Don’t Squander Arab Good Will on the Peace Process

Both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump have suggested that renewed Israel-Palestinian negotiations could be aided by the involvement of Arab states friendly to the U.S. and Israel, including Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia that have a growing unofficial economic and military relationship with the Jewish state. To John Hannah, this is precisely the wrong way to take advantage of improving ties between Israel and Arab countries:

While I agree wholeheartedly that a historic opportunity may now exist to advance relations between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors, it would be unfortunate to squander it in service of efforts to solve a maddeningly intractable conflict that has defied resolution for nearly 70 years—and whose current prospects for progress are probably as bleak as they’ve been in a generation. . . .

My main concern is with preserving the major strategic opportunity represented by Israel’s budding relationship with the Arab states. The fact is that the basis for that relationship rests entirely on the shared sense of danger that both now face from the radical Shiite theocrats of Iran, on the one hand, and the Sunni jihadists and Islamists of al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamic State, on the other. On those issues, the countries’ views are largely identical. By contrast, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, the differences over what would constitute an acceptable solution remain profound. . . . Does it really make sense to stress-test Israel’s incipient and still-fragile cooperation with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states on the one issue that remains the source of their greatest disagreement? . . .

Of course, it’s important to note that the promise of enhanced Israeli-Arab cooperation is greatest against the twin dangers—Iran and Islamic terrorism—that also happen to pose the most urgent threats to U.S. interests in the Middle East. In an age of multiplying crises and declining resources, rigorously identifying U.S. national-security priorities is more important than ever. From that vantage point, countering the Iranian and jihadist threats are clearly matters vital to the safety and security of the American people. But rushing once more into the breach to try to midwife the birth of a weak and divided Palestinian state that would likely be prone to terror and anti-Americanism? Well, perhaps not so much.

Read more at Foreign Policy

More about: Israel & Zionism, Israel-Arab relations, Peace Process, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Foreign policy

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society