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More than other reports of the meeting, I think the editorial in the Jerusalem Post said it best!

I refer to the tête-à-tête that took place at the home of Defence Minister Benny Gantz in Rosh Ha’ayin last week: -

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas neither heralds peace lurking around the corner nor portends a massive Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

What it does do is make good common sense.

                Abbas and Gantz

Abbas is no lover of Zion. His history of Holocaust denial is despicable. His paying hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families is unconscionable, and his libel of Israel is contemptible. Yet, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are still better from an Israeli perspective than the Hamas alternative…….

Israel has an interest in propping up the PA, as flawed and corrupt as it is, because security cooperation with the PA is important in keeping a lid on the violence in the West Bank, and because there must be an address if and when the time does come for serious diplomatic discussions. That address can only be the PA; it can’t and won’t be Hamas.

You cannot prop up those with whom you don’t interact, so dialogue is important and necessary.

Certainly, with tension on the rise in the West Bank, as Hamas wants to fan the flames as a way of challenging not only Israel but also Abbas, a meeting at the highest level to discuss ways to tamp down the tension is smart. Gantz, as the defence minister with overall administrative responsibility over the territories, is a logical person to host these meetings.

Immediately following the meeting, Israel announced several confidence-building measures toward the Palestinians. These include the transfer of USD 32.41million in tax payments Israel collects for the PA, legalising the status of 9,500 undocumented Palestinians and foreigners in the West Bank and Gaza, and 1,100 business passes to senior businesspeople. These moves are welcome, but Israel should make clear that this is a two-way street; that if it takes steps to build Palestinian confidence, the Palestinians need to reciprocate by taking steps to build Israeli confidence as well.

The most obvious step would be to stop paying stipends to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails. But since that is not going to happen anytime soon, there are other steps that the Palestinians could take to signal to Israelis that they, too, want to put relations on a better footing.

One such step would be to stop slandering Israel from every international stage. If Israelis would hear Abbas and other senior PA officials speak about a desire for reconciliation without demonising the Jewish state, that would go far toward building Israeli confidence.

While Gantz is certainly a logical choice to be meeting with Abbas, he is by no means the most logical choice. That would be Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But Bennett has said he will not be meeting the Palestinian leader.

We get it: Bennett is against a two-state solution. He thinks it is both unrealistic and a terrible mistake, and doesn’t want to do anything to promote it.

But Bennett also understands that he just can’t wish the Palestinian issue away. Instead he has endorsed a policy of “shrinking the conflict,” saying he wants to improve the economic situation for the Palestinians, make their lives easier, and improve economic conditions in the West Bank. To do even that, however, he should be meeting with Abbas.

Neither Bennett nor Israel gains anything by boycotting the PA president. On the contrary, it makes Israel appear as the recalcitrant party in this conflict, which is an inaccurate reflection of reality.

Even if Israel believes peace is but a distant mirage, it – and its leader – must strive to be seen in the eyes of the world as the party trying to make that mirage real.”

Perhaps by way of counterbalancing its editorial the Jerusalem Post added an opinion piece written by its senior contributing editor and senior diplomatic correspondent  Lahav Harkov.

“This is a government in which the Right, Left and Centre are so out of sync when it comes to the Palestinians that they are keeping one another in check.”

Referring to the broad differences of opinion within the Coalition Government regarding the PA, Ms. Lahav said,

“It’s all of these disagreements that make the Abbas-Gantz meeting less impactful than it may initially seem to be.” …” Admittedly, it’s the first of its kind in 10 years, but even if Gantz makes big gestures, they mostly remain just that – gestures.

 

At this juncture let’s turn to a close encounter of another kind reported by Lahav Harkov a week earlier.

In her post Ms. Harkov told how Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel became the unexpected leader of the campaign for equal rights in this country, resulting in him being regarded by the Haredi community as public enemy No. 1.

 

 

 

 

               Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel

Another news outlet described the meeting as follows: “Leading rabbis from the Hassidic, Lithuanian and Sephardi Haredi communities requested a meeting with Hendel to discuss “kosher phones.” Namely, a special phone service widely used by Haredim in Israel configured only for calls and text messages, no Internet, no applications.

A Haredi committee determines that certain phone numbers are blocked. They also have designated phone numbers enabling them to easily identify kosher phones.

Yoaz Hendel pointed out that kosher phones are a sort of fiefdom within Israeli telecommunications. Unlike other phone numbers, kosher numbers can’t be moved from one company to another, severely limiting competition. The committees that block numbers lack transparency or recourse so that a business – the example Hendel gave is a kosher pizza place – has no way of knowing why a crucial communications tool has been cut off, and reversing the decision is near-impossible

The meeting was without precedent, in particular regarding the venue – it was held in the communications ministry bureau.  In the past politicians went to the home courts of the rabbis. They were careful to follow the established protocol by wearing black skullcaps and always showed deference to the venerable sages.

But this time Hendel was at the head of the table, and the rabbis were his guests in his home court. It’s pertinent to add that Yoaz Hendel is an observant Jew, who keeps Shabbat and only eats kosher food, but he chooses not to wear a kippah on weekdays, (you could say the minister is selectively “lite” in his religious observance). At the meeting with the rabbis, he was bareheaded as usual on weekdays.

Instead of asking the rabbis for their advice or their blessing, Hendel addressed them as equals.

“The real argument under discussion,” Hendel said, “Is how we regard the State of Israel and whether the State of Israel can regulate what happens in its domain.”

The Haredi media and politicians were furious over the meeting and the way Hendel conducted it.

United Torah Judaism Knesset Member Moshe Gafni lead the attack on the communications minister: - “A minister in the government spoke with such arrogance and audacity to rabbis who have thousands and thousands of families supporting them, who accept their authority,”

                      Knesset Member Moshe Gafni

 

“You cannot hold the stick at both ends – on one end, to have the power and be part of the government for many years and hold ministerial portfolios, but on the other, to say ‘I don’t want the State of Israel to interfere with my life,’” Hendel said.

He also pointed out that kosher phones are an illusion, and that 50-70% of Haredim have the Internet anyway, with many carrying multiple cellphones so they can use the kosher phone in some circumstances – such as to register their children for prestigious schools – and a smartphone at other times.

Communications Minister Hendel said the angry reaction of the Haredi leaders toward him, and to Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana who seeks to reform government kosher food supervision and the religious conversion process, was predictable. Nevertheless, they weren’t deterred by the ire of the Haredim and are determined   to effect a change for the benefit of all Israelis.

        Take care 

        Beni                                                                               6th  of January, 2022