Israel Doesn’t Need the Palestinian Authority

In response to the possibility that Jerusalem will attempt to apply its sovereignty to certain areas of the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA). Such a step could, at worst, plunge the area into chaos. At best, it would leave Israel to shoulder the expenses of providing basic civil services to the Palestinians living in the areas now under PA control—everything from education to welfare for the indigent to policing traffic laws. Of course, Abbas has been threatening to take this step for years, and never made good. Yossi Kuperwasser nonetheless examines the ways Abbas might do so (including temporary or partial dissolution), the possible consequences, and the actions Israel would be forced to take in various scenarios. Kuperwasser concludes:

[W]hile continuing the [present] situation is preferred, Israel can deal with the other alternatives. Some [possible outcomes even] present the possibility that an alternative leadership that may emerge, inside or outside the PA, which may lead to a different view of Israel-Palestinian relations and raise new opportunities.

In any case, Israel does not have to be hostage to the PA and make the PA’s existence and its functioning central elements of Israeli security, especially so long as the PA adheres to a Palestinian narrative that . . . calls for the destruction of Zionism and negates any arrangement recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. At the same time, the PA encourages terrorism by paying salaries to terrorists and their families and incites hatred against Israel both domestically and on the Arab and international stages. It should be clear that no Palestinian is going to accept any unilateral Israeli move regarding the legal status of any territory, even if some may be willing to assume responsibility for the daily needs of the Palestinian population and to lead the Palestinians in their attempt to promote their national interests.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

More about: Israeli Security, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority

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