November 5, 2020

THE MEDIA LINE — If former vice president Joe Biden is declared the victor in the US presidential vote, “it will hasten new elections in Israel,” a senior member of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary coalition tells The Media Line.

“It would be easier for Netanyahu to [hold an election and then] deal with a Biden White House while leading an ultra-right-wing coalition rather than today’s centrist coalition.”

“Netanyahu has an open door to the [Donald Trump] White House. He may no longer have such strong ties with a Biden White House,” the Knesset member elaborated. “It would be easier for Netanyahu to [hold an election and then] deal with a Biden White House while leading an ultra-right-wing coalition rather than today’s centrist coalition.

“With a Democratic presidency, things will be different regarding the Palestinians in the West Bank. With an ultra-right-wing government, it will be easier for Netanyahu to deal with a Democratic president by protesting to the Americans: ‘I am the most moderate person in my coalition. I can’t do what you ask,’” the senior parliamentarian said.

Under a President Biden, the Middle East would likely face a different type of US leadership.

Biden brings the right pro-Israel credentials, confides Prof. Jonathan Rynhold of the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv.

“He has the longest pro-Israel record of any US politician. He met with [prime minister] Golda Meir [in Jerusalem, shortly before the 1973 Yom Kippur War] and loves to tell the story of his father’s support for the creation of Israel. He has an underlying commitment to Israel’s security.”

“He has the longest pro-Israel record of any US politician. He met with [prime minister] Golda Meir [in Jerusalem, shortly before the 1973 Yom Kippur War] and loves to tell the story of his father’s support for the creation of Israel,” Rynhold told The Media Line. “He has an underlying commitment to Israel’s security.

“As vice president, Biden was responsible for the 10-year MoU [Memorandum of Understanding for US Fiscal Years 2019-2028] agreement that provided a boost in military aid to Israel,” Marc Schulman, a spokesperson for Democrats Abroad Israel, stated to The Media Line. “It is clear that the military arrangements will continue.”

“Biden and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have a good personal relationship from their long years of working together,” commented Dr. Einat Wilf, a former Labor Party member of Knesset and foreign policy adviser to then-vice prime minister Shimon Peres.

Still, one of the biggest differences between the Trump Administration and one led by Biden concerns Tehran and its race to obtain nuclear weapons.

“Iran is a strategic threat to Israel and to the entire region,” former deputy minister in the Israeli Prime Minister’s OfficeMichael Oren, who was ambassador to Washington in 2009-2013, under Netanyahu, told The Media Line.

“Biden has said he is ready to talk with Iran.”

Any new deal negotiated by the United States with Iran will be difficult for Israel, in Oren’s opinion. “And Biden has said he is ready to talk with Iran.”

Rynhold agrees. “An Iran deal is a major national security issue for Israel,” he said.

The 2015 Iran nuclear accord negotiated by then-president Barack Obama “was a total betrayal,” Oren said. “He negotiated the deal behind our backs and those of other US allies in the region.”

Trump, on the other hand, withdrew the US from the accord in 2018, against the vigorous objections of America’s European allies, saying, “Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also fails to address the regime’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads.”

“It is unclear what Biden means regarding a [revised] deal with Iran,” said Rynhold. “Biden and his people are deliberately being vague. There are significant differences among Biden’s advisers. Will missile development issues be addressed in a new deal? Will concessions be narrowly linked to the nuclear issue? Will US sanctions be cut back? We don’t know what will happen.”

Of one thing, though, Rynhold is certain: “Even if Israel is not sure where negotiations with Iran will go, it does know that Iran will be closer to a nuclear bomb. Things are ratcheting up.”

Regarding a Biden administration negotiating with Tehran, Oren is clear: “Israel needs to move swiftly to engage a new administration on an Iran deal. We need to publish our interests, our vision of what a good deal will look like for Israel. We need to be clear on what a good deal looks like,” he told The Media Line. “We couldn’t do this the first time.”

Despite the genuine personal friendship between Biden and Netanyahu, indications point toward the Democrat pursuing policies regarding the Palestinians and Israel different than those expounded by Trump.

Trump correctly identified the root of Palestinian intransigence, argues Wilf, co-author of The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace.

She noted to The Media Line, “Before, there was no real pressure for the Palestinians to come to terms with the legitimate sovereignty of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. Trump stopped this by defunding UNRWA [the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] and taking issue with the Palestinian Authority’s payments to terrorists’ families, among other actions.”

“He will likely go back to the Obama-Clinton peace process, with a two-state solution and east Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.”

Oren notes that Biden differs from Trump in a few significant areas regarding the peace process with the Palestinians. “He will likely go back to the Obama-Clinton peace process, with a two-state solution and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

“It is likely that a Biden administration will oppose building by Israel in the West Bank and in eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” Oren said, seeing this as a continuation of previous Democratic administrations’ policies.

The United States’ new embassy in Jerusalem will not be moved, he said. However, he suspects that the former US Consulate in east Jerusalem, which was merged into the embassy in 2019, will return to being the de facto embassy to the Palestinians.

Regarding aid to the PA, Wilf noted that Biden has declared that his administration will reinstate much of the US assistance to the Palestinians.

“It is definitely a mistake to give funds to the Palestinians without strings attached,” she maintained.

Oren noted that all aid from the US to the Palestinian Authority and other bodies serving the Palestinians such as UNRWA will have to conform to the Taylor Force Act of 2018, which prohibits US aid to organizations paying salaries to families of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israeli prisons and to families of Palestinian “martyrs” killed in acts of terrorism against Israel and other targets.

A new administration will present Israel’s government with the need to figure out how to continue working together with US officials and how to maintain the special relationship between the two countries.

Wilf remarked that Netanyahu knows how to work Congress. This will be an advantage as he endeavors to ensure that support for Israel is maintained in both houses of Congress and on both sides of the aisle. “Netanyahu,” she said, “will work with Congress to lean on the president for the betterment of Israel.”

There are concerns about the anti-Israel elements within the Democratic Party and that Netanyahu has become too close to Trump and the Republican side.

According to Rynhold, polls over the past five years show that Democrats still support Israel as a country by a two-to-one margin when compared to the Palestinian Authority. However, Democrats support the Israeli and Palestinian people in nearly equal measure.

“We have also seen Netanyahu’s popularity among Democrats ‘hit the boards,’ being heavily negative,” Rynhold noted.

“The way Netanyahu approached the Obama Iran deal by tying himself so closely to the Republicans and then to President Trump, combined with a growing hatred of Democrats for Republicans, and vice versa, puts Netanyahu in a difficult position,” the professor said.

Said Rynhold, “Netanyahu needs to stay on good terms with the Americans and he has to stay on good terms with his core base in Israel. If he is too accommodating to Biden, he will lose votes to the right. If he is too accommodating to the Israeli right, he will be challenged by others.”

Netanyahu, it appears, will have a great deal to think about if the Democrats take the White House.

THE MEDIA LINE — To circumvent Israeli sanctions on the Palestinian banking system, the Palestinian Authority decided this week to permanently cease paying monthly stipends to about 7,000 former prisoners, in order to transfer them to work within security, military or civilian institutions, so they can receive salaries as government employees.

A questionnaire was distributed in the past few days to all Palestine Liberation Organization followers who spent time in Israeli prisons, to identify their qualifications and allow them to choose into which field they prefer to integrate.

“The move is providing these former prisoners job security and social stability.”

Hasan Abd Rabbo, the spokesperson of the PLO’s Commission of Detainee Affairs, explained to The Media Line that recently the commission worked to fill out the questionnaires for those prisoners who spent more than five years in Israeli prisons, “in order to transfer them to become PA employees, based on their wishes and the information they provide us.”

Abd Rabbo clarified that payments to the families of “current prisoners [in Israel] and martyrs” will remain unchanged, “including their salaries, legal expenses and everything they need, which come as part of the greatest Palestinian national interest.”

He stressed that the change is intended to protect the former prisoners’ income, amid Israeli and American pressure to deal with them as terrorists. “The move is providing these former prisoners job security and social stability.”

Many banks in the West Bank closed accounts of relatives of “prisoners and martyrs,” after the Israeli army threatened the financial institutions, accused them of serving terrorists, said such stipends encouraged terrorism, and set a deadline to close the accounts, Abd Rabbo said. “And the most recent deadline given to the banks expires at the end of next month [December 31],” he added.

“But the PA has made a decision to establish a national bank, to serve the prisoners and the families of martyrs,” Abd Rabbo continued.

“The PA pays them salaries when they are in prison, and then outside as employees. Unbelievable!”

Moshe Marzouk, an Israeli analyst and research fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, told The Media Line the PA’s decision was very dangerous, as it encouraged people to commit terrorism attacks. “The PA pays them salaries when they are in prison, and then outside as employees. Unbelievable!”

Mazouk said none of the countries supporting the Palestinian leadership will accept this step, and that he believes the Israeli sanctions on the West Bank banks will continue. “The decision won’t help the PA, but on the contrary,” he added.

The Palestinian leadership pays the prisoners and families what it calls “salaries” – and what many on the Palestinian street call “martyr payments” – totaling an estimated 1.5 billion shekels ($444 million) annually.

Last May, the Israel Defense Forces Central Command issued an order prohibiting banks in the West Bank to transfer stipends that the PA pays to prisoners in Israeli jails and to the families of those slain in clashes with Israelis.

The Central Command is responsible for overall security in the West Bank, and issues directives enforcing many policies. It sees these payments as a security threat.

As such, it warned Palestinian and non-Palestinian banks not to carry out transactions related to what it called “terrorism funds,” saying that doing so would expose them to lawsuits. Bank managers and employees would be considered “accomplices to the crime” and be subject to imprisonment and fines.

Adel Mohammed Abed from Bethlehem, who was imprisoned by Israel twice, in 1994-2007 and in 2014-2016, told The Media Line that the questionnaire he filled out for the Commission of Detainee Affairs concerned information about him as a person, in addition to his professional qualifications.

“We were asked about our hobbies, experience and preferred work field. Now regarding the salary, it remains the same, but instead of receiving our salary from the commission, we now receive it from the Palestinian Finance Ministry’s Staff Affairs Office,” Abed said.

He said that his bank did not close his account, but his brother faced an issue with Cairo Amman Bank. His brother’s son was recently imprisoned, and his salary was being transferred to his father’s account. “The bank froze my brother’s account and that caused him a lot of problems,” Abed said.

“The prisoners and martyrs’ case is a national one and a priority, but I’m not sure if the PA move will help the situation.”

Nasr Abd al-Kareem, a professor of finance and banking science at the American University in Ramallah, told The Media Line the PA decision addressed a small part of the issue but would not solve it, “especially since Israel has several tools to pressure and blackmail the PA.

“The prisoners and martyrs’ case is a national one and a priority, but I’m not sure if the PA move will help the situation,” he said.

Israel aims to “criminalize the Palestinian struggle,” Abd al-Kareem said, and therefore it does not want prisoners and former prisoners to receive any payments from the PA or to be able to open bank accounts. “If Israel wants to punish them, the PA decision will not really protect them; they [the Israelis] have lists with their names and information.”

He added, “The name of the payment is not a problem for Israel, as long as the PA pays these former prisoners.”

Abd al-Kareem added that the decision might not protect the banks from Israel, “and regarding the fact that the PA is establishing a bank, that takes time, and the steps to get it working are very slow.”

He opined that Israel was not targeting these prisoners personally, but rather “their history,” and therefore what one calls the prisoners or the payments does not really matter. “However, Israel might just look at things differently, for security and political reasons, or for whatever strategic aim it has. It already postponed the deadline for the banks before, but at some point Israel might just implement its decision.”