Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu are maneuvering for political advantage inside Israel by trying to outdo one another on an Israeli activity that sadly always wins support: bombing Gaza.
Anti-annexation forces counted on Yair Golan in Meretz to oppose plans. He has folded, while former hero Benny Gantz uses scatological derision of Palestinians in pushing forward on annexation. “We won’t get into Palestinian deep shit.”
Dennis Ross says Netanyahu is deluded about Joe Biden’s potential support for annexation. “[Netanyahu’s] view of the gains unfortunately is not very real. You only establish an international baseline if in fact everyone is prepared to adjust to it. Now maybe if Trump has a second term, there is more of an impulse to adjust to it. But if Trump doesn’t have a second term, no one else internationally of any meaning is going to recognize this new baseline. And if Joe Biden comes in and says, ‘I was opposed to it, I still believe in the two-state outcome, I want negotiations, I saw what Trump did was antithetical to achieving that, so we’re not recognizing that as a baseline…”
It’s been two days since Ranad al-Halaq’s only son, 32-year-old Eyad al-Halaq, was gunned down by Israeli police in the Old City of Jerusalem, where he was enrolled at a center for Palestinian adults and children with disabilities. “He was the light of my heart, the light of my eyes, my soul, my angel.”
European leaders know that the Oslo process has failed. Will they step forward courageously and break the spell by speaking out against the continuation of the obviously failed policy? If they do, they will merely be recognizing actual reality. Even Dennis Ross, former US diplomat involved in several rounds of negotiation in the Oslo process, now recognizes, that a one-state solution based on the concept of equal rights for all is the most likely outcome.
Pompeo’s lightning visit to Israel shows that Republicans have a lot to gain by making Israel a political football, possibly gaining Jewish votes in Florida.
Polls showed that Netanyahu would win a fourth election in Israel, and the deal he cut for a unity government with Benny Gantz reflects his strength. Fewer than a third of Israeli voters believe Netanyahu will respect his rotation agreement with Gantz.
Palestinian lawmakers decry the political deal in Israel. Aida Touma-Sliman calls new Netanyahu-Gantz government “dangerous” and vows to fight its plan too annex portions of the occupied West Bank.
As a deadline looms in Israeli election tonight, Netanyahu has broken Benny Gantz and may be playing for a fourth election, as the coronvirus PM. Gantz and Netanyahu appeared to be very close to a unity government agreement in Israel, between Likud and the now-reduced Blue White. But then Netanyahu wanted to renegotiate terms, and Blue White broke off.
Israeli Greens Party leader Stav Shaffir describes the demoralization of the Jewish left in Israel. It has lost “foundations of democratic infrastructure,” media and parliament, and so is afraid to talk about its issues and seeks to flatter the right wing settler government.