Israel’s Prime Minister Has “Stamped” the Relations with the United States: The Biden-Benard Controversy Revisited

Israel’s embattled prime minister escalated a rare public dispute with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday, rejecting “pressure” from the White House after Biden criticized Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken Israel’s judiciary. The Israeli leader was not invited by Biden to the White House in the near term and the vice president rebuked Netanyahu for his plan to change the judicial system. Netanyahu responded that Israel is a country which makes decisions based on its people and not on pressure coming from abroad.

I am very concerned because I am a strong supporter of Israel. I am concerned that they don’t know what they are doing. They can’t go down this road. I’ve sort of made that clear,” Biden told reporters in North Carolina. “Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can work out some genuine compromise,” he said. That is still to be seen.

Netanyahu’s efforts have “ruined” the relationship, according to Israel’s opposition leader. Israel was the USA’s closest ally for a long time. The most extreme government in the nation’s history ruined that in three months.

The eruption of anger in Israel is a response to Netanyahu’s attempts to weaken the power of the country’s courts.

The prime minister put the legislation on hold on Monday after a general strike and massive protests but said he would bring it back in the next term. Critics say that Netanyahu is pushing through the changes because of his own ongoing corruption trial.

The Jerusalem-US Bridge: A Keynote Address to Netanyahu on the State of Israel and Prospects for a Comprehensive Judiciary Reform

It was also announced on Tuesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will visit Jerusalem next month, a trip that is certain to inject the likely Republican presidential contender into Israel’s national tumult and its increasingly fraught relationship with the US.

“At a time of unnecessarily strained relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Florida serves as a bridge between the American and Israeli people,” DeSantis told the Jerusalem Post, which announced details of his planned keynote address at an April 27 event.

“We are in the middle of an important debate, we will overcome it,” Netanyahu said in a statement to staff on Tuesday after announcing that the legislation will be paused until after Passover.

“You are going to Passover, on the eve of Seder you will sit with the families. You can fight a little, not too much, you will come to an agreement. This is our goal is to reach agreements, both among you and among us,” he said.

Israel accused the United States of interfering in its internal affairs because it dislikes Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to increase his ruling coalition’s say in how judges are chosen.

There have been several exchanges with the White House showing they were not on the same wavelength regarding Israeli plans to expand Jewish settlements in occupied territory in the West Bank.

Netanyahu addressed the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy, saying that “the alliance between the world’s greatest democracy and a strong, proud and independent democracy – Israel – in the heart of the Middle East is unshakable.” Netanyahu made no mention of the dispute in his speech.

Netanyahu’s government is in negotiations with opposition politicians to try and reach an agreement on a judiciary reform before the parliament comes back in late April.

Netanyahu was playing the game: How the Jewish Power Party broke Netanyahu’s Decay to Judgment of Solomon to Save the Mother of Solomon

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Netanyahu invoked the story of Judgement of Solomon when he said he would delay a plan to weaken the country’s judiciary. Solomon ordered that the child be cut in two, and the woman who protested the ruling was determined to be the real mother.

The judicial changes supporters gathered in the streets and right-wing politicians called on them to come out, allowing the prime minister to make his address as protesters from both sides rallied for thefirst time in weeks.

Netanyahu said that both sides of the dispute claim love for the baby. The tension between the two camps is building up and I am attentive to the desire of many citizens to reduce this tension.

The timing of the address was likely intentional and was meant to give Netanyahu’s much-delayed speech a favorable backdrop – two competing camps demonstrating their love for the country, said Aviv Bushinsky, a former media adviser for Netanyahu who served the prime minister for nine years.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor of Political Science said that he was playing the game. “You can never know what will happen, and that’s the problem … There is no certainty in Israel, in the Israeli system, and I am not sure that he’s not happy about this.”

Bushinsky says that if it was up to Netanyahu he would have pumped the brakes on the judicial overhaul a long time ago, as it wasn’t one of the main leadership goals declared at the start of his sixth term as prime minister.

He’s standing by it because the survival of his coalition depends on it. Analysts say he has a choice between appeasing protesters or keeping his government intact.

Before Netanyahu announced the delay, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party broke the news, noting that part of the delay agreement was to establish a National Guard. That caused alarm, with some speculating on social media that Ben Gvir, who has an extremist past, was being allowed to set up his own militia.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Tuesday that putting Ben Gvir in charge of the National Guard is “the equivalent of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

Ben Gvir was quick to address the concerns about the new body. “Let’s put things straight: no private army and no militias,” he said in a statement published on his Telegram page.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/middleeast/netanyahu-options-israel-mime-intl/index.html

Netanyahu’s options on the issue of security and security in Israel: a case for a security threat, and what will Israel do after the recess?

The prime minister has very few options. If he sides with his coalition and votes on the overhaul, crippling protests and strikes would resume. The coalition could collapse if he pulls the brakes.

The only way for the leader of Israel to wiggle room is if the negotiators agree to a moderate judicial amendment plan bill in time for the Knesset to go on holiday for two weeks from April 30.

“I think Netanyahu will try to run away from this thing, hoping that things will gradually ease,” said Bushinsky, noting that the ministers who had threatened to resign should the bill not advance have all remained in their posts.

Analysts say, however, that what could once again unite the fragmented country and have the public rally behind the government is a potential security threat, either from neighboring countries or through conflict with the Palestinians.

A security crisis would reorient the government’s attention, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, whether it arises from conflict with the Palestinians, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon or others.

The Palestinians are concerned that they may pay a price for Netanyahu’s concessions because of the anti-Palestinian rhetoric of the right wing members.

How Netanyahu will act remains uncertain, and not everyone is optimistic that the recess period will yield any kind of consensus or moderation in his position.

“I have not detected any indication that tells me that the prime minister is actually entering into the negotiations with a keen interest in achieving consensus … including comprises on core aspects of the judicial overhaul,” said Plesner.

The last few months caused Netanyahu and his party to lose their legitimacy in the eyes of the Israeli people and in the eyes of their own voters.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/middleeast/netanyahu-options-israel-mime-intl/index.html

Saudi Arabia’s stance on the Chelyabinsk crisis after Hamada’s “Cairo Class” show

Saudi Arabia is going to join the SCO as it tries to build a partnership with China despite US security concerns, according to reports. The status of a dialog partner in the SCO has been granted to Saudi Arabia by the state news agency.

Background: Formed in 2001 by Russia, China and former Soviet states in Central Asia, the body has been expanded to include India and Pakistan, with a view to playing a bigger role as counterweight to Western influence in the region. The SCO is a political and security union. Iran also signed documents for full membership last year. Countries belonging to the organization plan to hold a joint “counter-terrorism exercise” in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region in August.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia likes to keep policy that doesn’t interfere with the internal affairs, which is why they’re interested in the East.

The United Nations and Western anti-narcotic drug officials say Syria has become the main production site for a billion-dollar drug trade that also exports, because of its thriving market for captagon.

Saudi Arabia’s oil giant is buying a 10% stake in a Chinese company in a deal that will help it expand into China.

The series, “London Class,” is produced by the Saudi state-backed media conglomerate MBC group and depicts Iraqi women working as maids for Kuwaiti women and being accused of theft.

The show is not broadcasted in Kuwait because it has nothing to do with the country, according to the ministry of information.

The show was written by Kuwaiti writer Heba Hamada and directed by Egyptian Mohamed Bakir. Hamada responded to the criticism in an Instagram post, saying: “Iraq is the mother of civilization, and all Arabs lean on its shoulder.”

The value of Iraqi talents has been ruined by the show, which distorts the image of the Iraqis as a whole, according to a Member of parliament in Iraq.

Hamada’s show “Cairo Class,” which depicted Egypt in a negative light, caused tensions between Kuwaitis and Egyptians. That show is being aired on Netflix.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/middleeast/netanyahu-options-israel-mime-intl/index.html

The Iraqi Women’s Honor and Saddam Hussein’s Revivified History of the Iraqi-Iraqi Correspondence

Iraqi women’s honor is a sensitive topic in Kuwait-Iraqi relations. Saddam Hussein blamed Kuwait for invading Iraq in 1990 because he said the country had insulted his country’s women.

“How could Saddam be tried over Kuwait that said it will reduce Iraqi women to 10-dinar prostitutes?” he asked, referring to himself. “He (Hussein) defended Iraq’s honor and revived its historical rights over those dogs,” Saddam said, referring to the Kuwaitis.