit that Judaism is not just a dead ancestral force. It's not just this defensive thing that we've been tied to by our common enemies. It's something positive.

He has this beautiful story called "The Menorah." A year before, when he just started getting involved in Jewish issues, he was at home lighting his Christmas tree candles when the chief rabbi of Vienna walks in. He's not embarrassed; the chief rabbi of Vienna is embarrassed. The next year, he writes this story about a man who was cut off from his past, who paid the price for being Jewish but didn't appreciate its greatness. The man decides to buy a Menorah. …

The first night he lights two candles, and there's a little bit of light in the house. And each night, he lights another candle, and another candle, and more and more light comes into the house. And by the end, the house is ablaze with glory. And he realized that this is the journey that he's on, and that he's taking the Jewish people on. We all know that you're supposed to put your Menorah on the outside, but also you see it from the inside. That's identity Zionism. Political Zionism is the external Zionism. It says, "We are people who have a right to a state of our own." But it's also that inner light that says, in a world which eviscerates community, in a world that robs us of meaning and a world that robs us of connection, we're going to have this inner light and it's going to be a light that we share.

Q: What is the state of Zionist education today?

A: The only Zionism they've heard about in the States is the one that's being targeted; it's defensive and about Israel advocacy. In Israel, Zionism's been mummified. It's something you need to know to pass your matriculation exams – explain why this street is named Jabotinsky, or that one after Ahad Ha'am. But they don't look at Jabotinsky or Ahad Ha'am, or any of the others, as if they were alive today with ideas that are still relevant. Many young people, when you actually speak to them about Zionism as something alive, something dynamic, something relevant for today, get very excited.

Q: Why is it that of the two most important events relating to the Jewish people in the last century – the Holocaust and the creation of Israel – only one is studied while the other is virtually ignored?

A: I think the short answer is we're a traumatized people. The scale of the death, the scale of the suffering, is something that the human mind is still struggling with. So I understand it on one level, but I agree – we are so addicted to the negative, and who wants to join that?

I remember when I was in university. I didn't understand why the Holocaust courses would get 400 people and you could barely fill a classroom with anybody interested in learning about the State of Israel. And we're seeing it right now. We're building up to the 75th anniversary of the State of Israel and I'm not feeling the excitement. I'm not feeling the love. I've read a number of articles about this, challenging philanthropists and statesmen and Hollywood to start preparing for the 75th. This is an opportunity to frame Israel outside the politics and partisanship. Here's an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of Israel.

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And I'm well aware when I'm calling for Hollywood where they stand and how uncomfortable they'll be, but I can't imagine a greater opportunity. … Unfortunately, American Jews aren't thinking that way, and I don't think enough people here in Israel are thinking that way either: what do we do for the 75th?

Q: What would Herzl say if he could see Israel today?

A: He would be amazed. To think of that confession he scribbled to dear diary, embarrassingly, after the Zionist Congress, that 50 years from now the world will see that we established the Jewish state in this little Zionist Congress. People say he was off by one, but actually 50 years and three months later the United Nations signed off on this extraordinary thing. So I think he would say, "Wow, it really worked." True, there would be disappointment; he did think antisemitism would disappear. He also expected the exile, the Diaspora, to disappear. So he bet big on certain things that turned out to be wrong. But on the whole, he would be shocked at how well he did.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I'm starting this initiative with Gefen Publishing to write a series of children's books, for 12-to-14-year-olds, pivoted around choice. So the first one was Theodor's choice, that big moment when he decides to join the Jewish people. I'm now writing about David Ben-Gurion, which is much harder, because Herzl has those 11 years and it's one choice. Ben-Gurion has a series of choices. I think within a couple of months we'll have that first book out.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Benjamin Netanyahu's bookcase is familiar to Israelis, having served as backdrop to countless social media messages. To the discerning viewer, the books themselves are a message, for instance the two-volume biography of Vladimir Jabotinsky by Shmuel Katz.

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For his upcoming tenure as prime minister, however, there's been an addition. Peeking out over his left shoulder are nine small statues of Zionist figures.

The figurines are the brainchild of Assaf Harari, owner of Piece of History Studio. Harari began his collection – 35 figurines and growing – with a figure of Zionism's founding father, Theodor Herzl, famously gazing over a balcony in Basel, Switzerland, site of the First Zionist Congress.

Harari, who designs the figurines with help from a team he's assembled, traces his career to his mother, who has a strong interest in art and design. As a child, "I developed a passion for souvenir shops, especially in design museums and art museums," he told JNS.

Then, in 2010, Harari realized that Israel could do better in the souvenir department. "Here we were, the Startup Nation, and all we had were camels and hamsas," he said, the latter referring to palm-shaped amulets popular in the Middle East for warding off the evil eye.

Harari's motives go deeper, to a passion for Zionist history, and a parallel concern that youth in Israel aren't developing a strong enough Zionist identity. "We're living like Americans, consuming western TV and stuff," said Harari. "When you lose your identity, next you're asking, 'Why are we here?'"

"I want to answer this question for future generations, for my daughter. And I think telling that story with colorful, modern merchandise is just one of many things we need to do," he said. Indeed, Harari hopes to one day establish a museum of Zionist history.

Harari admitted he was excited to spot nine of his figurines on Netanyahu's bookshelf. Netanyahu is the second prime minister to display Harari's figurines. Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid was the first. Netanyahu's collection is different from Lapid's, however (only two overlap – Herzl and Menachem Begin).

Harari said that a friend bought the figurines for Netanyahu, so it can't be said that Netanyahu picked them himself, but that friend presumably knew which figurines Netanyahu would appreciate, and the future prime minister would certainly not have displayed them so prominently if he didn't agree with the selection.

And Netanyahu, the son of a historian, himself a student of history and an avid reader, would know in detail about the lives of each figure represented.

So what does each figurine represent for Netanyahu? With Harari's help, JNS delved deeper into the meaning of each one.

Theodor Herzl

As the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) belongs to everyone, right and left, standing like a colossus across all streams of Zionism.

Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, a socialist Zionist, said of Herzl, "A miraculous man, head and shoulders taller than other men, with beautiful features and a luminous face adorned by a long black beard."

Vladimir Jabotinsky, representing right-wing Zionism, said: "Herzl made a colossal impression on me – and I am not easily impressed by personalities. Here I felt that I really stood before a man chosen by fate, before a prophet and a leader."

A large part of the appeal of Herzl, an assimilated European Jew, was that he found his way to the idea of a Jewish state on his own. He describes coming to that idea in his diary:

"During these days I was more than once afraid that I was going out of my mind. So furiously did the cataract of thoughts race through my soul… Thirteen years were needed at the least in order that I might reach this simple thought."

Herzl published his ideas in "The Jewish State" in 1896. He then established the Zionist Congress, which became the central organization of a new Jewish world policy.

His greatest contribution was in showing the Jewish people how to achieve their dream of a return to Zion through political action.

Vladimir "Ze'ev" Jabotinsky

Zionist leader Vladimir "Ze'ev" Jabotinsky (1880-1940) has achieved mythological status for Israel's right, and is the inspiration for the Likud Party, where his image adorns banners at all major functions.

Jabotinsky founded the Jewish Legion in World War I, a group of battalions in the British army that were sent to fight in the Holy Land. He believed that only by fighting would Jews win a seat at the table in a post-war world. He said at the start of the war, "One Jewish battle banner in Palestine would speak to the world more loudly and more understandably than any words we can now utter."

"He had brought into being the first Jewish national military unit to fight for Palestine since the Bar Kochba rebellion 1,800 years earlier," said one biographer. "He was responsible for reviving the military tradition in Israel."

Jabotinsky also founded the pre-state self-defense organization, the Haganah, (though his name appears nowhere in the official history of the Haganah, which was produced by his political opponents), and the Irgun, or Etzel, another underground military organization that broke off from the Haganah.

He also established a worldwide youth organization, Betar, which still exists today.

His revisionist movement, founded in 1925, attempted to correct the backsliding of the World Zionist Organization led by Chaim Weizmann in the 1920s and 1930s.

Netanyahu referred to Jabotinsky's famous essay, the "Iron Wall," at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual meeting on Saturday.

In that essay, Jabotinsky wrote: "As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. … it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall."

Menachem Begin

Founder of the Likud Party and sixth prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin (1913-1992) is a seminal figure in Israel's history.

Begin was an acolyte of Jabotinsky and headed Betar Poland prior to World War II. He became leader of the Irgun, the underground organization in pre-state days which drove the British from Mandate Palestine.

Though it is questionable whether the State of Israel would have come into being without Begin's contribution, he remained in the political wilderness for 30 years as head of the Herut Party, unable to break the dominance of the socialist Mapai Party.

Begin eventually formed a coalition with other parties that became Likud (literally "consolidation"), and in 1977 won national elections for the first time, bringing him to the premiership.

Like Netanyahu, Begin was accused of being a fascist, and even likened to the Nazis by his political opponents. David Ben-Gurion as prime minister refused to identify Begin by name in Israel's parliament, referring to him only as the "the gentleman sitting to the right of Bader." (Yohanan Bader was another member of the Herut Party in the Knesset.)

David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973), Israel's first prime minister, coming from inauspicious beginnings in a Polish shtetl, arrived alone in the Land of Israel in 1906.

He would go from strength to strength, unifying the labor parties, becoming head of the General Federation of the Hebrew Workers, or Histadrut, and eventually taking control of the World Zionist Organization.

Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was leading Israel in the War of Independence. Chaim Herzog, later to become president of Israel, who fought in the war, wrote of Ben Gurion:

"The spirit that animated the people and the courage it reflected were the function of a rare form of determined and inspiring leadership. He made mistakes but they were those of a very great man. Without his foresight, imagination and determination, it is doubtful whether disaster could have been averted."

The second greatest accomplishment of Ben-Gurion was his decision to bring in the Jews fleeing Arab states like Morocco, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. In doing so, he went against the advice of many who feared it would over-tax Israel's meager resources. The state of 700,000 would double its size over a four-year period.

Although Ben-Gurion was a rival of Netanyahu's political heroes, notably Jabotinsky (Ben-Gurion famously called him "Vladimir Hitler"), it's impossible to imagine any prime minister's figurine collection without him, Harari said.

However, given the hostility that existed between the two camps, he said it would be better if the Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion figurines were separated. "They're right next to each other, practically holding hands," he exclaimed.

Joseph Trumpeldor

Joseph Trumpeldor (1880-1920) has become a hero and symbol to Israelis on both the right and the left. He represents the military ethos and the "new Jewish hero," said Harari. "He was the first brave soldier who died for his country."

Trumpeldor gained fame before he emigrated to Palestine. He fought in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), where he lost an arm. He returned to active duty, saying, "I still have another arm to give to the motherland." He became one of the most decorated Jewish soldiers in the Russian army.

Trumpeldor then went to Palestine. Along with many other Jews, he was expelled by the Turks during World War I and found himself in Alexandria, Egypt. There he met Jabotinsky, who was trying to convince the British to set up a Jewish Legion.

The British agreed to form a Jewish transport unit made up of Jews exiled from the Holy Land; Jabotinsky wanted a fighting unit. "Talking as a soldier, I think you overrate the difference," Trumpeldor told Jabotinsky. "Trenches or transport is practically the same – all so essential that you can't do without it; and even the danger is often the same. You are just afraid of the word 'mules,' and that is childish."

Jabotinsky then protested that they would fight on the Gallipoli peninsula and not in Palestine. "Also not at all essential, speaking as a soldier. To get the Turk out of Palestine, we've got to smash the Turk. Which side you begin the smashing, north or south, is just technique. Any front leads to Zion," he said.

In the end, Jabotinsky went to England to lobby for something bigger, while Trumpeldor went with 562 Jewish volunteers to Gallipoli as part of the Zion Mule Corps. Jabotinsky would later admit that Trumpeldor had been right, and news of the feats of the Mule Corps that reached London became his calling card as he went from government office to government office.

After the war, Trumpeldor would join a pioneer farming community in the Upper Galilee. It was at the farming village of Tel Hai on March 1, 1920 that he met his untimely end. In a firefight with Arabs, he was shot in the hand and stomach. He died while being evacuated. His last words were: "It's nothing. It's good to die for our country."

A note on figurines six, seven and eight: Sarah Aaronsohn, Yair Stern and Geula Cohen:

For Harari, these are among the more interesting choices in Netanyahu's collection. One common denominator is that these individuals were all outside the establishment; indeed, they were considered beyond the pale in their time. Netanyahu likely relates to them on a personal level, as he has been painted the same way by his political opponents, but he also is sending a message that he sees them as pathbreakers.

Sarah Aaronsohn

Sarah Aaronsohn (1890-1917) was a member of the World War I spy ring Nili (a Hebrew acronym meaning "the Eternal One of Israel will not lie"). The organization was the brainchild of her brother, Aaron Aaronsohn, who became world famous in 1906 in when he discovered specimens of wild wheat (triticum dicocoides) in northern Israel.

Aaronsohn recognized that the small Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel was in danger as long as the Ottoman Turks ruled Palestine and decided the best way to help the British drive the Turks from Palestine, was by providing intelligence. Most of the rest of the Yishuv preferred to lie low, fearing Turkish reprisals.

When Aaron went to Britain, Sarah took over the spy operation, managing 30 full-time agents. Nili lost most of its key people, and Sarah herself was captured by the Turks. Fearing she would break under torture, she took a gun from a secret compartment in her home and shot herself. She died four days later on Oct. 9, 1917.

However, the intelligence and advice they provided the British proved invaluable. The deputy military secretary of Gen. Edmund Allenby, who led the campaign against the Turks in Palestine, wrote later: "It was very largely the daring work of young spies, most of them natives of Palestine, which enabled the brilliant Field Marshal to accomplish this undertaking so effectively."

Avraham Stern

Avraham Stern (1907-1942) founded the underground organization Lehi, (a Hebrew acronym for "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel"). He named himself "Yair" after the commander of Jewish forces at the last stand against the Romans at Masada. He declared war on the British in August 1940.

To this day, his timing is questioned, coming only months after France had fallen to the Nazis. In contrast, the other underground groups, the Haganah and Irgun, pledged to help the British defeat the Nazis. But Stern saw the British as the chief enemy, occupiers of the Land of Israel.

The Jewish community in Palestine were horrified by Lehi's activities, particularly when several actions went awry, resulting in Jewish deaths. A future Lehi leader, Natan Yellin-Mor, said, "I think that throughout history, nowhere in the world was anyone as isolated, so totally cut off as we were."

Most of his group captured, Stern was eventually tracked by the British to a Tel Aviv apartment, where he was executed in cold blood. One of the detectives in the room later said, "He should never have been murdered, you can call it; that's what I'd call it. He was unarmed with no chance of escape."

Harari said that when he created the Stern figurine he received several angry messages. "Oh, so now you're making terrorist figurines – stuff like that," he said.

Stern and Lehi's reputation have grown with the years, helped by the election of Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister. By displaying the Stern figurine, Netanyahu shows he feels Stern represents a heroic chapter in Israel's pre-state history.

Geula Cohen

Geula Cohen (1925-2019) is yet another Lehi figure, part of a resurgence of the group after Stern's death. She joined when she was 18 and became the main radio broadcaster for the group. Cohen was famously captured by the British in the middle of a radio broadcast and sentenced to nine years in prison.

She later became a journalist for Ma'ariv and a Knesset member, where she served for almost 19 years. She started in Begin's Herut Party, which eventually became Likud, but left when Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords, returning the Sinai to Egypt. Cohen founded a new party, Tehiya, which supported Israeli settlements. Her son, Tzachi Hanegbi, is a prominent member of the Likud Party and a friend of Netanyahu's.

At her passing in 2019, Netanyahu said: "The voice of Geula Cohen will not be silenced. She belongs to the generation of the giants and will always remain a memory and example for us, who continue in her footsteps."

Edmond Rothschild

Edmond James de Rothschild (1845-1934) was an important member of the Rothschild banking family who played a key role in propping up the early Yishuv when it appeared on the brink of collapse.

In the early 1880s, the first groups of Zionist settlers arrived in the Land of Israel. They were young, idealistic and determined to pave the way for a national rebirth. But they were unprepared for what awaited them. The Land of Israel was barren, a place of dust, stones and marshes. Disease and death drove them to abandon the new settlement of Petach Tikvah.

It was then that Rothschild stepped in. He created a remarkable, unprecedented personal colonizing project, completely taking over four settlements, Rishon Lezion, Zichron Yaakov, Rosh Pina and Ekron, and helping many others. He had the malarial swamps near Petach Tikvah drained, allowing the Jews to return.

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In all, it is estimated the baron invested over a billion dollars in today's money. He became known to the settlers simply as HaNadiv ("the generous one").

Harari said that Rothschild symbolizes the importance of finance in establishing the State of Israel and also the relationship between Diaspora Jewry and Israel, often supplying the wherewithal to build up the state.

Finally, asked what figurines he feels are missing from Netanyahu's collection, Harari said he would add Natan Alterman and S.Y. Agnon, two literary giants who supported the Land of Israel Movement. That movement brought together public figures from both sides of the political spectrum who advocated holding onto territories captured in the Six-Day War.

"Netanyahu's is a largely right-wing collection, and those two would be a suitable addition," he said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Benjamin Netanyahu – Likud

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister and now head of the opposition, will attempt to win his sixth term as premier. Even his enemies acknowledge his political gifts and strong grasp of economics. He is credited with transforming Israel's heavily regulated economy into a capitalist, high-tech powerhouse. The most recent polls suggest that this time he will have enough Knesset seats to form a government.

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In the recent string of four rapid-fire elections, his right-wing bloc has fallen short of a 61-seat Knesset majority. He came closest in the first election in April 2019 with 60 seats, a tantalizing one seat short. When, on his third try in March 2020, his bloc took 58 seats, Netanyahu entered into a power-sharing deal with Benny Gantz, leader of the center-left Blue and White Party (it fell apart after seven months). The March 2021 election led to a coalition of ideological opposites, glued together, it was widely agreed, only by their antipathy to Netanyahu.

Netanyahu's chief weakness is his inability to maintain the loyalty of his subordinates. Perhaps his greatest nemesis is Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, once a reliable coalition partner, who started the years-long deadlock when he exited the Netanyahu-led government in 2018. Gideon Sa'ar, leader of the New Hope Party, is the latest Likud leader turned enemy. He, too, has sworn never to join with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu also faces legal troubles. He has been indicted in three corruption cases, accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Although the prosecution has suffered setbacks, the cases continue to be an albatross around his neck.

Netanyahu's credentials as a true right-winger have been questioned on the right, with his votes in favor of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 drawing special ire.

Yair Lapid – Yesh Atid

After Yair Lapid entered politics in 2012, his party, Yesh Atid ("There is a Future") won 19 seats to become the second-largest party in the Knesset. New parties led by popular candidates (Lapid was a well-known talk show host) had achieved success before, only to peter out as their novelty wore off. Yesh Atid seemed set to follow the same trajectory, dropping to 11 seats in the 2015 election.

However, Lapid and his party have shown staying power. He rose to become prime minister this July, taking over from Naftali Bennett under the terms of a power-sharing agreement.

With limited time to prove himself ahead of the Nov. 1 election, Lapid has been meeting with heads of state (including US President Joe Biden after only 13 days on the job), delivered speeches in international forums and, most recently, announced the conclusion of a maritime border deal with Lebanon after years of negotiations by previous governments.

Lapid faces challenges not only from Netanyahu but also from those he will look to as coalition partners, including Blue and White's Benny Gantz, who has joined forces with Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar to form the State Party. They argue that Lapid won't have the numbers to form a government without the ultra-Orthodox parties (Shas and United Torah Judaism), which Lapid has alienated with his calls to end funding for ultra-Orthodox institutions and to require haredim to serve in the army.

Lapid inherited an anti-religious bent from his father, the late Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a former journalist turned Knesset member and justice minister, and a leader of the now-defunct Shinui Party, whose best-known political platform plank was to remove religion from public life.

Bezalel Smotrich – Religious Zionist Party

An Orthodox Jew raised in the community of Beit El in the Binyamin region of Samaria, Bezalel Smotrich began as an agitator and activist, protesting against the disengagement of the Gaza Strip in 2005 (for which he was arrested) and co-founding Regavim, an NGO that focuses on issues related to illegal Arab land grabs. Earlier statements about Arabs, gays and the Reform movement continue to haunt him.

After squeaking into the Knesset in the 2015 election, in which he held the eighth (and last) seat won by the Habayit Hayehdui faction, Smotrich took over the leadership of his Tkuma party in a landslide in 2019. Following the April 2019 election, Netanyahu appointed Smotrich transportation minister. Previously thought of as a provocateur posting outrageous tweets, he proved an able minister despite having no experience in the field. His Twitter tirades have earned him comparisons to former President Donald Trump – after one against Netanyahu in August 2019 he was forced to apologize to avoid losing his ministerial position.

In early January, ahead of the March 2021 election, Smotrich renamed his faction Religious Zionist Party and allied with the Otzma Yehudit Party, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the Noam Party, led by Avigdor Maoz. Combined, the three parties won six seats.

Both Otzma Yehudit ("Jewish Power") and Noam are to the right of Religious Zionism, with Ben-Gvir, often satirized on Israeli TV, a poster child for the right's detractors. Noam mainly focuses on social issues including policies opposing LGBTQ+ rights. According to a Panels Politics poll on Oct. 6, the Religious Zionist Party will win 14 seats, making it the third-largest party in the Knesset.

Benny Gantz – State Party

When former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz announced at the end of 2018 that he was running for the Knesset as head of the Israel Resilience party, he joined a long line of former top IDF brass who had entered politics.

In February 2019, he joined Lapid's Yesh Party and Moshe Ya'alon's Telem party to form a faction called Blue and White with himself at its head. Blue and White tied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party at 35 seats. When neither could form a government, a snap election was called for September. In that round, Blue and White took 33 seats to Likud's 32, but again neither side could cobble together 61 mandates. After Likud won 36 seats to Blue and White's 33 in the third recent election in March 2020, to everyone's surprise, including members of his faction, Gantz decided to join with Netanyahu to form a national unity government. Yesh Atid and Telem pulled out of Blue and White in protest.

In retrospect, Gantz's decision severely damaged his political prospects. As part of the deal, Netanyahu was to serve as prime minister for 18 months and then turn over the leadership to Gantz for at least an equal period. When it became clear Netanyahu had no intention of honoring his word, the coalition disintegrated after seven months. In the next election in March 2021, Gantz, who had been head of the opposition, finished with only eight seats.

In August, Gantz formed the State Party with Sa'ar's New Hope faction and former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot. It now hovers at around 12 Knesset seats in the polls.

Aryeh Deri – Shas

Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Shas party, is a survivor. He has been on the Israeli political scene closing on 35 years, and despite a criminal conviction and a jail sentence, has assumed important ministerial roles. Most recently, in January, he was convicted of tax evasion. He took a plea deal and was fined $50,000 by the court. As part of the plea bargain, he resigned from the Knesset. But that bargain included no prohibition on Deri, who remains chairman of Shas, from returning to the Knesset or becoming a minister in a future government.

Deri began his political career in 1988 as interior minister under the Likud's Yitzhak Shamir. Only 29, he was the youngest government minister in Israel's history. He continued in that role into the Yitzhak Rabin-led Labor government, serving until 1993. It was as interior minister that Deri was convicted of receiving $155,000 in bribes. The court handed down a three-year jail sentence in 2000; he served 22 months before being released for good behavior.

In 2011, he announced his return to politics. In 2014, he submitted his resignation after a 2008 video emerged of the spiritual leader of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, calling him a thief and a bad man. He returned in the March 2015 election and was interior minister between 2016 and 2021.

Shas is mainly concerned with ensuring funding for its community's institutions.

Moshe Gafni – United Torah Judaism

Born in 1952, Gafni entered the Knesset in 1988 as a member of the Degel HaTorah (or, "Flag of the Torah") Party, an ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi party, becoming deputy minister of religious affairs in the government of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1990.

In 1992, his party joined with Agudat Yisrael, another Ashkenazi Haredi party, to form United Torah Judaism (UTJ). Except for a brief split between 2004 and 2006, the alliance has remained strong. In the April 2019 election, it won the most seats (8) in its history. It has since lost one seat.

Like Shas, UTJ's main concern is to ensure government funding for its institutions. The party has an uneasy relationship with the state due to Israel's secular nature. When the Supreme Court passed a ruling in 2006 favorable to same-sex marriages, Gafni said, "We don't have a Jewish state here. We have Sodom and Gomorrah here." He has also said he wouldn't recognize a 2016 decision to expand the egalitarian section of the Western Wall, calling Reform Jews "a group of clowns who stab the Holy Torah."

Together with Shas comprising a bloc of roughly 15 seats, UTJ and Shas have provided reliable support for Benjamin Netanyahu in return for funding their institutions. The relationship has opened up Netanyahu to criticism as the ultra-Orthodox are viewed by some as not doing their part to contribute to the state's well-being.

Avigdor Lieberman – Yisrael Beitenu

Once a staunch ally of Netanyahu, as director-general of the Likud Party (1993-96) Avigdor Lieberman helped him win his first bid for the premiership. Even after breaking from Likud in 1997 and forming his Yisrael Beiteinu Party two years later, Lieberman remained a reliable partner of every Netanyahu-led coalition government.

However, the alliance became increasingly rocky, and in 2018 Lieberman abandoned the government over a ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the decision to allow Qatari money into Gaza. Lieberman and Netanyahu's relationship hit a nadir in September of this year when Lieberman called Netanyahu "the scum of the human race who has no red lines." Lieberman blamed Netanyahu for orchestrating what he called "a smear" in the press, a story claiming he had offered to pay $100,000 to kill a police superintendent.

Lieberman's party maintains right-wing positions on security, foreign policy and the economy but is close to the left on issues of religion and state, centering recent campaigns on anti-haredi attacks. In March 2021, he called the community an "existential threat" that would turn the country into a "Khomeini-style state."

Lieberman was born in Moldova (then part of the Soviet Union) in 1958, immigrating to Israel with his family when he was 20. His party's base has traditionally been immigrants from the former Soviet Union. At its height in 2009, the party won 15 seats. Since the 2015 election it has stabilized at around seven seats.

Michaeli – Labor

Merav Michaeli, a former TV anchor and radio broadcaster, is known for her radical feminist views and support for women's issues. She once gave a TEDx Talk titled "Cancel Marriage," in which she called for the dissolution of the institution, which she argued began "when man started wanting his name and property to remain after him."

When Michaeli was elected leader of the Labor Party on Jan. 24, 2021, the party, which had dominated Israeli politics for the first three decades of the state's existence, faced the prospect of elimination from the Knesset, according to polls. Michaeli's advent breathed new life into the party, which finished with seven seats in the March 2021 election, a gain of four over the previous one. Recent polls show Labor again declining, forecast to garner five to six seats in the upcoming election.

In keeping with her party's secular positions on religion and state issues, Michaeli, who is currently minister of transport and road safety, announced on Oct. 1 that the light rail project under construction in the Tel Aviv region will operate on Shabbat.

Michaeli's roots in the Israeli left are deep. Her paternal grandfather was Nehemia Michaeli, the last secretary of the far-left Mapam Party. Her maternal grandfather was Rudolf Kastner, active in Mapai (the predecessor of the Labor Party), who was assassinated in 1957 after having been accused of collaborating with the Nazis during World War II.

A 2021 Hebrew translation of the 1961 book on the Kastner trial, "Perfidy," by noted screenwriter Ben Hecht, brought the controversy again to the fore. Michaeli views her grandfather as a savior of Jews, mentioning him in her maiden speech at the Knesset in 2013.

Zehava Gal-On – Meretz

Zehava Gal-On, who had retired in 2017 as head of the Meretz party, returned this year to revive its electoral hopes. She was active in promoting women's rights in the Knesset and served as chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Trafficking in Women. In 2019, she founded the Zulat for Equality and Human Rights NGO.

Meretz is the most left-wing party to define itself as Zionist. However, the party's Zionist identity became an issue in the run-up to its recent leadership primary. Gal-on, squaring off against Yair Golan, a former IDF major general, said in July, "We never defined ourselves as a Zionist party, and we never defined ourselves as a non-Zionist party.

"We have Zionists; I am a Zionist, but we also have Arabs, and I will not force them to define themselves as Zionists. Therefore, we are an Israeli party, and we see ourselves as partners with anyone who believes that Israel should be a democratic state," she said.

Golan said in response: "I think exactly the opposite. Zionism for me is an identity; Zionism for me is the essence of the country's existence…"

Meretz supports the establishment of a Palestinian state with part of Jerusalem as its capital. Gal-On in 1999 called for an end to the Law of Return, which gives the right to Diaspora Jews to automatically attain Israeli citizenship. Gal-On called the law "discriminatory."

Mansour Abbas – Ra'am

In June 2021, Mansour Abbas, breaking away from the Joint Arab List, a coalition of Arab parties, led his Ra'am party, into Israel's governing coalition, the first time an independent Arab party had joined an Israeli government. While Arab parties at times supported Israeli governments from outside the coalition, Arab leaders viewed joining one as a step too far as they feared it would legitimize the State of Israel.

Abbas reasoned that Arab parties should prioritize the need of Arabs living in Israel over the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Abbas had earlier made statements in favor of outreach. In 2020, he condemned the burning of a synagogue in Lod during Arab rioting. That year, he also said in a Knesset speech: "I have empathy for the pain and suffering over the years of Holocaust survivors and the families of the murdered… I stand here to show solidarity with the Jewish people here and forever."

Detractors point out that Ra'am is the political wing of the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and that its charter says Israel "was born of the racist, occupying Zionist project; iniquitous Western and British imperialism; and the debasement and feebleness of the Arab and Islamic" nations.

Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi – Hadash-Ta'al

Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi are joint leaders of Hadash-Ta'al, all that remains of the Joint Arab List after the breakaway of Ra'am in January 2021 and Balad in September 2022.

Considered a moderate in the context of the extremism characteristic of Arab parties, Odeh (head of Hadash) nevertheless refused to condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist group in July, instead denouncing Israel's "occupation" as the chief source of terrorism in the region. In April, he caused a storm when he told Arabs serving in Israel's security forces to "throw their weapons in their faces and tell them that our place is not with you."

A Muslim, Odeh attended a Christian school growing up in Haifa and studied law in Romania. He says he has broken free of the confines of religion and ethnicity.

Ahmad Tibi, a medical doctor by training, formed Ta'al in 1995 while serving as an adviser to PLO chief Yasser Arafat. In 1996, he said, "All my moves are made according to his instructions. I believe he has confidence in me, and I hope I justify the confidence he puts in me."

Hadash and Ta'al are secular parties. Hadash was formed in 1977 by Israel's Communist Party and other far-left groups. It opposes privatization and advocates a socialist economy. Ta'al is more right-wing economically. Both are anti-Zionist and support the creation of a Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital. They also support the "right of return" for Arabs who fled during Israel's War of Independence and their descendants, a position Zionist parties agree that if implemented, would spell the end of the Jewish state.

Ayelet Shaked – Habayit Hayehudi

Ayelet Shaked, currently interior minister, leads the Habayit Hayehudi ("Jewish Home") party. She was the long-time ally of Naftali Bennett, who after serving as prime minister, announced he is taking a break from politics.

Once the darling of right-wing Israelis, Shaked faces an uphill battle. By joining Bennett in a coalition government including a number of left-wing parties and the Arab Ra'am party, she angered her voter base. In late September, launching the Habayit Hayehudi campaign, she apologized to supporters. "I believe that you will find a place in your hearts to forgive me," Shaked said, noting that her decision "broke a million hearts" and "deeply hurt" her supporters.

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Shaked started the current election round by forming a new party, Zionist Spirit, together with Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel of the Derech Eretz faction. Polls showed the party failing to pass the 3.25% electoral threshold and the two ended their partnership in early September. Habayit Hayehudi, while still under the electoral threshold, has been strengthening in the most recent polls.

As justice minister (2015-2019), Shaked sought to rein in Israel's Supreme Court, viewed on the right as overreaching. She supports the death penalty for terrorists and a more capitalistic economy. In a recent interview, she insisted she would pass the electoral threshold and again demand the Justice Ministry as her portfolio.

Sami Abu Shehadeh – Balad

Sami Abu Shehadeh was born in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod and grew up in Jaffa, where he attended a Catholic school. He became a member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council and entered the Knesset in the September 2019 election. He was elected party chairman in January 2021.

Abu Shehadeh pulled Balad from the Joint Arab List in September over what some say was a dispute over a rotational agreement involving the sixth spot on the Knesset candidates list. Others say there was a deeper ideological disagreement over whether to join in an Israeli government as Ra'am had done. While all Arab parties in the Knesset are anti-Zionist, Balad is the most adamant about not joining any Israeli government. After the September 2019 election, it was the only member of the Joint Arab List not to recommend Blue and White leader Benny Gantz for prime minister.

The decision to run alone could have far-reaching implications as polls show Balad failing to cross the electoral threshold. It is scoring about 1.0% in the polls. If it fails, it will strengthen the odds of a right-wing coalition being formed.

On Sept. 27, the Central Elections Committee disqualified the party from running in the election as it called for the negation of the Jewish state and a "state for all its citizens." That decision was overturned by the Supreme Court on Oct. 10. (It is not clear why Balad was singled out, given that the other Arab parties share its position on this issue.)

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley sharply criticized the Biden administration for its failure to confront the Iranian regime during a special press conference held Wednesday in New York City on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly.

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Speaking to media at the sixth annual conference of United Against Iran (UANI), an organization dedicated to educating the public and policymakers about the dangers posed by the Islamic Republic, Haley lamented the Biden administration's continued efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or 2015 Iran deal.

Haley was one of the key officials in the Trump administration who urged then-President Donald Trump to exit the JCPOA. She traveled to Vienna to visit the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2017, which was monitoring Iran's nuclear program.

"Let me ask them the questions about the deal. And let me come back and make the case for why you should get out of the deal," she told Trump.

When she visited the IAEA, she asked if they inspected universities, where nuclear research took place, or military installations. The IAEA said it inspected neither. "So I said, 'OK, what is it exactly that you inspect?'" They told her that they inspect a site if there's suspicious activity after giving the Iranians 90 days' warning.

"You can clear out a warehouse in 90 days, no problem. That's when I came back, and I told President Trump, 'We have to get out of the Iran deal,'" Haley said.

Trump abandoned the deal in May 2018.

Haley deplored the White House's decision to issue a visa to let Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi into the US to address the UN given Iran's continued "bad behavior," including calls of "Death to America," ongoing violations of UN resolutions, and missile strikes against military bases housing US soldiers.

Raisi addressed the General Assembly on Wednesday. Haley spoke of the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, 22, beaten to death by Iran's "morality police" for the incorrect wearing of a hijab, a Muslim head covering. Amini's death has sparked widespread protests throughout Iran in which at least nine have been killed by the authorities.

Haley said that instead of letting Iran's president deliver a speech at the UN, the US should be publicizing the stories of the anti-regime protesters. "The protests we're seeing from the Iranian people are heroic. We need to get their stories out. They don't want a regime that treats them like this."

Referring to Raisi's insistence at the UN that Iran wasn't seeking a nuclear bomb and its nuclear program was "peaceful," Haley said, "When in Iran's history, have we ever seen them do anything in the name of peace? They don't. So it's time for everyone to stop being naïve."

Asked by JNS why the Biden administration insists on reviving the Iran deal despite the Islamic Republic's flagrant violations of the agreement's provisions, Haley said, "That the Biden administration is falling all over itself to get back into the Iran deal shows this is nothing more than ego."

The Biden team, made up of many Obama administration holdovers, "can't accept that they got it wrong … They look at it as a political win, instead of looking at it as a national security risk that we've got to get right for the American people," she said.

"You can't stop a corrupt regime from being corrupt. You can't stop a terrorist regime, the number one state sponsor of terror, from wanting to destroy anyone that comes in its way who doesn't agree with it. You can't change that culture," she said.

In the weeks leading up to the General Assembly, Haley took to media channels to warn against letting Raisi into the country, particularly in light of Iran's attempted assassinations of high-level American officials, including John Bolton, former national security advisor in the Trump administration.

US officials say Bolton was likely targeted in retaliation for the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

Haley said Iran's leaders have "done nothing to show that they want to be good actors. It's time for us to walk away from that deal and start dealing with them like the enemy that they are. We should isolate them. We should treat them like the pariah that they are."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Moscow on Sept. 10 at the head of a senior delegation from the terror group for talks with Russian officials. Analysts speculate that Moscow's invitation to Hamas, like an earlier one in May, is meant to send a message of dissatisfaction to Israel.

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"The Russians typically use meetings with Hamas to signal displeasure with Israel, perhaps in relation to Ukraine," Hillel Frisch, senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), told JNS.

A noteworthy aspect of the May meeting is that it came a month after Israel Prime Minister Yair Lapid, then foreign minister, accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, specifically in relation to alleged atrocities committed outside Kyiv. Of the current meeting, Frisch said it was unclear what specifically Russia may have found objectionable about Israeli statements or actions.

Anna Geifman, senior researcher at Bar-Ilan University's department of political science, told JNS that it might be a general warning, a way for Russia to tell Israel that if it takes a "wrong step" it will strengthen relations with the region's hostile actors. "The message may be: 'If you become our enemy, we're going to deal with your enemies,' " she said.

For Geifman, the important point is that this isn't something new. "The Russians have always played the anti-Israel, or anti-Western, card whenever it was convenient for them, from the Soviet days. They've always talked to terrorists. It's not even a question of talking – it's collaborating."

Noting that the Soviet Union set up special schools to train terrorists, Geifman said not much has changed despite 25 years of "supposed democracy." "You can call them anything you like. Maybe they're not Soviets, but if they act along the same old patterns, they're the same old bad actors."

Another reason for the Russian embrace of Hamas is that its options in terms of international diplomacy have shrunk, as Russia has become a "pariah" on the world stage with its invasion of Ukraine. "Russian President Vladimir Putin has no one who wants to play with him. So he's happy to invite anyone. And, not surprisingly, it's going be someone with whom no one wants to play either," Geifman said. 

Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), agreed that this partly explains Moscow's actions. "You're looking at a government that wants to demonstrate its ability to engage diplomatically around the world, amid an ongoing battle in Ukraine," he told JNS.

"Perhaps it is an act of desperation, an effort by Putin to try to seek some legitimacy, or to demonstrate that he's still a world leader who's in demand, but it certainly strikes me as an odd choice given that it's not as if Hamas can provide legitimacy," he added. "That's some of the context, but I would actually argue that this move is a very deliberate attempt to demonstrate that there is a growing alliance that is taking shape around the world."

It appears that Putin is building an axis of like-minded governments and entities, Schanzer said. "It really does look like he is working to create a new revisionist axis that already includes the Iranians, includes China potentially, and includes North Korea. The question is whether this is an effort to legitimize and recruit Hamas to be part of that broader coalition. Or is this for show, or something else entirely? The bottom line is that there is no clear, mutual interest between these two actors. Russia doesn't have very clear interests as it relates to the Gaza Strip."

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He said, "It is a bit of a jolt that a Russian leader who's largely isolated on the world stage and looking for new ways to engage appears to be legitimizing and elevating Hamas with this meeting."

Schanzer also agreed that Russia may intend the meeting as a disapproving signal to Israel. "Perhaps there's an escalation ladder that Putin is climbing: 'If you continue to malign me diplomatically, this is what you're going to get in return."

In terms of an Israeli reaction, he expects that if there is one, it will be "via private channels" given how carefully the Israelis have been acting due to Russia's presence in Syria. If Russia promises Hamas something in terms of weaponry, the Israeli reaction might change, he said, but he sees that as an unlikely scenario given that Russia is not in a position where it has weapons to spare.

Geifman agreed: "Israel will have to be careful primarily because of the Russians in Syria. Israel must have a free hand there as much as possible because of Iran and Hezbollah. And I don't think Russia is going to invest in Hamas. And even if they give them weapons, they won't be good weapons." 

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The Jewish Agency, which helps Jews immigrate to Israel, stands on shaky ground in Russia, as a Moscow court is set to hold a trial on its dissolution August 19. Even though it's operating under a cloud of uncertainty, and immigration to Israel has skyrocketed, the Agency continues to operate business as usual, JNS has learned from a government source familiar with the matter.

Since the outbreak of the war on Ukraine in February, 19,100 Russians have immigrated to Israel, a leap from the 7,733 immigrants that came in 2021, according to Jewish Agency numbers. It's not a stretch to see immigration numbers triple over those of last year by year's end, assuming the Agency isn't shut down.

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There is no consensus as to Russia's motives for shuttering the agency. Some analysts have pointed to the Ukraine war, arguing that Russia is either punishing Israel for speaking out against Russia's invasion or attempting to warn Israel about taking more concrete action in Ukraine's favor.

Israel's government pinned its hopes on a legal team sent to Moscow last week. The delegation held its one and only meeting so far with Russia's Justice Ministry on Monday. Israel hoped for some insights into Russia's concerns, but Russia made no demands – the best-case scenario as it would have signaled Russia was ready to negotiate.

"They're not open to negotiations," the government source, who preferred to remain anonymous, told JNS.

"The truth is Israel's government doesn't know what will happen. The trial opens on the nineteenth. Russia could push for the Agency's shutdown immediately, or wait a while and then shut [it] down. Or maybe they'll be open to the Agency's arguments and satisfy themselves with imposing a fine. For that to happen there will need to be a political intervention," the source said. He personally doesn't believe the Russian Justice Ministry will take any initiative unless told to do so by the political echelon, he added.

The meeting on Monday focused on the legal issues of the case, with Russia claiming that the Jewish Agency broke privacy laws by collecting individual private data on Russian citizens. Israel's lawyers argued that the Agency had been operating within the bounds of Russian law ever since it officially began operating in the country in 1991.

"The general view is more and more inclined to see this as part of the general crackdown by Russian authorities on civil society," the Israeli government source told JNS. "Many organizations, hundreds of NGOs and associations have been shut down by Russian authorities since the outbreak of the war if they were considered to have some connection or relation to Western countries, or if they were considered not patriotic enough and not supportive enough of the war effort. The Jewish Agency just happens to be at risk."

One of the reasons this view is gaining adherents is that there hasn't been anything inherently anti-Semitic about the process, he said. He noted there was one letter of complaint about the Jewish Agency causing a brain drain by targeting highly educated Russians, "but Israel has been hearing this complaint for decades." He stressed that Israel doesn't target any subset of Russians, but welcomes all who meet the criteria.

Sophia Tupolev-Luz, founder of 'The Reboot Startup Nation," a volunteer initiative that organized at the start of the Ukraine war to help displaced persons find work in Israel's high-tech sector, said that Russia might not like the fact that highly qualified people are fleeing, but it's not the fault of the Jewish Agency.

"At the beginning of the war, something like 100,000 IT [information technology] people left Russia as fast as they could, and not just for Israel," she told JNS.

"In what free country does the government get involved and decide who leaves and who doesn't? People should get to choose their professions and where to build their lives," Tupolev-Luz argued.

The closure of the Jewish Agency in Russia would be a huge blow, she said. "Most Diaspora Jews have been touched by the Jewish Agency's work in one way or another. The magnitude of their work is so significant for the Diaspora. It's the key organization," she added.

Shuttering the Agency also means a practical blow to Russian immigration, she said. While Russians could still technically immigrate to Israel under their own steam, it would mean coming as tourists and declaring their intent to immigrate upon arrival.

"A lot of them are too scared to do that, to come as tourists and do what's called 'emergency immigration.' It's a risky bet," she said, describing a scenario where potential immigrants discover they don't have all the necessary documents, yet can't return to a Russia that has become increasingly closed off, and so find themselves in a kind of limbo.

"From my work with [immigrants], people inside Russia are scared. A Russia that is becoming less and less free is frightening for the Jews of Russia and extremely worrying for the entire world," she said.

Speaking at the Jerusalem Press Club on Aug. 1, former Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky said, "The less democratic Russia becomes the more they will need scapegoats, the more they'll stop the openly sympathetic attitude to Israel, the easier it will be in the street to respond to old prejudices. At the moment, Jews are not the most hated group. They [the Russians] have the Ukrainians. They have the people from Kaukaz [the Caucuses]. They have many others to hate. But can [anti-Semitism] come back? For sure, and very quickly."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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It was the second narrow escape for Ibrahim Nabulsi, the leader of an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cell, whom Palestinian admirers have dubbed "The Lion of Nablus." During an IDF operation in Nablus on July 23, he managed to flee as Israeli forces closed in on his terrorist hideout near the city's kasbah. Nabulsi was later seen at the funeral for two terrorists who were killed in the operation.

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Palestinians claim that Nabulsi was the target of the raid, but the Israel Defense Forces, which carried out the operation together with the Israel Security Agency (Shabak) and the Israel National Counter-Terrorism Unit (Yamam), denies it, according to Channel 12 News. The report noted that Nabulsi managed to escape an IDF daytime operation four months ago and has since participated in several attacks on Israelis.

"He managed to escape twice from the IDF, but he definitely will be killed," Yoni Ben-Menachem, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), said, adding that the reason is that Nabulsi is not the type to surrender. "Four of his cell have already been killed. There are a few more, including some young juveniles, 13- to 14-year-olds," he said, explaining that the youth are being mentored to become the next generation of terrorists.

Ben-Menachem dismissed Palestinian attempts to lionize Nabulsi as propaganda to drive recruitment. "Nobody takes it seriously. Only the young generation, the 13- and 14-year-old kids who don't understand anything, believe these people are heroes," he said. "Nabulsi doesn't stand a chance against the special units of the IDF, who are very well trained and considered the best in the world," he continued.

The terrorists "should be very worried, because Israel's Shabak has very accurate information about their whereabouts. It knows how to reach them, even in the heart of Nablus," he added.

Among Arabs living in northern Samaria there has always been a "tradition of armed struggle," said Ben-Menachem, especially in Jenin, the "capital of terrorism." The real issue, he said, is that for the past two years Israel has allowed the problem there to fester, giving the terrorists time to rebuild their infrastructure. They are now 500 to 600 strong, and the various Palestinian terrorist groups work together, he said. For example, he continued, "When the IDF surrounded the house in the old city of Nablus on Saturday, the Palestinian terrorists from [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad in Jenin started going to Nablus to help them." Nabulsi is a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

After the April 7 attack on a Dizengoff Street pub in Tel Aviv by a 28-year-old terrorist from Jenin, several senior IDF officers, along with a former head of Shabak, called for an operation in northern Samaria to clear the area of terrorists. According to Ben-Menachem, who has endorsed this approach, clearing the terrorist infrastructure in the area will require a month or two.

However, US President Joe Biden's visit to Israel earlier this month put off the possibility of an operation.

"[Former Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett didn't want to do something big because of American pressure," said Ben-Menachem. "The bottom line is what is needed is a large-scale operation to reoccupy Jenin and all the villages around it—there are five to six villages full of terrorist infrastructure—to reoccupy them for a month or two and clean everything up. This will lead to quiet—if the IDF will do it. But this is a political decision," he added.

Amir Avivi, CEO and founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), an Israeli NGO comprising thousands of former security officers, said that the IDF "to some extent neglected operations in northern Samaria and relied too heavily on the Palestinian Authority" over the past few years.

Referring to recent Palestinian attacks on IDF forces operating in Arab towns and cities in Judea and Samaria, he said, "If you neglect operations in an area and there is an increasing amount of weaponry, when you finally decide to deal with it, at the beginning it will be hard. You have to go in again and again until you reach a level of freedom of operation, without too much resistance."

It took Israel almost six years to stabilize Judea and Samaria from when it entered the region to contend with terrorists in 2002's "Operation Defensive Shield," he noted.
"There is a price for not doing the work on an everyday basis and trying to contract with this corrupt terrorist organization called the Palestinian Authority, and I think we are paying the price, and we have to fix this," he said.

Avivi drew a direct line between the deterioration of the security situation in the area and the 2006 evacuation of four Israeli towns, Ganim, Kadim, Sa-Nur and Homesh.

"Homesh, for example, is a crucial hill for controlling the surrounding area," he said. "When you remove this constant Jewish presence, it affects the ability of the IDF to maneuver … This is exactly the difference between Gaza and Samaria. In Gaza, to arrest somebody you need a full-scale war, and, therefore, there have been zero arrests in the last 15 to 16 years since Hamas took over," he said.

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With regard to Nabulsi, unlike Ben-Menachem Avivi said it was up to the terrorist whether he would be killed or captured.

"If he shoots at our forces, they will shoot back. This is how it works. It's clear that eventually the IDF will catch up with him," he said.

According to Avivi, while Palestinian efforts to turn Nabulsi into a popular hero might impress Palestinian youths, it wouldn't affect IDF thinking on the matter.

"I've never in my 30 years of service dealing with endless numbers of arrests ever thought about connecting popularity to the way we conduct our military missions. It simply doesn't work like that," he said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Iran can produce a nuclear weapon at will, former Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi announced on Sunday. Hours later, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went further, saying that if Tehran moved to build an atomic bomb, then "no one could stop us … and they know that."

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Analysts told JNS that these Iranian officials should be taken at their word.

"I believe what Kharrazi is saying is accurate," said Eyal Pinko, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University expert on Israeli national security. "It's a matter of taking the decision to go for the bomb and a few weeks to carry it out," he added.

Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, agrees.

"Iran can make the decision. It will take some time [to produce a weapon], but technologically speaking, they are very, very close," he told JNS. "They've managed to enrich uranium to 60%, which is extremely close to 90% [weapons-grade]. And they have advanced centrifuges that can do that [enrich from 60% to 90%] in a very short period of time," he said.

According to two recent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran already has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb.

Kuperwasser said that together with its enrichment efforts, Iran is likely working on other "necessary technologies." He noted that Tehran has made advances with uranium metal – a key component of a nuclear weapon – tested detonators and plans to potentially deliver a nuclear warhead using one of its existing missiles, the "Shahab 3."

"And those are only the things we know of," he said.

Bar-Ilan's Pinko noted that every nuclear program has three major components: "The first is the missile, or warhead carrier. Iran developed this capability already many years ago. The second is the weapon system, what enables and initiates the nuclear process. The [2018] Mossad operation which carried out all those documents and CDs from Iran show they have that. The third component, the highly enriched uranium, the IAEA confirmed in May 2021."

While Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, Kuperwasser said the Islamic Republic has already crossed the nuclear threshold.

"This was always the difference between us [Israel] and the Americans. The US said Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We were saying that Iran should not even have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon, because once you get the ability, you might try to actually build one," he said.

The only reason Iran remained ambiguous about its nuclear capability until now was that it wants sanctions relief, according to Pinko.

The Europeans go along with "the diplomatic game" because they don't see Iran's nuclear program as a threat to them, he said. "They're also keen to do business with Iran. For them, Iran has huge market potential," he added.

Kuperwasser stressed that both Europe and the United States want to avoid a confrontation with Iran. "They believe that in a couple of years, maybe the regime will disappear. Of course, it's all wishful thinking," he said.

Since US President Joe Biden assumed office, Iran has been progressively pushing the envelope, moving from enriching uranium to 20% to 60%, he said.

"Now they're talking about the next bar, 90%," he added.

The Iranians feel emboldened because Western countries have so far failed to adequately respond, he believes.

"At a certain point, somebody has to tell the Iranians, 'enough is enough, you have to stop here,'" he said.

Israel must "wake up" and make clear to Washington that its refusal to take meaningful steps against Tehran is being interpreted by the Iranians as constituting "a green light to go even further," said Kuperwasser. "The time to do something about it is now. We're not going to wait until they have 90% enriched uranium and only then start to act. That would be totally irresponsible," he added.

He pointed to remarks on Sunday by IDF Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Aviv Kochavi, who asserted that it was a "moral imperative" for Israel to prepare a military option against Iran.

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Pinko warned that Iran going nuclear would mark "a totally new strategic era for the Middle East." As a nuclear power, "Nobody will tangle with Iran. And nuclear capability will allow them to act even more aggressively," he said.

"The Sunni bloc will not sit in peace and quiet, that is, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt," said Pinko.

"They will have to counter Iran. An arms race will begin."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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