Analysis: Netanyahu's balancing act got harder after post-summit violence
PRO-SETTLER PARTIES
Palestinians, alarmed since Israel's Nov. 1 election, when Netanyahu started building his coalition government with ultra-nationalist pro-settler parties Jewish Power and Religious Zionism, look to Washington to rein them in.
"The U.S administration, which fosters this government, must end all these crimes," said the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who heads Jewish Power, held a special faction meeting at a settler outpost slated for eviction because it was built without government permit.
"The terrorists should be crushed and it is time to go back to targeted killings and to eliminate the leaders of the inciting terrorist organizations," said Ben-Gvir, while calling on Israelis not to "take the law into their own hands."
Palestinian political analyst George Giacaman predicted more violence. "The main battle will be with settlers," he said.
To be effective, the Aqaba agreements would need a follow-up, said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. envoy to Israel and now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. Sunday's events, he said, showed that there was "a risk that the pace of deterioration will outstrip the diplomatic efforts to reverse it".
However, Netanyahu's manoeuvring room appears to be shrinking - Ben-Gvir is already issuing political threats, while Religious Zionism leader and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week consolidated his civil powers in the West Bank.
So much so, that with Netanyahu's new coalition just eight weeks old, Israeli political commentators already are asking whether the veteran politician can hold it together.
"One can see the Aqaba summit as a parable: the Americans announce that Israel has promised to freeze settlement construction, which Netanyahu then denies. At those exact moments, the Jewish Power and Religious Zionism ministers attack the summit and say it is non-binding," wrote Moran Azulay, of Israel's Ynet news site.
"On the eve of the election Netanyahu was pondering the legacy he will have when he is reelected prime minister. At the moment it appears to be chaos and disintegration."
Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawafta and Rami Amichay; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Tomasz Janowski
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich arrive to attend a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem, February 23, 2023.
REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
JERUSALEM, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The U.S.-brokered summit has barely ended with pledges to calm violence and slow Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank when Palestinian homes were set ablaze by Jewish settlers in retaliation to a deadly Palestinian gun ambush.
Hopes for a calming effect of the meeting hosted by Jordan in the Red Sea port of Aqaba and attended by high-level Israeli and Palestinian security officials, faded further when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disavowed any notion of a halt to settlement-building.
"The Aqaba agreement was born dead," read a headline in the largest Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, after footage on social media showed young settlers praying while they watched fires in near Palestinian village Hawara, just hours after two brothers from a nearby settlement were shot dead in their car there.
On Monday, another suspected Palestinian shooting attack in the West Bank critically wounded one person, emergency services said.
The events cast doubt on Netanyahu's ability to walk a diplomatic tightrope between Washington - pushing for a lasting compromise - and his own cabinet that includes hard-line settlers demanding tough action against Palestinian attacks.
Less than a month ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Jerusalem reaffirming U.S. support for a two-state solution: independence for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, which they say would be incompatible with Israeli settlements.
If Netanyahu now let violence spiral out of control it would be another, even bigger source of friction with the White House, said Amotz Asa-El, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman research institute.
"If anything like what happened last night resumes and gives Washington reason to suspect that Netanyahu is impotent in handling it, they will talk to him very plainly", said Asa-El, adding that the White House has put pressure Israeli leaders before.
"It's now in his interest to show that he is clamping down on this kind of settler violence."
The U.S. State Department spokesperson condemned both the killing of two Israelis and the settler rampage, in which one Palestinian was killed and more than 100 wounded. The spokesperson stressed "the imperative to immediately de-escalate tensions in words and deeds".
But shortly after a U.S. State Department joint communique said Israel had committed to stop approving new settlement units for four months, Netanyahu said that settlement construction would go on as planned.
"There is not and will not be any freeze," he tweeted in an apparent nod to his hard-line partners.
JERUSALEM, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The U.S.-brokered summit has barely ended with pledges to calm violence and slow Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank when Palestinian homes were set ablaze by Jewish settlers in retaliation to a deadly Palestinian gun ambush.
Hopes for a calming effect of the meeting hosted by Jordan in the Red Sea port of Aqaba and attended by high-level Israeli and Palestinian security officials, faded further when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disavowed any notion of a halt to settlement-building.
"The Aqaba agreement was born dead," read a headline in the largest Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, after footage on social media showed young settlers praying while they watched fires in near Palestinian village Hawara, just hours after two brothers from a nearby settlement were shot dead in their car there.
On Monday, another suspected Palestinian shooting attack in the West Bank critically wounded one person, emergency services said.
The events cast doubt on Netanyahu's ability to walk a diplomatic tightrope between Washington - pushing for a lasting compromise - and his own cabinet that includes hard-line settlers demanding tough action against Palestinian attacks.
Less than a month ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Jerusalem reaffirming U.S. support for a two-state solution: independence for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, which they say would be incompatible with Israeli settlements.
If Netanyahu now let violence spiral out of control it would be another, even bigger source of friction with the White House, said Amotz Asa-El, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman research institute.
"If anything like what happened last night resumes and gives Washington reason to suspect that Netanyahu is impotent in handling it, they will talk to him very plainly", said Asa-El, adding that the White House has put pressure Israeli leaders before.
"It's now in his interest to show that he is clamping down on this kind of settler violence."
The U.S. State Department spokesperson condemned both the killing of two Israelis and the settler rampage, in which one Palestinian was killed and more than 100 wounded. The spokesperson stressed "the imperative to immediately de-escalate tensions in words and deeds".
But shortly after a U.S. State Department joint communique said Israel had committed to stop approving new settlement units for four months, Netanyahu said that settlement construction would go on as planned.
"There is not and will not be any freeze," he tweeted in an apparent nod to his hard-line partners.
PRO-SETTLER PARTIES
Palestinians, alarmed since Israel's Nov. 1 election, when Netanyahu started building his coalition government with ultra-nationalist pro-settler parties Jewish Power and Religious Zionism, look to Washington to rein them in.
"The U.S administration, which fosters this government, must end all these crimes," said the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who heads Jewish Power, held a special faction meeting at a settler outpost slated for eviction because it was built without government permit.
"The terrorists should be crushed and it is time to go back to targeted killings and to eliminate the leaders of the inciting terrorist organizations," said Ben-Gvir, while calling on Israelis not to "take the law into their own hands."
Palestinian political analyst George Giacaman predicted more violence. "The main battle will be with settlers," he said.
To be effective, the Aqaba agreements would need a follow-up, said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. envoy to Israel and now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. Sunday's events, he said, showed that there was "a risk that the pace of deterioration will outstrip the diplomatic efforts to reverse it".
However, Netanyahu's manoeuvring room appears to be shrinking - Ben-Gvir is already issuing political threats, while Religious Zionism leader and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week consolidated his civil powers in the West Bank.
So much so, that with Netanyahu's new coalition just eight weeks old, Israeli political commentators already are asking whether the veteran politician can hold it together.
"One can see the Aqaba summit as a parable: the Americans announce that Israel has promised to freeze settlement construction, which Netanyahu then denies. At those exact moments, the Jewish Power and Religious Zionism ministers attack the summit and say it is non-binding," wrote Moran Azulay, of Israel's Ynet news site.
"On the eve of the election Netanyahu was pondering the legacy he will have when he is reelected prime minister. At the moment it appears to be chaos and disintegration."
Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawafta and Rami Amichay; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Tomasz Janowski
Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials met yesterday in Jordan, committed to "de-escalation" and the preservation of the holy places. An attack by settlers in Huwara soon shot down the timid opening with more casualties on both sides. Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich denies reports of a settlement "freeze". Netanyahu pushes to impose the death penalty for terrorism.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – The spiral of violence continues in the West Bank with the risks of a new intifada in spite of shaky (and so far in vain) attempts to mediate between the parties, like yesterday’s meeting in Jordan between senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.
The latest incident began late yesterday evening, in Huwara, when a mob of Jewish settlers set fire to homes and damaged cars and garbage bins following the death earlier in the day of two young settlers shot while travelling by car near the Palestinian town.
The Israeli government immediately described the incident as "a Palestinian terrorist attack."
Also last evening, a Palestinian man was shot dead when Israeli soldiers and settlers raided Za’tara, a village near Nablus.
In addition to the three deaths, the Huwara incident saw at least 100 cars set alight and 30 homes torched or damaged. Shops and other businesses were also affected.
As a result, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged local settlers to “not take the law into your hands” but “allow the IDF and security forces to do their work”.
Since the end of December, Netanyahu has led Israel’s most right-wing government – some members of his cabinet live in West Bank Jewish settlements or are staunch supporters.
In a statement, some settlement mayors called on residents to let the Israeli military to carry out "a determined and deterrent military operation”.
Reacting to the violence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas slammed Israel for what he calls “the terrorist acts carried out by settlers under the protection of the occupation forces”.
The latter have in fact multiplied their incursions in the Palestinian territories with brutal results, like last week’s action in Nablus that left 11 people dead, the highest from a military raid in the West Bank since 2005.
Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise. Since the start of the year, 63 Palestinians have died, both fighters and civilians; 11 Israelis, a police officer and 11 civilians; and a Ukrainian woman.
Amid all this, Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Aqaba, Jordan, to defuse tensions and prevent "further violence".
At the end of the meeting, the two sides signed a joint statement highlighting the “necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence."
Despite this, Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi was quick to point out in the evening that Israeli government policy had not changed.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank, also said, “there will not be a freeze on construction and development in the settlement, not even for one day”.
All said, there is little hope of easing tensions, which was the goal of the talks held in Jordan, which saw the participation of representatives of Egypt, Jordan, and the United States.
One of the meeting’s goals is to preserve the holy places in Jerusalem, where Christians have been the victims to targeted attacks.
To this end, the two sides “confirmed their joint readiness and commitment to immediately work to end unilateral measures for a period of three to six months.”
Just words: no sooner was the ink dry that the violence flared up.
In fact, while the parties agreed to hold further talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, next month, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced the government’s intention to introduce a bill that would impose the death penalty on people convicted of terrorism.
For Netanyahu, his administration would “continue to act by all means ... to deter the terrorists and maintain Israel's security”.
