SUMMING UP

The numerous analyses of the recently concluded Israel – Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) military action have been conducted mostly by various Israeli think-tanks, both affiliated and others ostensibly not aligned.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East.

I am quoting here, selected texts from an analysis written by David Makovsky. He is the Institute’s director of a programme that analyses Arab-Israel Relations. 

 “On May 13, Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) reached a ceasefire deal—brokered by Egypt with involvement from the United States and Qatar—following a brief Israeli operation targeting Gaza known as ‘Shield and Arrow.’ The Israeli campaign hearkened back to August 2022, when the government led by Yair Lapid also fought PIJ over a short period. Then as now, Israel hoped the larger, better-armed, and politically stronger Hamas would stay out of the fray.”

Viewing the operational aspects of this latest exchange of fire, Makovsky said,” As an Iranian proxy, PIJ lacks Hamas’s broad public support in Gaza, and its rockets lack the lethality or range of those held by Hamas. Despite its military limitations, between May 9 and May 13, PIJ successfully fired 1,469 rockets at Israeli civilian areas, although roughly one-fifth landed in Gaza. PIJ also managed to fire a few rockets that reached the southern Tel Aviv suburbs and a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem.

Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system intercepted 95.6 percent of the rockets on course to hit Israeli civilian targets. One Israeli was killed in a Rehovot apartment building and a Gazan labourer was killed while working in Israel. Reports suggest Israel twice delayed the start of the operation amid concerns that innocent bystanders could be killed.

In all, the operation killed thirty-three Palestinians in Gaza, including ten uninvolved civilians in the opening airstrikes, according to the IDF. Most casualties were militants, but some occurred as a result of PIJ misfires.

The IDF registered tactical successes by killing three PIJ operational leaders in the initial May 9 strikes, as well as three other high-level militants thereafter. In a positive step for Israel’s layered missile defence, the IDF field-tested the medium-range David’s Sling system for the first time, shooting down a rocket headed for Tel Aviv. 

As for the broader context, Israel was responding to PIJ rocket attacks on Israeli cities launched after PIJ activist Khader Adnan died on May 2 while on a hunger strike in Israeli custody. Israeli defence officials were also concerned about PIJ’s burgeoning rocket production capability in the West Bank city of Jenin.

As in August 2022, Hamas resisted reported urging by Iran to enter the fighting, and in this round it reportedly even refused to shelter PIJ operatives by pairing them with Hamas fighters as shields. Rather, Hamas continued its policy of keeping Gaza quiet in order to consolidate its control and make economic gains (i.e., maintaining access for a minority of Palestinians to higher-paying jobs in Israel), while focusing on its West Bank operations against Israel.

Hamas would have struggled to stay on the sidelines had the fighting lasted longer, especially given the symbolic resonance of Jerusalem Day, May 19, which marks Israel’s victory in the 1967 war. An annual Israeli flag parade set to pass through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City has invariably posed a security challenge, but Israel has resisted the Biden administration’s requests to alter the route. This year, despite the plans and provocations threatened by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads the extremist Otzma Yehudit party, there were relatively few incidents.

On May 14, polls conducted by three Israeli television networks showed that nearly 60 percent of Israelis were satisfied with the security actions against PIJ. At the same time, they did not see the campaign as a turning point. A Channel 13 poll revealed that 53 percent of respondents believed it was a matter of 'months' before another Gaza confrontation would occur, whereas only 17 percent thought more than a year would pass. Military analysts interviewed on TV panels and even relatively upbeat analyses  in other news media, generally failed to offer reassurance of a long-term solution to the Gaza tensions.

Given general public support for short, focused military operations, the mild popularity surge experienced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unsurprising. Yet the Israeli leader needed any help he could get following the uproar over his government’s proposed controversial judicial overhaul. Support for the coalition was basically in free fall by late March amid public anger over the sudden dismissal of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who called for a pause in the reform plans. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in protest, and the Histadrut general trade union called for widespread strikes. In response, Netanyahu was forced to backtrack, publicly voicing support for compromise talks facilitated by President Isaac Herzog.

Netanyahu’s aides have conveyed to reporters in background statements that the prime minister does not want to advance any controversial unilateral legislation during the spring-summer Knesset session, given that it could derail passage of the two-year budget before the month’s end. (By law, Israel’s government dissolves if it does not pass a budget by May 29.) Undoubtedly, though, the far-right elements of Netanyahu’s bloc will see the budget deadline as an opportunity for brinkmanship on various issues. Friction could centre, first, on large proposed shifts in funding for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, including increased assistance for educational institutions that exclude core subjects such as math and English. The anti-overhaul movement will see this as part and parcel of its opposition to the sweeping changes the government is trying to implement, and the sharp increase in subsidies is sure to rekindle resentment.

The judicial overhaul proponents like Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee chair Simcha Rothman will threaten to advance the legislation during the budget debate if the Herzog talks bog down.

The May 14 surveys conducted by  Israeli TV  channels 12, and  13 would appear to offer a political path for Netanyahu. By late April, polls showed that the prime minister’s Likud Party would plummet to twenty seats if elections were held right then, down from its existing thirty-two-seat position. But by mid-May, Netanyahu’s party appeared to have gained back seven or eight of the lost seats. An election today could still see a bloc led by de facto National Unity head Benny Gantz triumph by anywhere from three to seven seats. Gantz’s strength has impressed analysts, who had presumed—after five elections in three-plus years—that the political fight would come down to a narrow slice of soft-right voters. But at Netanyahu’s April low point, Gantz appeared to have a much higher ceiling. Moreover, despite falling short in previous national elections, Gantz has gained public respect as a unifying figure intent on avoiding a culture war over the judicial overhaul.

Netanyahu understands that the judicial issue is a political lightning rod that he cannot touch now, and that his association with extremist political figures like Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin—who lately are perceived as being able to overpower him—is weakening him in the eyes of the broader public. A military conflict, by comparison, links the prime minister to more pragmatic, straightforward military chiefs and would appear to boost his political prospects.”

Summing up, David Makovsky said, “Netanyahu must now walk a political tightrope. On the one hand, he will try to avoid angering the coalition’s ideological base, an act that will involve hinting that the overhaul has merely been postponed—not scuttled—or that Herzog can facilitate a compromise palatable to the right. Yet anti-overhaul protesters do not trust Netanyahu and believe that the issue is only temporarily on the backburner and can return at any time. Thus, protests will continue. On the other hand, the prime minister will seek to signal to the Biden administration his desire to jointly counter Iran while building stronger ties with Saudi Arabia, both of which require prior consultation between the leaders in the Oval Office. Investors, meanwhile, are awaiting a clear signal from the prime minister either that judicial overhaul is dead or that a reasonable compromise has been reached, but Netanyahu may seek to maintain ambiguity in the hope that the issue will either fade or lose its political potency.  

 
      

As usual I like to conclude on a pleasant, hopeful note. What could be better than a flower parade.

“The Tag Meir coexistence organization conducted its ninth annual Flower March through the Old City of Jerusalem Thursday morning as a counterpoint to the nationalist Flag March later in the day.

The left-wing organisation said several hundred participants had taken part in the march, distributing flowers to residents of the Muslim, Christian and Armenian Quarters in order to spread a message of “love, inclusion [and] solidarity” ahead of what the organisers described as the “racism and incitement” of the Flag March.

A Tag Meir coexistence activist gives a Muslim woman a flower during the organization's ninth annual Flower March through the Old City of Jerusalem designed to spread a message of "love, inclusion and solidarity" ahead of the nationalist Jerusalem Day Flag March, May 18, 2023

 “We need to remember that this day is not a happy day for the Palestinians and Muslims in Jerusalem. They are 40 percent of Jerusalem’s population. That is why we think the Flag March should go through a different route, and not force them to close their stores,” Tag Meir director Gadi Gvaryahu told The Times of Israel.

Perhaps the concept of the flower parade is a tad naïve, but nice.

 

Take care,

 

Beni,                          19^th of May, 2023.