Israel’s New Government, With Martin Indyk

LINDSAY:
Welcome to The President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States. I'm Jim Lindsay, director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is Israel's new government

With me to discuss the consequences of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's return to the prime minister's office, is Martin Indyk. Martin is the Lowy distinguished fellow in U.S.-Middle East diplomacy here at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has held numerous government posts, including two stints as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and time as President Obama's special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Martin has written several books with his most recent being Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger in The Art of Middle East Diplomacy, which reviewers have hailed as, "fascinating, brilliant, revelatory and compellingly written." Martin, with that introduction, thank you for joining me.

INDYK:
Thank you, Jim. Pleasure to be back with you.

LINDSAY:
It's a pleasure to have you here. I'd like to begin with the scene-setter, if we may Martin. Israelis went to the polls back on November 1st. It was the fifth time in four years that they voted for a new parliament known as the Knesset in Israel. No Israeli party won a majority of seats. No surprise there. Israel has never had a true single-party run government. Instead, Israeli governments are coalition governments. The government that took office at the end of December is headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, who will extend his record for a number of years served as Prime Minister. So tell me about this six party coalition that Bibi, as he is commonly called, is heading up.

INDYK:
So this government is the most far-right coalition government in Israel's history. It's actually a right-wing religious government, but most governments in Israel's history have had a mixture of center and right parties, sometimes national unity parties, where the left is also part of it. Never have we had a phenomenon like this where it's the right-wing religious parties and parties of the far-right extreme that are now part of this government and that gives it a flavor and a direction that is potentially deeply problematic.

LINDSAY:
Help me understand, Martin, what far-right means in the Israeli context.

INDYK:
So you have two parties in this case, these two parties. One led by Bezalel Smotrich, the other by Itamar Ben-Gvir control fourteen seats. And those fourteen seats give them the ability to bring down the government if they were to split from Netanyahu. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have very problematic pasts. One of them is a felon. One of them was so extreme the army wouldn't allow him to be drafted. They have history of incitement, racism, and they have in Israeli terms a far right agenda of annexing the West Bank territories. Some would argue that their real purpose is to collapse the Palestinian Aauthority and take over the West Bank completely and kind of rewrite the Oslo Accords and the arrangement where the Palestinian Authority has nominal control over 40 percent of the West Bank. 

Their purpose is to essentially advance an agenda for settlement and annexation. That combines with the Likud under Netanyahu's leadership. He is under prosecution at the moment for fraud and corruption, and there is a desire on his part to see a reform of the judicial process. But others within his party, particularly the new Justice Minister Yariv Levin, want to do away with the independence of the supreme court and its ability to undo legislation by the Knesset. So it's those elements of settlement, annexation and undermining the independence of the judiciary that seem to define the objectives of this government, that's very different to previous governments.

LINDSAY:
I want to come back, Martin, to this question of the impact of the election on Israel's democracy, but I want to draw you out just a bit more on two of the gentlemen. You mentioned Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Are they in a position in the government to be able to effectuate the policy preferences they campaigned on?

INDYK:
Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that if they were to leave the coalition under protest, they could bring the government down. The government has only a majority of four seats. On the other hand, they want to govern. They're not like the right wing of the Republican Party operating in the House recently in terms of trying to basically prevent government from going forward. They have a governing agenda and they know very well that if they leave the government and bring it down, they won't be able to pursue that. So I think there's a kind of tension between their desire to have their way by threatening to leave and their unwillingness to give up their seats.

LINDSAY:
My understanding is that both are ministers. Ben-Gvir heads up national security, which as I understand it oversees the police, and Smotrich is the finance minister.

INDYK:
Right. But it's a little more complicated than that because Smotrich also holds the position of deputy defense minister. And in the coalition negotiations with Bibi Netanyahu, he managed to secure Netanyahu's agreement to take control of the civilian aspects of life in the occupied West Bank. And that's a revolutionary move that enables him to effectively control what happens with the settlers. And then his partner in this overall effort, Ben-Gvir, has control of the police and the border police, and he is now, has become the  national security rather than the public security minister. And in combination, they will have the ability to counter the command of the Israel Defense Forces and the minister of defense who have responsibility for the occupied territories. Because they are occupied, the Israeli military for the last fifty years has been in control of the West Bank. Now part of their responsibilities will pass to these extreme right-wing pro-settler ministers.

LINDSAY:
So let's talk about what this means for Israel's democracy and maybe the way to begin there is to get your assessment of how ordinary Israelis are reacting to what you have described as the most right-wing nationalist government in Israel's history, given the fact that a fair number of Israelis didn't vote for any of these parties.

INDYK:
Yes, that's true, but I think in terms of the reaction, there's on the side of those that did vote and after all it's proportional representation. So they got sixty-four seats, that means they got about...

LINDSAY:
Well, but if you voted for Likud you weren't voting for Jewish Power or for the Religious Zionist Party.

INDYK:
Well, no, that's true, but there's a lot of overlap between the Likud's agenda and their agenda. They just are more strident about it. But I think that essentially what you've got is half the population, more or less, that are happy with this government and half that are not. Half that are happy that there's finally some stability after the five elections in four years, and half that see this as taking the country in a direction of undermining its democracy, its basic values and rendering impossible, the chances of there ever being a two-state solution and an ultimate reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

So it is a reflection of a kind of divided polity that's not new to us here in the United States.

LINDSAY:
Sounds familiar.

INDYK:
Indeed. It's, I think, a very similar situation there with strongly held views on both sides. But the fact is that the religious right and the religious parties, the Orthodox religious parties now have a majority and they intend to use it to pursue their objectives.

LINDSAY:
Let me ask you about the impact on Israel's democracy. I've heard a number of people suggest that this government is going to undermine commitment to democratic rule. Israel's attorney general last month accused Netanyahu's bloc of looking to turn Israel into, and let me quote her here, "Democracy in name, not in substance." Do you think it's a legitimate concern or is this sort of ordinary politics?

INDYK:
Well, it is a legitimate concern because unlike the United States, Israel does not have a constitution. It has a series of basic laws which are simply passed by the Knesset, by a majority, and none of the kind of constraints on constitutional changes that exist here in the United States. The supreme court in Israel has a long tradition of independence and the ability up to now, to check the legislature, similar to our series of checks and balances. But there is in this new government a determination to take away the independence of the judiciary, in particular by passing a law that would enable the Knesset to override any action by the supreme court, by a simple majority. Since the government has sixty-four seats, a four seat majority, it could simply do away with any judgements that the supreme court made against legislation pursued by the government. 

And that I think is seen as very problematic in two respects. One for the system of checks and balances and the independence of the judiciary internally, but also because Israel's judiciary is highly respected around the world and particularly in the West. And for years now, the Palestinians have sought to use the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, to try to pursue their agenda. And the fact that there has been an independent judiciary in Israel that has served in many instances to protect the rights of Palestinians in the territories, particularly land ownership on the part of the Palestinians, if that's taken away now as part of this process, then Israel will find itself subject to much greater action than even sanctions and intervention by the ICC and the ICJ because they don't see that Israel has its own judicial system to protect the rights of Palestinians.

LINDSAY:
Let's talk a bit about the Palestinian issue and where that's going to go. It appears that the two-state solution is dead. If it's not dead, certainly an intensive care. I don't get the sense that people are optimistic that we're going to get a one-state solution in which Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis live together in one big happy family. So where are we headed in terms of the Palestinian issue under this government?

INDYK:
Well, you're right, it certainly doesn't look like there's any real prospect for relaunching negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians and let alone reaching an agreement on all of these final status issues. The disposition of territory in the West Bank, the question of security arrangements, Jerusalem, refugees, all of these issues which would have to be resolved, are far from resolution and far from even a negotiation at this point. But in the meantime, there is a process underway in the West Bank in which settlements are expanding. The new government intends to legalize settlement outposts which are illegal under Israeli law. These are kind of wildcat settlements, many of them, just a few caravans, that have been set up deep in the West Bank, more than 100 of them, illegally. But they've existed now for a long time. And if they are legalized, they will then be connected to the large Israeli settlements that have already been established and that will basically expand the settlement web throughout the West Bank in a way that will render a two-state solution impossible in the future.

So it's not just that you don't have a negotiating process underway that can lead to a two-state solution. You've got a process of actively undermining the prospect for ever having a two-state solution. There is already what people call a one-state reality and the new government, particularly with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, pushing to advance this reality even further with new settlements, with legalizing of illegal settlements and if they can get away with it, with annexation of territory as well.

LINDSAY:
So what is their vision of how Israel would operate if they were able to achieve their ambitions and they annex the West Bank?

INDYK:
Their idea is essentially that the two and a half million Palestinians or so that live there would have some kind of local autonomy, but Israel would be sovereign throughout the territory and would be part of the greater land of Israel, the greater state of Israel and the Palestinians there would simply be, in effect, second class the citizens. They wouldn't even be citizens.

LINDSAY:
But wouldn't the dynamic be for those settlements to continue to expand and to encroach upon more and more of those lands held by Palestinian Arabs, which then presumably constrains where they can be and go?

INDYK:
Yes. Well, that is already happening, but the big issue now will be over what's known as Area C, which is 60 percent of the West Bank that is under complete Israeli control at the moment. 40 percent of the West Bank is under nominal control of the Palestinian Authority. Those are referred to as A and B Areas. C Area is under Israeli control. It's supposed to be held in effect, in trust and negotiated over and even under Trump's "deal of the century," half of that essentially would've gone to the Palestinians. Palestinian territory would've grown to 70 percent of the West Bank and the Israelis would be holding only half of what they now control completely. The plan of the far-right parties in this government is essentially to take over, annex all of that 60 percent and make that part of Israel, and if they can get away with it, collapse the Palestinian Authority and take back the rest of that territory.

So the Palestinians are already heavily constrained in terms of what land that they can use, permits that they can get from the Israeli government to build in area C. This would in effect do away with that. And so it would do away with any prospect for an independent Palestinian state on contiguous territory in the West Bank with its capital in East Jerusalem, which is not just the aspirations of the Palestinians, but it is endorsed by the international community, including the United States.

LINDSAY:
We'll get to the United States in a moment, Martin, but on this issue of the vision of this Israeli government for the West Bank, how are Palestinians reacting? Are we at a risk of a new intifada, an uprising?

INDYK:
The risk of a new intifada was already there before this election and before the formation of the Netanyahu government. The combination of circumstances where you had a Palestinian youth who did not experience the last intifada and the dire consequences for the Palestinians of their revolt back twenty years ago; a target-rich environment in the West Bank where you now have some 360,000 Israeli settlers kind of throughout the West Bank on the roads and so on; 30,000 Palestinians working in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank; the ready availability of guns, weapons, throughout the West Bank; the crumbling of the Palestinian Authority and the ineffectiveness of its security services who control really only one city, Ramallah the main city there. But the rest of the West Bank is kind of wild west or it's under the control of the Israeli army, which goes in and engages in acts to grab what they regard as terrorists or potential terrorists or so on.

And that has set up, that all of those things have set up a dynamic of conflict that has been escalating in fits and starts. But the trend is very clear so that this year alone over 150 Palestinians have been killed, some of them engaged in terrorism, a lot of them engaged in terrorist activities against Israelis, but a lot ...

LINDSAY:
This is in 2022.

INDYK:
In 2022. Some thirty Israelis have been killed. But those numbers are very high compared to recent years. And the assessment of the national security establishment in Israel is that the third intifada is in effect already underway. It just doesn't look like the major uprising and demonstrations that we saw in the second. It's more sporadic, violent activities that are just growing and growing. And so that's before Ben-Gvir and Smotrich come along and one of them is in control of the border police and going up to the Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif, which is the most sensitive ...

LINDSAY:
Well let's talk about that because this was a visit that Ben-Gvir took that Prime Minister Netanyahu, at least publicly urged him not to. He went up to the Temple Mount, al-Ḥaram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. It's seen as a very provocative act, not just by people in the Arab world, but by many Israelis. Sort of walk me through what the consequences of that have been.

INDYK:
So Ben-Gvir also represents a group of Israelis who want to essentially rebuild the temple. It was destroyed 2000 years ago, and in the process to do away with the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. That is their ultimate aspiration. And in order to get there, and they have an incremental approach, they want to start by praying on the Temple Mount, Noble Sanctuary, al-Haram al-Sharif as it's called.

LINDSAY:
Which right now Israelis under strict conditions can visit, but praying is at least technically not permitted. Correct?

INDYK:
Exactly. It's not technically permitted by ...

LINDSAY:
Well, what my understanding is that people find ways to get around the rules or the rules aren't enforced.

INDYK:
The rules are enforced more than less. But somebody who goes up there, and tourists go up there, Israeli can go up there and they're standing there and saying prayers under their breath. What exactly can you do about that? But that process of Israelis going up there to establish a presence there, is something that they have been trying to do for some time. I've been up there in this situation where the Israelis come up, they're religious Jews, they're quite visible because they have the kippot on their heads and the tzitzit by their waist and they're walking up towards the Dome of the Rock, not the al-Aqsa Mosque, because the Dome of the Rock, that's that golden-domed mosque is where the temple, the Jewish temple ...

LINDSAY:
The Holiest of Holies.

INDYK:
And the Holy of Holies within the temple. And so they go up to there. While they're going up there, there are these, what they call study groups, of Palestinian women, Muslims, sitting around on plastic chairs and men in another group and they're essentially lookouts. And as these guys come up and walk along towards the Dome of the Rock, they start yelling out, "Allahu Akbar," and that becomes the alarm system. And then suddenly all of the Palestinians who are up there to pray start to gather around. It becomes an incredibly tense situation. The Israeli police, which have security responsibility up there, are trying to control this situation. So ...

LINDSAY:
It's easy to see how that could go bad very quickly.

INDYK:
Exactly. And it has gone bad in the past. So that's why the idea that, you know, a minister of the government going up there ... Sharon did it in the year 2000 October. That sparked the second intifada. So it's seen as a highly provocative act. And Ben-Gvir said he's going to go up every month. I think he's changed it now to every quarter. But that is going to become, if he does that, and Netanyahu allows him to do it, it's going to become a basis for rising tension in which it can provide the spark that starts there and spreads throughout the West Bank given the tinderbox nature of the situation that I've described,

LINDSAY:
Even if that tinderbox doesn't burst into flame, doesn't it still create problems to the Israelis on the diplomatic front? My sense is the reaction across the Middle East to Ben-Gvir's visit to Temple Mount was criticism. The way it was described was as storming the Temple Mount. And even countries in the Arab world that are part of the Abraham Accords came out and were sharply critical, the United Arab Emirates, for example, calling it provocative. The Saudis, who are not party to the Abraham Accords, also denounced it as a provocative act. And my sense is that Prime Minister Netanyahu considers himself an architect of the Abraham Accords and that one of his great diplomatic feature ambitions is to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia. So how does this go into factor into Israel's diplomacy?

INDYK:
Well, I think it's a very good question. It's going to put him between a rock and a hard place in that Netanyahu very much wants to advance the Abraham Accords. He feels that he can get normalization with Saudi Arabia. He talks about it publicly, talks about it as ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Of course it won't because there's still Syria, there's still Lebanon and the Palestinians. But that's the way he sees it. You sense in him that he can feel it, he can taste. It's there, it's possible. So he really wants it.

And it's going to be, regardless of what MBS whispers to the interlocutors between the Israelis and the Saudis about how he doesn't care about the Palestinians, nevertheless, if it blows in Jerusalem, he will not be able to act. I mean, the Saudi's custodian, the king is the custodian of the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina, and this is the third holiest mosque we're talking about. Now, the Jordanian king is the custodian there, and he's very aware of the rivalry with the Saudis and wants to show that he can protect. So he's out front. I mean, you mentioned the Emiratis and the Saudis condemning. It was the king of Jordan that was the strongest in condemnation.

LINDSAY:
I think they also used the terminology storming to describe what Ben-Gvir did.

INDYK:
That's right. Which is an exaggeration in itself. So you got the Jordanians and Saudis competing now as to who can better protect the rights of Muslims in the Noble Sanctuary. So regardless of what Netanyahu thinks he can achieve with the Saudis, if Jerusalem blows, if he lets it blow, there's no way that that's going to happen. So he has a strong incentive to try to keep Ben-Gvir under control here, but you can see that he couldn't stop him from going or wasn't prepared to stop him from going.

Hopefully he sees that the reaction that one visit provoked is just a harbinger of an extreme reaction that will grow if it really explodes. And hopefully he will have the incentive to keep this under wraps. But as I said, at the outset, it's important to understand Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are ideologues with a clear agenda. They intend to press it, and they intend to use their positions of power to advance this agenda, and it has a real potential given everything else that's all of the buildup that I've described, to blow. Netanyahu is cautious when it comes to violence and use of force. He prides himself on the claim, not exactly accurate, that terrorism was way down under his rule. So I think that he's going to want to try to keep this under wraps, but I have the sense that it's not going to work.

LINDSAY:
Okay. I have two takeaways from what you just said, Martin. One, expect turbulence, perhaps very dramatic turbulence, but number two, there's a chance Israel is going to do a number of things that are going to be judged by the president of the United States, the Biden administration, as running contrary to what the United States is hoping to see happen in Israel and in the broader Middle East at a time when the administration very much would like to have fewer foreign policy crises, so we can focus on China, so we can focus on what's happening in Ukraine. So give me a sense of how the Biden administration is from your position outside of government, handling and likely to handle what is happening in Jerusalem.

INDYK:
Well, let's step back a moment if you'll allow me and put this in a broader context. American administrations, with the exception of Trump, whether they're Republican or Democrat, have always had problems with right-wing Israeli government's advancing settlers' agenda and being very reluctant to move on the Palestinian issue. There's always been tension. There was tension with George H.W. Bush, confrontation with the Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. There was confrontation with Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin. It's always about the same issue. And of course there was confrontation between Netanyahu and Clinton and then Obama. So there's a kind of built-in tension there between right-wing Israeli governments that want to basically settle all over the West Bank and annex it if they can, and American administrations that are trying to keep the hope alive of a two-state solution and an independent Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace. On top of that, the last time that Netanyahu was in government, he had a major confrontation with President Obama over Iran and how to handle Iran's nuclear program.

LINDSAY:
And House Republicans egged him on, invited him to give a speech to Congress.

INDYK:
Exactly. Now the prospects of the renewal of the Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, are dim at best.

LINDSAY:
Yeah, I was going to say, at best I would emphasize ...

INDYK:
So that tension is not going to be there. In a way, Netanyahu and Biden could actually reach agreement on how to deal with it in increasingly problematic regime in Iran that's aiding Russia against Ukraine with these drones that are being used to attack Ukrainian civilian's infrastructure, that are beating up their women and youth in these protests, response to the protests, and that it's advancing a nuclear program. So there's a lot of common interest between Netanyahu and Biden when it comes to Iran. That's very different. And there's no intention, as we discussed, for the Biden administration to push a two-state solution. So therefore there's less tension over that. And the Biden administration supports the basic objective of advancing the Abraham Accords and promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So there's actually a broad common agenda, but there's still the problem of the settlements.

LINDSAY:
I was going to say, I knew there was a but coming here somewhere.

INDYK:
The Biden administration is committed to a state solution, even though it's not pursuing a process that can get us there at the moment because they don't see that there's a chance to do that. And as you said before, there's a lot of other issues they've got to deal with, a rising China, aggressive Russia, Ukraine War, et cetera, et cetera. So what Biden wants above all is to calm things down and advance this common agenda with Netanyahu. So if Netanyahu is willing to keep things calm and not allow things to explode, then...

LINDSAY:
Willing or capable?

INDYK:
Well, but that's exactly the point. Is he capable given the nature of his government is a big question mark. So on the one hand, Netanyahu has a lot of incentives to keep things calm, not just because of the Arabs, but also because of the Biden administration, because he can't get what he wants in terms of normalization with Saudi Arabia, without Biden's help. What crown prince of Saudi Arabia has said to the Israelis, essentially, "I don't care anymore about the Palestinians. What I want you to do is help me in Washington. Use your influence in Washington to improve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and get me the arms I need and the security guarantee that I'm looking for." And Netanyahu is going to be coming to Washington and carrying a brief for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, but Biden is only going to help him in that regard if Netanyahu cooperates with Biden in terms of keeping things calm. If he acts in the West Bank and in Jerusalem or allows Ben-Gvir to act in ways that blow it up, then there's going to be a confrontation with Biden rather than corporation with him.

LINDSAY:
Here is where I should do a plug for the Council special report you wrote with our colleague Steven Cook, about rethinking the U.S.-Saudi strategic compact. But I want to close Martin with any device you might want to offer up to the Biden administration or to our friends over in Capitol Hill, assuming we eventually get to move forward on that score, in terms of how to proceed. What are the right things to do, what are the things to avoid doing?

INDYK:
So I have long been an advocate of, and I think we've discussed it in an earlier podcast, of the arm around the Israeli Prime Minister approach, which is ...

LINDSAY:
Which Biden seems capable of doing in a way that other presidents weren't naturally primed to do.

INDYK:
I think that's right, partly because he's a conciliator by nature, partly because he's known Netanyahu for a long time and when they say known, he knows Netanyahu in the good and the bad sense. Knows the tricks that Netanyahu can get up to. And so yeah, I think that he does have the ability to put his arm around Netanyahu, but it's not just putting his arm around him, it's nudging him forward. It's getting him to do the things or not do the things that Biden needs when it comes to American interests. And it's an American interest to have a two-state solution that is a bipartisan approach. Even Donald Trump in his "deal of the century," proposed a two-state solution wasn't exactly a pro-Palestinian version of a two-state solution, but it was still provided for an independent Palestinian state in 70 percent of the West Bank. Given that if Netanyahu acts in ways that be Ben-Gvir and Smotrich want to shut off any possibility of a two-state solution, he will be acting against American interests.

And I think that Biden just simply needs to make our red lines clear. No annexation, no legalization of illegal settlements, illegal under Israeli law, no change in the status quo on the Temple Mount al-Haram al-Sharif, and no new settlements. Four red lines that together are a manifestation of American national interest here.

If Netanyahu respects those red lines, then there's a lot that Biden and Netanyahu can do together on Iran, curbing its nuclear program, deterring it, supporting the protestors there; on Abraham Accords and normalization, particularly with Saudi Arabia; and on finding ways to improve the lives of Palestinians, something which Netanyahu has expressed a desire to do in the past. So there is a way of working together, but there is very much the high prospect that if Netanyahu, given the nature of his government, allows Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to pursue their agenda, that we are going to end up with not just a confrontation in the West Bank, but a confrontation between the United States and Israel.

LINDSAY:
On that very clear and emphatic point, I'm going to close up the President's Inbox for this week. My guest has been Martin Indyk, the Lowy Distinguished Fellow in U.S.-Middle East Diplomacy here at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy, which I highly recommend that you read. Martin, thank you very much for joining me.

INDYK:
Thank you, Jim.

LINDSAY:
Please subscribe to The President's Inbox in Apple podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen. And leave us your view. We love the feedback. The material mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation are available on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on cfr.org. As always, opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host, our guests, and not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's episode was produced by Ester Fang, with Senior Podcast Producer Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks go out to Michelle Kurilla for her assistance. This is Jim Lindsay. Thanks for listening.