Israel Week Ending August 27th

Bennet in Washington, Iran, Gaza, Covid and the Economy

BENNETT: WASHINGTON AND IRAN

Before yesterday’s tragic events in Afghanistan, I assumed I would write this newsletter after the Biden/Bennett meeting. The President’s meeting with the Prime Minister was delayed until late this afternoon, Israel time. If anything special develops, I will send out an updated version of the newsletter. As I wrote in my article summing up the impact of Israel of Afghanistan's collapse: "As Bennett meets Biden, he knows he’s meeting a friend; a friend who means well, but, a friend whose ‘will to protect and defend’ is weaker today than any time since World War II. However, ultimately, as the Prime Minister meets with the President, Bennett will know that now more than ever, Israel can only rely on itself in an ever more dangerous world.”

Bennett has already met with Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin. Those meetings went well, as was expected. The US government is well aware of the fragile nature of the Bennett government and has no interest in seeing Trump's “best friend” return to power. They are, and will, go out of their way to accommodate Bennett. The one major issue that cannot be ignored is, of course, Iran

Prime Minister Bennet and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin

Thanks to the US's unilateral withdrawal from JCOPA, the Iranians have been marching forward in the development of their nuclear capabilities. Are the Iranians only two months away from having a bomb, like Defense Minister Gantz said this week? The answer is unclear. In a very public move, Chief of Staff Aviv Khochavi publicly ordered the IDF to accelerate its preparation for an on Iran, as a means of putting pressure on the Biden Administration, in the same way, Netanyahu pressured Obama. 

Was this act a ploy, or was it real? Could the Israeli government believe that with the current state of Lebanon, Iran's means of retaliating for an Israeli attack (i.e., having Hezbollah rain down rockets on Israel) is not a likely option? Perhaps, but the size of that risk is hard to quantify, and I see no willingness among the Israeli public to support such a gamble. It is also clear that Israel's ability to cripple the Iranian program is limited — delay yes; destroy, not likely.  

All of this returns to the question of what Bennett hopes to accomplish with Biden regarding Iran. A few months ago, the Americans seemed hell-bent on reaching an agreement with Iran. Today, while they have not given up, the US has realized Iran appears in no rush to reach an understanding. Bennett is said to have a comprehensive plan detailing what can be done to stop Iran. If the Iranians are only two months away, I question any chance of success. However, if they are further away, then maybe, maybe Biden will sign on — especially if Iran continues to make it impossible to reach an agreement.

AFGHANISTAN

I do not want to get involved in the whole argument about the US decision in Afghanistan here. Arguments can be made either way  — that America should have stayed, whatever the cost, or it was right to leave. From Israel’s perspective, the decision to leave was clearly bad. However, I must correct one fallacy: The idea that the US could have maintained only 2,000 troops in Afghanistan is false. Before Trump signed his “peace deal” with the Taliban, there were over 10,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan (i.e., the number the Pentagon believed sufficient to maintain some form of the status quo). Trump had withdrawn all but 2,000, by the time Biden came to office. The Taliban has not attacked US forces during the evacuation, because that was the essence of the agreement — meaning, we will withdraw if you do not attack our troops. Biden’s choice was to either bring back more troops or withdraw. The status quo was untenable.(See this weeks radio show)

COVID–19

Israeli continues its experiment, putting remarkably few restrictions on the economy, with very high vaccination rates, along with very high levels of infection. This week, Israel expanded its booster program, to include anyone 30 or over. Expectations are that this week the booster will be available to everyone else. Initial results seem to indicate the boosters are effective in bending the curve. Though the conclusions of these studies are not yet definitive. At the beginning of the week, Israel reported almost 10,000 Covid cases each day. By the end of the week, that number had dropped to 8,000.

It should be noted that the number of Coronavirus tests dropped by about 15% over the course of the week. Moreover, statistics released yesterday by the Ministry of Health show that those who receive the booster are 95% protected against infection and 98% against severe disease. Thus, even though the vaccinated in Israel now makeup over 90% of the population over age 60, (i.e., those considered the most vulnerable to Covid), the unvaccinated now outnumber the vaccinated, among patients in serious condition here.

As a result, the increase in Covid cases has decreased, while the number of seriously ill patients seem to have stabilized at a relatively high number. Sadly, Covid deaths continue, with 168 dying this past last week.

School opens next week, although nothing has been put in place to try to make the school a safer environment. No work was done to improve ventilation or limit class size. With impending school openings, to be immediately followed by large family gatherings for Rosh Hashanah, let's just hope Israel's wager on booster shots pays off.  

GAZA

This past week began with violent protests along the Gaza border. The result was that one Israeli soldier was seriously wounded, and has been in the hospital, in a coma all week. His injuries were probably avoidable, and resulted from a tactical error by those commanding the troops along the border. However, the violence angered the Egyptians, who have been trying to mediate a long-term agreement between Hamas and Israel, and they immediately closed their border crossing with Gaza. 

Israel responded to the renewed attacks with its routine bombing of largely empty buildings in Gaza. The Egyptian pressure seems to have done the trick, and when the protests resumed on Wednesday, Hamas ensured that they stayed away from the border fence, and were largely peaceful. Some Israeli commentators speculate that a new round of fighting with Hamas is imminent. Hamas is not happy with the new means of distributing money in Gaza, which bypasses them. Nevertheless, it's unclear what they might achieve in a new round, so I will not even hazard a guess as to what might happen in the coming months.

I can't help but mention a chance encounter I had this morning with a woman from a group opposite the Ministry of Defense, demonstrating against the occupation. We discussed the conflict, and I sadly expressed my view that the conflict would not be solved in our lifetime (she was more or less my age). However, she correctly stated that something has to be done about the violence of the settler youth against Palestinians. That I agree with 100%! There seems to be a severe fault in whatever education these young people have received. Even if you believe this entire land is ours, it does not give you the right to physically attack and harm others. 

RELIGION

For the past few weeks, there have been ongoing, and sometimes violent, demonstrations by the ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem, against the building of a new line of the Jerusalem light rail. When I heard about these protests, I was perplexed regarding what these people were demonstrating against. Most ultra-orthodox protests over the past year have been to close roads on Shabbat, or concerning an issue related to the draft. So many Israelis and I were surprised to learn the reason for the demonstration this week. It turns out, they object to the light rail going through their neighborhood, because men and women sit next to each other on light rail trains.

Here’s an interesting article worth reading, by Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch: The Fracturing of Liberal Judaism over Jewish Particularism

ECONOMY

A thought-provoking report was just released., showing that housing prices in Israel have increased by 345% during the last ten years. Wages during that time have gone up by 17.5%, and inflation has been rising at less than 1% a year. In comparison, in the United States, where housing prices have gone up 153% during the past ten years, wages are now up by 13.7%. In absolute prices, Israel ranks third after Switzerland, and below France. In Israel, the price per square meter of housing is $9,490. In Switzerland, it is $11,642, and in France, it is $9,509. The United States, by comparison, $3,754 per square meter. It should be noted that the median income per family in the US is $43,585, and $30,364 in Israel.